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Discussion on predatory publishing

Alexander van Servellen

Senior Consultant, Research Intelligence
Elsevier, Singapore
March 2021
a.vanservellen@elsevier.com
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Scopus mandate and authority

Scopus is committed to creating a representative, curated dataset of scholarly content:

• Overall journal selection based on journal-level data and performance
• Monitoring and deselection of journals that are predatory or below standards

Scopus cannot interfere with editorial autonomy of journals:

• Editorial decisions on quality of individual articles and conferences
• (Scientific) content of the articles and abstracts included in the database
• Plagiarism and other publication malpractice of individual articles
• Authorship of the paper

Note:
If publication malpractice is occurring knowingly and on a structural basis without policy to address and
prevent such cases, Scopus will flag, re-evaluate and potentially discontinue titles
The Phenomenon of Predatory Publishing
 Various studies have indicated that there is an escalation in
predatory journals, however, it is near impossible to determine
the extent as they appear and disappear continually.

The term ‘predatory journals’ was coined by Jeffrey Beall in

2010 who acted as unofficial ‘watchdog’ of predatory publishing
since then.

Threat to science: Beall works with a binary classification in which a journal is

considered either predatory or not. Decisions were not
Predatory journals systematically explained, and it is not possible to make a more
are on the rise detailed quantification of “predatoriness”.

There was criticism for Beall and the website eventually closed on
17 January 2017

In 2019 a group of researchers reached a consensus definition.* An

important part of this statement is: “entities that prioritize self-
interest at the expense of scholarship”.

*Source: Grudniewics et al. (2019) Predatory journals: no definition, no defence

and Cukier et al (2020) Defining predatory journals and responding to the threat they pose: a modified Delphi consensus process
Consensus definition of ''Predatory journals''

• The definition of predatory journals has

been contentious.​ “Predatory journals and publishers
are entities that prioritize self-interest at
the expense of scholarship and
• In 2019 a group of researchers met to define what
are characterized by false or
predatory publishing is and reached a consensus misleading information, deviation from best
definition (quoted right)​ editorial and publication practices, a lack
of transparency, and/or the use of
aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation
• An important part of this statement is practices.”​
“entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense
of scholarship”.

Source: Grudniewics et al. (2019) Predatory journals: no definition, no defence and Cukier et al (2020) Defining predatory
journals and responding to the threat they pose: a modified Delphi consensus process
Driving forces

• Publish or perish: For many academics, career progression depends on the research
papers they publish.

• Inexperience / Online environment: Working online without access to expertise to

distinguish bogus journals etc.

• Technology: Easy to set up a website, spamming thousands of potential authors and

receiving electronic payments

• Exploitation of the open access model: Pay-to-publish model misused

How do Predatory Journals make inroads
into international databases?
Content Selection of Scopus

01 02 03
Scopus selects Scopus does not index Some journals which
journals based on a predatory journals. meet our criteria at the
rigorous process that What we do see is that time of acceptance
involves quantitative journal quality and into Scopus,
and qualitative criteria behavior can change may decline in
applied by the CSAB. over time. performance or even
become predatory

29-3-2021
What Scopus does to address the issue?
What Scopus does to address the issue
Scopus, together with the CSAB,
own the responsibility of curating
content on an on-going basis as a
defence against low quality and
predatory journals.
Validating concerns and to take a well-
informed decision is complex and
time-consuming. Additional information
that shows the questionable integrity
and quality is needed for validation.
29-3-2021
We have been addressing the issue
for some years now and have
developed a process of continuous
monitoring in combination with re-
evaluation by CSAB.
Decision to potentially exclude a
journal from Scopus not be taken
lightly, given risk of discontinuing
legitimate sources, or excluding
genuine articles published in bad
journals.
Identifying potential poor quality or predatory journals

All +25k journals in Scopus are monitored on ongoing basis and flagged for reevaluation based on:

1. Our own observation or direct feedback from users and stakeholder’s publication concerns
about the publishing standards or publication ethics of the journal or publisher are investigated.

2. Metrics and benchmarks for citation impact and self-citations are used to identify journals that
are underperforming compared to peer journals in their field.

