Though the actual reason why Prof. Jeffrey Beall, who maintained a list of “potential, possible, or probable” publishers that produced predatory journals and another list of standalone predatory journals, took down his website scholarlyoa.com is not known, RetractionWatch posted saying that it was Prof. Beall’s decision to take down his website. RetractionWatch has posted the statement it received from the University of Colorado Denver:

Jeffrey Beall, associate professor and librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, has decided to no longer maintain or publish his research or blog on open access journals and “predatory publishers.” CU Denver supports and recognizes the important work Professor Beall has contributed to the field and to scholars worldwide.  CU Denver also understands and respects his decision to take down his website scholarlyoa.com at this time. Professor Beall remains on the faculty at the university and will be pursuing new areas of research.

On Facebook, his last post relating to predatory journals was on January 10, 2017. With his faculty page too taken down, the Facebook posts give a chance to see how he went about exposing the dark side of scientific publishing.

His Facebook post of January 4, 2017 tells how predatory journal publishing has been growing since 2011.But it looks like Cabell’s International, a publishing services company, may soon start providing a black list of predatory journals. And it will start anytime during Spring 2017. Here’s a tweet mentioning that:

The Cabell’s tweet confirms what @Scholarlykitchn had tweeted earlier saying:

Cabell’s International then goes on to say that it is preparing a B-list with Prof. Beall being a consultant.

Does it indicate that it would no longer be a single person but an organisation that would be fighting the battle to expose the publishers of predatory journals and their journals? If the spirit of the organisation and its objectives are the same as what Prof. Beal stood for, it would surely be for the good of science and the scientific community.

And Lacey Earle, Vice President, Business Development of Cabell’s seems to be knowing the reasons why Beall had to take down his website:

Meanwhile, Emil Karlsson has posted the links to the cached copies of Prof. Baell’s lists.