Predatory Publishing

Dr.P.V.Konnur
President
LIS Academy
Bangalore
Contact me : konnur@lisacademy.org
Topics of My Talk
Definition, importance; Publication Ethics:
Standards Setting Agencies Guidelines
Publication
International Agencies, COPE, WANE, OASPA
Ethics
National: UGC, CSIR, INSA
Publisher Polices: Example- Elsevier, IEEE,
What is Predatory Publishing, Identifying
Predatory Predatory Publishing, Predatory Journals and their
Publishing traits, UGC CARE journals, Tools & Platforms to
Identify Predatory Journals
Recap
• Publication Ethics
• Definition, importance;
• Standards Setting Agencies Guidelines
• International Agencies, COPE, WAME, OASPA
• National: UGC, CSIR, INSA
• Publisher Polices: Example- Elsevier, IEEE,
What is Predatory Publishing??
Predatory Publishing is a phrase coined by Jeffrey Beall, scholarly
communications librarian, at the University of Colorado at Denver

It refers to journals/journal publishers whose main purpose seems to be to

exploit ("prey on") scholars and academics and their need to publish the
results of their research.

‘Predatory or deceptive publishers’ have taken the

advantage of the open access author-pays academic publishing
model, as an opportunity to make money.
Jeffrey Beall, University of Colorado, Denver
WHAT’S A PREDATORY JOURNAL?
“Predatory journals pose as scientific journals:
they offer to publish articles in return for a fee,
but they do not offer services with regard to
quality control and editing as you would expect
from a serious scientific journal.”
(Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
declaration with regard to predatory journals)
Why Predatory Publishing?? Predators
I am
Okay!!!
• For my PhD Requirement
• For Rewards
• Pressure to Publish
• Lack of Awareness
• Inferior Research quality
• Unhealthy Competitions
APC to Publish • Stringent acceptance from SCI Journals
 Why do academics prefer to publish
in Predatory Publications
• In research environments, there is usually more
value for quantity over quality.
• Hiring and promotion of academics is based largely
on their number of publications. Predatory journals
has helped many pseudo-researchers to prosper.
 Characteristics of Predatory Journals
• Accepting articles quickly with little or no peer review or quality control, including
hoax and nonsensical papers.
• Notifying academics of article fees only after papers are accepted.
• Aggressively campaigning for academics to submit articles or serve on editorial
boards.
• Listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission, and not
allowing academics to resign from editorial boards.
• Appointing fake academics to editorial boards.
• Mimicking the name or web site style of more established journals.
• Making misleading claims about the publishing operation, such as a false location.
• Using ISSNs improperly.
• Citing fake or non-existent impact factors.
 Predatory Open Access Publishing
• Predatory open-access publishing is an exploitative open-access academic
publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors
without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with
legitimate journals (open access or not).
• The idea that they are "predatory" is based on the view that academics are
tricked into publishing with them, though some authors may be aware that
the journal is poor quality or even fraudulent.
• New scholars from developing countries are said to be especially at risk of
being misled by predatory practices.
Classic Gold Open Access Journal
Predatory Journal
 Deceptive Titles
Can you recognize these titles?

• Journal of Preventive • Preventive Medicine

Medicine
• International Journal of
Environmental Research
and Public Health
• Archives of Medicine
• Internal Medicine Review
• International Journal of
Public Health
• Archives of Internal
Medicine
• Internal Medicine Journal
 PREDATORY JOURNALS’ PRACTICES
A wide array of unethical business practices, such as:
• Fraudulent claims: about where they are indexed, impact factors
• False pretense: copying names and designs of established journals
• Deceptive promesses: implausible swift publication, yet peer review
• No transparency: about quality control, fees, copyright, withdrawal and
digital archiving
• Fictional editorial boards, or using the names of recognised researchers
without their knowledge !
• Spam emails, sometime overly flattering
How does one find out if a given journal is predatory or not?
How to identify predatory journals?
 WHY COULD IT BE A PROBLEM?
• For the researcher / its institution / funder o Lack of credibility:
• your paper won’t be seen as a proper scientific peer-reviewed article
• Your paper won’t be accepted in an another journal:
• you’ll need to rewrite an original article o Lack of visibility: predatory
journals are not included in proper databases as WoS or Scopus
• Lack of long-term storage
• Your name can be associated to one of those journals:
• Predatory publishers often put contributors on their editorial board
(without their consent)
Principles of Transparence & Best Practices
in Scholarly Publishing (COPE)
• Website of a publication:
• Clearly defined Aims & Scope
• Ensure high ethical and professional standards
• No misleading information to its audience
• Clear Cut publication policies about
• Authorship criteria
• Multiple submissions
• Redundant publications
• ISSNs should be clearly displayed (Print & Electronic)

