Predatory Publishers

On 25 August 2016, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued OMICS Group Inc., iMedPub LLC, Conference Series LLC, and Srinubabu Gedela, all affiliated with open access mega-publisher OMICS International, for deception in their solicitation of journal articles and advertising of conferences. The ongoing lawsuit seeks to stop OMICS’s deceptive practices and disgorge US $50.5 million in ill-gotten gains. OMICS has in turn claimed over $2.1 billion for harm caused by the lawsuit to its business and employees. This article describes the main arguments, counter-arguments, and court decisions in the 5920 pages of pleadings, exhibits, and orders that have been filed through 14 October 2018. The article then evaluates the case to formulate key take-aways for publishers, editors, academics, and universities. Depending on its ultimate outcome, the case against OMICS may be a turning point in the practices of questionable open access online publishers, making this interim case assessment pert...

The article gives legal analysis of predatory scientometrics, defined as unfair business practice, pretending to use methods of scientometrics (measuring science) with intention to defame scholarly publishers, individual publications, authors and academic institutions, to obtain in such unfair way privileged position and unjust enrichment. It is shown that monopolization of scientific information market with predatory scientometrics threatens academic autonomy of scholarly publishing, individual freedom to share scientific researches and ideas. Strategies for legal protection of predatory scientometrics victims are proposed, such as clarify legal relations, legal action against direct insults and abusive regulations, expose damage and hypocrisy of scientometric monopolies, and autonomous scientometric studies.

В статье приведен правовой анализ явления хищнической наукометрии, дано определение: хищническая наукометрия – это недобросовестная деловая практика манипулирования методами наукометрии (измерения научной активности) для спекулятивной дискредитации научных изданий, отдельных публикаций, авторов и научных учреждений с целью получения привилегированного положения и неправомерной выгоды. Показано, что монополизация рынка научной информации с помощью хищнической наукометрии угрожает академической автономии научных изданий, их праву самостоятельно организовать распространение результатов исследований и идей ученых. Предложены стратегии правовой защиты жертв хищнической наукометрии, такие, как выяснение правовых отношений, обжалование оскорбительных оценок и регуляторных злоупотреблений, разоблачение наукометрических монополий, автономные наукометрические исследования.

Шеляженко Ю.В. Хищническая наукометрия как вызов академической автономии научных изданий: стратегии правовой защиты деловой репутации // Universum: Экономика и юриспруденция : электрон. научн. журн. 2017. № 11(44). URL: http://7universum.com/ru/economy/archive/item/5201

In an attempt to estimate the quality of an open access journal the indexing in the Scopus database is often perceived as a positive indicator. While the inclusion in the Beall's list is anticipated as at least a serious warning sign that the journal (or the publisher behind is) might be predatory. On numerous occasions it has been noticed that there are journals included in both lists/databases. This apparent discrepancy is recently investigated, and it was concluded that both lists are not flawless. This report investigated whether the journals included in the Beall's list are still in the list of Scopus titles or discontinued in the meantime.

There has been a growing concern about fraud peer review articles that have been published in some journals in favor of their authors' affiliation, which have been discussed extensively by some researchers. This research paper introduces another a new challenge in academic world concerning journals’ editors who look at authors' affiliations rather than papers' contents. In this short paper, we will introduce this alarming problem and do an experimental test by submitting computer generated papers to some journals and finally present the results of our experiment. The paper is an expression of our concern about providing for maximum high ethics in and quality of publication policy of modern scientific journals.

This paper presents the various problems faced by the academic community and the connection of some of these issues to the “golden road” to open access. While open access publishing increases the accessibility of science, it puts the world of academic research at a
series of risks which may be categorized in several directions . First of all, there are the so called predatory publishers who create conditions for publishing fake research which is then cited and used by other authors. Th is leads to falsification of the real picture of scholarly research and hinders the normal development of science. The n ext direction is the emergence of “hijacked” journals, which offer scientists an easy publication for a fee. These marginal journals use fake impact factors to mislead scientists about their prestige and quality. In addition, problems with fake academic conferences, fake authorship and plagiarism are
deeper. Methods of social engineering such as email phishing are used to steal personal information and use it for the purposes of fake science.
The general characteristics of marginal scientific publications are identified with a view to recognizing and limiting the performance of fake science. Some of these frauds are unknown to researchers because of the lack of detailed research on the types of cybercrime in the academic world.

Od lat słyszymy takie nazwy jak „drapieżni wydawcy” (predatory publishers),
„drapieżne czasopisma” (predatory journals) i „drapieżne konferencje” (predatory
conferences) – i niestety są to określenia coraz bardziej nasilających się zjawisk
w świecie nauki. Autorzy tych pseudonaukowych tworów żerują głównie na
doktorantach i młodych naukowcach, obiecując szybkie publikacje w czasopismach
o wysokim wskaźniku Impact Factor. Po co? Podobnie jak w innych formach
cyberprzestępczości, przede wszystkim w celu wyłudzenia pieniędzy.