3. A machine learning tool analyzes the performance of journals according to aspects like output
growth, changes in author affiliation, citation behavior, etc. to track outlier performance
(=‘RADAR’)

4. During their review, the CSAB can indicate whether any accepted title should be evaluated
again in the future. This data is collected and further analyzed to ensure continuous curation.
The Re-evaluation process

Monitor Curate

Identify titles based on publication

concerns, under performance,
outlier performance or continuous
curation.
In-depth re-evaluation by the Content
Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB)

Flag
 Catch rate broken down by reason of identification
(2016-2020)
Discontinued
990
titles Continued
re-evaluated

434 332 119 105

Reason of
publication under outlier continuous
identification
concerns performance performance curation

Re-evaluation
289 145 165 167 65 54 17 88
decision

67% 50% 55% 16%

Discontinued Discontinued Discontinued Discontinued
“Whether or not a journal is predatory is not a binary decision; there is a
broad spectrum of predatory journal behaviors. To assess whether a
journal should be considered predatory, a number of parameters need
to be considered, often in combination.”

– Prof. Jörg-Rüdiger Sack, Chair of CSAB and Subject Chair for

Computer Sciences.

Prof Jörg-Rüdiger Sack, PhD

https://www.elsevier.com/connect/the-guardians-of-scopus
29-3-2021
What happens when a journal is discontinued in Scopus?

• No new content is added to Scopus.

• Content already indexed remains as a matter of scientific record and to ensure stability and
consistency of research trend analytics.
• In exceptional cases of proven severe unethical publication practice, content already
indexed in Scopus may be removed.
• CiteScore will no longer be given for discontinued titles.

An overview of all discontinued journals, including the last content indexed in Scopus, is
available in the Discontinued Sources List on
https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/how-scopus-works/content
Example of A Discontinued Title
“It is clearly important to remove journals that are predatory or adopt
poor publishing practices from the Scopus database. It is less clear
what to do with earlier content in the database, particularly as it may
have arisen in periods when the journal was well managed and
represents output from well conducted research.”

– Prof. Peter Brimblecombe, CSAB Subject Chair for Environmental

Science Prof Peter Brimblecombe, PhD

https://www.elsevier.com/connect/the-guardians-of-scopus
29-3-2021
Scopus coverage is broader than WoS and can be trusted.
Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection comparison (Active + inactive Scopus Journals and Book Series)

79 (0.8%)
WoS SCIE
9,300

9,221

670 WoS ESCI

7,740
WoS SSCI 1,517 ESCI titles suggested for Scopus review
3,451 Scopus 4,728 3,012 415 Final decision was made, of which
20 (0.6%) (40%) 171 (40%) rejected for Scopus
3,431
39,743
397 18,485
WoS AHCI (87% Black bold: total titles in database
1,834 of WoS) Black: overlapping titles in both databases
Red: WoS unique titles (ratio of total WoS db)
1,809
Blue: Scopus unique titles (ratio of total WoS)
25 (1.4%) Green: overlapping between WoS databases
 Predatory publishing is a threat to science in general and no
database is immune

Scopus discontinued WoS Core WoS Core

titles journals (June Titles indexed in any Collection, Collection, Emerging Sources
2020) Clarivate database excluding ESCI including ESCI Citation Index (ESCI)
Nr. of titles 580 146 59 99 40
% of titles 100% 25% 10% 17% 7%
How can researchers identify predatory
journal before submitting their manuscripts?
Researchers must be educated to choose the right journal for their
research and how to practice due diligence
The consequences of choosing a bad journal for good work:
• Monetary costs for the author/institution
• Reputational costs for the work and people involved
• Negative impact on rankings and research assessment
• Durability: no assurance of longevity of the paper Authors should submit their article to
the right journal, for the right reasons
• Delisting of the journal by indexing services
• Possible legal consequences

Do your due diligence.

Think Check Submit is a cross-industry initiative that provides
simple guidelines for authors to assess a journal before
submitting an article: https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
*Common red flags
Fake impact factors, incorrect addresses, misrepresentations of the
False or misleading
editorial board, false claims of indexing or membership of associations
information
and misleading claims about the peer review

An unprofessional-looking web page — with spelling or grammar mistakes or

irrelevant text — should also raise red flags. Flashing banners indicating they
Deviation from best editorial and
are indexed in Scopus and or Web of Science and general over-eagerness to
publication practices
publish your work.

Little or no information about how editorial decisions are made, fees applied
and peer review organized; absent contact information; no details about article
Lack of transparency
processing charges; editors and members of their editorial boards are often
unverifiable.

Aggressive solicitation such as repeated e-mails, excessively flattering in tone

Aggressive, indiscriminate
(A clear warning sign is that the invitee’s expertise is outside the journal’s
solicitation
scope)

(*Red flags are clues, not necessarily evidence, of predatory activity)

Next Steps
Proposed Next Steps

01 02 03 04
Periodic Continue Workshops to Explore
educational conversation with support collaborative
Webinars in Malaysia Research researchers to partnership with
Malaysia leaders understand and Malaysia on journal
avoid predatory evaluation
journals

29-3-2021
Thank you!

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