• Name of the Journal:

• Unique
• No room for ambiguity / confusion
• Should not mislead Authors & Readers
Principles of Transparence & Best Practices
in Scholarly Publishing (COPE)
• Peer review process:
• Clear Peer Review Polices
• Method of Peer Review
• Ownership and management:
• Information about the ownership and/or management
• Governing body:
• Editorial boards
• Recognized domain experts - names and affiliations
• Editorial team/contact information
• Editorial Team contact Information
• Copyright and Licensing:
• Clearly stated copyright polices in the author guidelines
• Clear licensing terms - Creative Commons license
Principles of Transparence & Best Practices
in Scholarly Publishing (COPE)
• Author fees:
• Clearly stated Charges for manuscript processing and/or publishing
materials
• If No fee, also need to be stated clearly
• Steps against Research Misconduct:
• Clearly stated steps towards
• Plagiarism, Citation manipulation, Data falsification/fabrication, so on
• Policies on publishing ethics
• Journal policies on authorship and contributorship
• How journal will handle complaints and appeals
• Journal policies on conflicts of interest / competing interests
• Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility;
• Journal’s policy on ethical oversight
• Journal’s policy on intellectual property
• Journal’s options for post-publication discussions and corrections
Principles of Transparence & Best Practices
in Scholarly Publishing (COPE)
• Publishing schedule:
• Periodicity
• Number of Volumes per year
• Number of Issues per year
• Access to published content:
• Individual articles are available to readers
• Subscription / Pay per View / Open Access
• Archiving:
• Electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content
• Revenue sources
• Business models or revenue sources
• Author fees, subscriptions, advertising, reprints, institutional support, and organizational support
Traits of Predatory Publishers??
• Camouflage titles (journals names, reputed Institutions etc.)
• Limited editorial support
• No Peer Review Standard
• Irregular frequency
• Editorial boards
• Dubious claims about the quality or credentials of a journal (pseudo
‘journal impact factor’ )
• False Claims – Indexing databases
• Solicit papers from authors directly via E-mail
• Lack of journal polices, APC, etc
Predatory Publishers / Journals Evaluation
Criterion Observation Decision
Journal name The journal name cannot be confused with another journal. Good

Editorial board The editorial board is listed with their full names and institutional affiliation. Good

Review process The journal states whether it is peer reviewed/edited and has a review policy Good
listed.
Conflicts of The journal thoroughly and clearly states a conflicts of interest policy, including Good
interest how it will handle potential conflicts of interest of editors, authors, and
reviewers.
Journal website The journal website is competently designed and functional. (examples: no Good
broken links, easy navigation, no missing information)

Revenue The journal clearly states its business model. This includes any revenue sources, Good
sources like author fees, subscriptions, advertising, reprints, institutional support, and
organizational support
Predatory Publishers / Journals Evaluation
Criterion Remarks Decision
Journal archive The journal website contains an archive of its past issues with links to full text articles. Good

Publishing The journal clearly states how often its issues will be published each year and this Good
schedule agrees with the archive.
Author fees The journal clearly states the amount of money an author will pay to have each Good
article published.
Copyright The journal clearly describes its copyright and licensing information on the Good
information journal's Web site, and licensing terms are indicated on the published articles
(HTML/PDF).
Journal index The journal is indexed in more than one subject database. (examples: ERIC, Good
Google Scholar, Web of Science, SCOPUS)
Access to journal The journal provides full text access to all published articles. Good
articles
No. of articles The journal has published articles consistently. Good
published
Resources to Judge Predatory Publishers / Journals??
• DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals
• COPE: Committee On Publication Ethics Guidelines
• OASPA: Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association
• WAME- World Association of Medical Editors Guidelines
• AMWA–EMWA–ISMPP Joint position statement on predatory publishing (American Medical
Writers Association, European Medical Writers Association, International Society for Medical Publication Professionals)