Authors who publish in scientific or scholarly journals today face the risk of publishing in so-called predatory journals. These journals exploit the noble idea of the Open Access movement, whose goal is to make the latest scientific findings available for free. Predatory journals, unlike the reputable ones working on an Open Access basis, neglect the review process and publish low-quality submissions. The basic attributes of predatory journals are a very quick review process or even none at all, failure to be transparent about author fees for publishing an article, misleading potential authors by imitating the names of well-established journals, and false information on indexing in renowned databases or assigned impact factor. Some preventive measures against publishing in predatory journals or drawing information from them are: a thorough credibility check of the journal’s webpages, verification of the journal’s indexing on Beall’s List and in the following databases: Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, ERIH PLUS and DOAJ. Asking other scientists or scholars about their experience with a given journal can also be helpful. Without these necessary steps authors face an increased risk of publishing in a journal of poor quality, which will prevent them from obtaining Research and Development Council points (awarded based on the Information Register of Research & Development results); even more importantly, it may damage their reputation as well as the good name of their home institution in the professional community.

An unexpected, relatively unknown, pitfall of electronic journals is the proliferation of “fake journals,” fake in so far as there are no editorial boards nor peer reviews of submitted manuscripts. The author’s investigation and personal experience with one such journal is described. Although most of the submissions to that journal have been from Third World scholars taking advantage of the low fees, it is only a matter of time before unsuspecting scholars from Europe and North America become entangled in such journals.

The popularity of scholarly open access (OA) Journals is rapidly growing in amongst authors and readers. This has resulted in challenges for scholars having to identify and avoid low-quality and flaky publishers.
In this flood of new publishers with varying quality, Peertechz swears to show the path for legitimate journals. Peertechz puts forward various sets of criteria intended to allow scholars to assess the quality of the journals.

Predatory conferences are growing like topsy, defrauding both academics and the universities who pay for their conference attendance.  Junior academics and those in young universities are particularly prone to this fraud.  After two colleagues were duped by the International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology, I submitted a nonsense abstract and had it accepted in a few days.

Press freedom and worldwide internet access have opened ample opportunity for a staggering number of poor open access journals and junk publishers to emerge. Dubious publishers are abusing and camouflaging the golden open access model. In 2012, Jeffery Beall shed light on the predatory journals (as he preferred to call them) and the threat to open access scientific publication. Publishing in predatory journals is continuing to be a major threat for the development of science in developing countries. The authors of this article proposed solutions and outline a fresh perspective to help authors avoid publishing in predatory journals.

The predatory nature of a journal is in constant debate because it depends on multiple factors, which keep evolving. The classification of a journal as being predatory, or not, is no longer exclusively associated with its open access status, by inclusion or exclusion on perceived reputable academic indexes and/or on whitelists or blacklists. Inclusion in the latter may itself be determined by a host of criteria, may be riddled with type I errors (e.g., erroneous inclusion of a truly predatory journal in a whitelist) and/or type II errors (e.g., erroneous exclusion of a truly valid scholarly journal in a whitelist). While extreme cases of predatory publishing behavior may be clear cut, with true predatory journals displaying ample predatory properties, journals in non-binary grey zones of predatory criteria are difficult to classify. They may have some legitimate properties, but also some illegitimate ones. In such cases, it might be too extreme to refer to such entities as "predatory". Simply referring to them as "potentially predatory" or "borderline predatory" also does little justice to discern a predatory entity from an unscholarly, low-quality, unprofessional, or exploitative one. Faced with the limitations caused by this gradient of predatory dimensionality, this paper introduces a novel credit-like rating system, based in part on well-known financial credit ratings companies used to assess investment risk and creditworthiness, to assess journal or publisher quality. Cognizant of the weaknesses and criticisms of these rating systems, we suggest their use as a new way to view the scholarly nature of a journal or publisher. When used as a tool to supplement, replace, or reinforce current sets of criteria used for whitelists and blacklists, this system may provide a fresh perspective to gain a better understanding of predatory publishing behavior. Our tool does not propose to offer a definitive solution to this problem.