• Think.Check.Submit- An online guide to help researchers identify trusted journals for their
research

• UGC-CARE – University Grants Commission – Consortium for Academic & Research

Ethics
DOAJ

https://doaj.org/ap
ply/transparency/
COPE

https://publicationethics.org/res
ources/guidelines-
new/principles-transparency-
and-best-practice-scholarly-
publishing
COPE Practices
Authorship and Clear policies should be in place for requirements for authorship and contributorship as well
contributorship as processes for managing potential disputes

Complaints and appeals Journals should have a clearly described process for handling complaints against the journal,
its staff, editorial board or publisher

Conflicts of interest / Clear definitions of conflicts of interest and processes for handling conflicts of interest of
Competing interests authors, reviewers, editors, journals and publishers, whether identified before or after
publication
Data and reproducibility Journals should include policies on data availability and encourage the use of reporting
guidelines and registration of clinical trials and other study designs according to standard
practice in their discipline
Allegations of misconduct Journals must take seriously allegations of misconduct pre-publication and post-publication
 COPE Practices
Ethical oversight
Intellectual property
Journal management
Peer review processes
Post-publication discussions
and corrections
Ethical oversight should include, but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication,
publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical
conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical
business/marketing practices
Policies on intellectual property, including copyright and publishing licenses, should be
clearly described
Clarity on plagiarism and redundant/overlapping publication should be specified
A well-described and implemented infrastructure is essential, including the business model,
policies, processes and software for efficient running of an editorially independent journal,
as well as the efficient management and training of editorial boards and editorial and
publishing staff
All peer review processes must be transparently described and well managed
Journals must allow debate post publication either on their site, through letters to the
editor, or on an external moderated site.
They must have mechanisms for correcting, revising or retracting articles after publication
OASPA

https://oaspa.org/infor
mation-
resources/principles-of-
transparency-and-best-
practice-in-scholarly-
publishing/
WAME
http://wame.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing
https://thinkchecksubmit.org/journals/
UGC-CARE
https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/apps1/home/index
SPPU identified Software Tools / Databases / to detect Predatory Journals
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) has identified the following tools/Databases
to detect the Predatory Journals:
• Guidelines Committee: COPE, WAME
• Indexes: SCOPUS, WoS, PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, SciFinder, Biological Abstracts
• Social Science & Humanities: SSCI, Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
• Local Language: Local Committee
• Predatory Journal List: Beall’s list - https://scholarlyoa.com/list-of-standalone-journals/ OR
https://beallslist.net/

• Journal Metrics: Concentrate on DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment )

Beall’s List
WHY COULD IT BE A PROBLEM?
For the researcher / its institution / funder
• Lack of credibility: your paper won’t be seen as a proper scientific peer-reviewed
article
• Your paper won’t be accepted in an another journal: you’ll need to rewrite an original
article
• Lack of visibility: predatory journals are not included in proper databases as WoS or
Medline
• Lack of long-term storage
• Your name can be associated to one of those journals: Predatory publishers often put
contributors on their editorial board (without their consent)
 WHY COULD IT BE A PROBLEM?
For Science itself:
• Difficulty to distinguish good peer
reviewed articles from low quality
papers
• Decrease of general science
quality
• Almost impossible to obtain a
retraction…
• Waste of resources (good research
do not get the visibility they
deserve)
NOW IT IS YOUR TURN
• Keeping in mind the warning signs above:
• Evaluate one of the following journal
• International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
http://www.ijhssnet.com/
• Journal of education and sociology
https://www.eu-print.org/teh.php
• Global Journal of Addiction & Rehabilitation Medicine (GJARM)
https://juniperpublishers.com/gjarm/
SOME WARNING SIGNS
SOME WARNING SIGNS (CONTINUED)
TAKE HOME MESSAGE

• No list is sufficient. DIY investigation is needed

• Verify their claims
• Use the Think.Check.Submit checklist

• Ask your network (colleagues or QOAM)

THANK YOU