No puede negarse que los llamados a publicar o Call For Papers (CFP), utilizados de manera sistemática por las llamadas revistas " depredadoras " , son importantes para las revistas de excelencia y las de segundo orden que recurren a estos anuncios para sus ediciones regulares, temáticas y conmemorativas. En este artículo, se exponen los resultados de una encuesta realizada en 2016 a 199 editores de revistas científicas colombianas de áreas como Ciencias Naturales, Ingeniería y Tecnología, Ciencias Médicas y de la Salud, Ciencias Agrícolas, Ciencias Sociales, Humanidades y Multidisciplinarias. 143 de las revistas estudiadas (75%) tienen una periodicidad semestral; 53 editores participantes suelen usar los anuncios de CFP con el objetivo de llamar artículos para sus ediciones regulares. De ellos, 30% (114) de los editores utiliza el sitio web de la revista para difundir sus anuncios de CFP y el 29,5% (111) el correo electrónico. Sin embargo, 66 editores no respondieron a qué tan efectivos resultaron estos anuncios para atraer artículos, al no poder determinar el porcentaje de recibidos que fueron publicados.

Abstract: It cannot be denied that the call for papers (CFP), used in a systematic way by the 'predatory' journals, are important for journals of excellence and second-class ones that turn to these announcements for their regular, themed and commemoratives editions. In this article we show the results of a survey carried out in 2016 to 199 editors of Colombian scientific journals of areas such as Natural Science, Engineering and Technology, Medical Sciences , Agricultural Sciences, Humanities, and Multidisciplinary Sciences. The 75% (143) of the studied journals have a biannual regularity. 37.7% (53) of the editors usually use the CFP announcements to call for articles for their regular editions. 30% (114) of the editors use the journal's web page to issue their CFP announcements and 29.5% (111) use the e-mail. Nonetheless, 66 editors could not answer how effective were these announcements to draw articles, because they could not define the percentage of the material received that was finally published.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a summary and current state of the issue of predatory open access publishers and to critically discuss general predatory behaviour and related topics in the Czech and international context. The article summarizes outputs of the first foreign studies dealing with predatory publishers and journals. We find that although in the past three years, the issue of predation is actively addressed in foreign countries, the Czech higher education institutions are not prepared for this new phenomenon as well as most of academics and researchers do not know about it at all. The text highlights the threats with which the scientific community (science and education in general) is confronted and proposes countermeasures from the view of an individual and higher education institutions. At the end of the article, there are mentioned trends in the behaviour of predatory publishers and dilemmas which non-predatory journal publishers and international indexing databases are faced with.

Some thoughts on whether the Beall's list tells you the 'whole' and 'indisputable' story when it comes to alleged predatory journals and publishers. Including a call for more consideration for researchers in this matter.

There has been a growing concern about fraud peer review articles that have been published in some journals in favor of their authors' affiliation, which have been discussed extensively by some researchers. This research paper introduces a new another challenge in academic world concerning journals’ editors who look at authors' affiliations rather than papers' contents. In this short paper, we will introduce this alarming problem and do an experimental test by submitting computer generated papers to some journals and finally present the results of our experiment. The paper is an expression of our concern about providing for maximum high ethics in and quality of publication policy of modern scientific journals.

The following essay is a written version of the panel discussion that took place at the ‘Decolonisation in Praxis’ conference held at SOAS on 7 June 2018. The purpose of the panel was to discuss the implications of Open Access publishing for the decolonisation debate within academic institutions. The speakers offered some exploratory thoughts, each from her unique position at SOAS, in order to encourage listeners to consider critically Open Access publishing and how they might navigate the ever-changing landscape of research production and dissemination. Some references have been included in the written version to direct readers to other resources where they can find more information. The full article can be found Open Access here: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26319/1/17_180905_Istratii_Porter_Open_Access_and_Decolonisation_F0.pdf

Drapieżne czasopisma nie znikną, jednak niepokojące jest to, że znaleźć je można w najważniejszych bazach danych, z których korzystają nie tylko instytucje naukowe, ale również organy administracji rządowej. Na ich podstawie oceniają jakość pracy naukowej uczelni, konkretnej dyscypliny i poszczególnych naukowców. Od tej oceny uzależniają wysokość przyznanej subwencji lub możliwość prowadzenia kierunków studiów .

Los efectos del desarrollo de Internet sobre las publicaciones
científicas periódicas son también, como en el caso
del género epistolar (de las cartas escritas en hojas de metal
de la antigüedad clásica al e-mail), de doble carácter: aunque
dicho desarrollo ha traído inmensas ventajas (rapidez, accesibilidad,
reproducibilidad y un largo etcétera), ha traído
también, como se verá, inconvenientes a los que el sector
de las publicaciones científicas apenas está aprendiendo a
adaptarse.

PurposeThe academic community has warned that predatory journals may attempt to capitalize on the confusion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to further publish low quality academic work, eroding the credibility of scholarly publishing.Design/methodology/approachThis article first chronicles the risks of predatory publishing, especially related to misinformation surrounding health research. Next, the author offers an empirical investigation of how predatory publishing has engaged with COVID-19, with an emphasis on journals related to virology, immunology and epidemiology as identified through Cabells' Predatory Reports, through a content analysis of publishers' websites and a comparison to a sample from DOAJ.FindingsThe empirical findings show that there were 162 titles related to these critical areas from journals listed on Cabells with a range of infractions, but most were defunct and only 39 had published on the pandemic. Compared to a DOAJ comparison group, the predatory j...

Key points The 2017 Sci‐Hub judgement has, to date, proven unenforceable, and it appears that enforcing the 2019 OMICS judgement will similarly prove challenging. Business developments and changing expectations over sharing digital content may also undermine the impact of the ongoing cases against ResearchGate and Georgia State University. Stakeholders should consider these limitations when deciding how to resolve scholarly publishing disputes.

Los efectos del desarrollo de Internet sobre las publicaciones científicas periódicas son también, como en el caso del género epistolar (de las cartas escritas en hojas de metal de la antigüedad clásica al e-mail), de doble carácter: aunque dicho desarrollo ha traído inmensas ventajas (rapidez, accesibilidad, reproducibilidad y un largo etcétera), ha traído también, como se verá, inconvenientes a los que el sector de las publicaciones científicas apenas está aprendiendo a adaptarse.

This article is intended to highlight the issue of predatory journals and how they have been used to degrade the open-access journals to be perceived as predatory ones. Since many of the predatory journals are available for readers free of cost over the internet (which is among one of the many features of open-access journals/publications), the international wave of the scientific community against predatory journals stigmatized and victimized the entire open-access model of scientific publication to be perceived as substandard quality. This article critically analyzes the definitions of predatory journals and identified key characteristics of predatory journals. It is observed that lack of peer-review and charging high Article Processing Charges (APC) from authors are the two most common features of predatory journals, whereas open-access journals strictly adhere to peer-review criteria and have a clear guideline and information about the article processing fee. Knowingly or unknowingly, several authors mentioned that predatory journals are mostly open access, an overgeneralization of the author pay model upon which open access lies. Peer-review is an essential component of open access journals but not predatory journals; thus, considering predatory journals under the broad notion of open-access model of publication is unfair, stigmatizing and victimizing the open-access journals and keeping them at risk of degradation. Associating open-access journals with predatory ones is a nuisance as both have different aims, modus-operandi, and quality concerns. Therefore, there is a dire need to make policies to discourage predatory practices without victimizing the noble idea of open-access journals/publications.

Many factors influence a scientist’s choice of research problem: past interests and training, serendipitous yet consequential encounters with new collaborators, expertise, or information, institutional context or disciplinary culture; commercial opportunities, pressures, and commercially related policies can change the composition of scientific research and the choices that guide it. “Research agendas reflect what gets funded”, so it is no surprise that searching for external funding is having an impact on the research agendas of individual faculty members, as research is being pursued based on donors’ interests. This panel wants to contribute to the discussion on freedom in science, but also to its accountability. In times of ‘neo‐liberal scientism’ or ‘academic capitalism’, what are the trends in science? Priority will be given to empirical works that analyze the development of scientists’ work (in the broad sense: biology, economics, political science, sociology, etc.), changes in publishers’ policies, and governmental influence.

The ASA online portal is currently open for submissions for the 2021 Annual Meeting.
The deadline is February 3. Please review the Call for Submissions page for relevant information.

Sir, I read with interest the editorial by Satyanarayana where he mentions that open access (OA) of journals is one of the changing aspects of journal publishing in modern day1. This system is a blessing for scientific communities because it is easily available in digital form and allows user to read, download, copy, distribute, and print2,3 without any barrier, thus increases impact of the published material. The progress of scientific knowledge in any field depends on retrieval and accessibility of relevant literature2 and in this regard archiving4 and access5 of OA literature plays a major role. In self archiving, the author can upload preprint or postprint versions in OA digital platform2,5,6 and use personal website, institutional archive, departmental archive, inter- and intra-disciplinary archive for this purpose2,6. Self-archiving can be Green OA2,6 which allows uploading postprint version and Pale Green2 OA which allows uploading preprint version of scholar work. Open acces...

Predatorski časopisi: sve veći problem znanstvene zajednice. Zbornik radova 5. međunarodne znanstveno-stručne konferencije-Istraživački dani Visoke policijske škole u Zagrebu (Unaprjeđivanje sigurnosne uloge policije primjenom novih tehnologija i metoda). Vukosav, J., Sažetak Objavljivanje radova u kvalitetnom znanstvenom časopisu je glavni cilj za svakog znanstvenika, osobito za istraživače u ranoj fazi karijere. Međutim, znanstvenicima i stručnjacima je važno naučiti pažljivo procijeniti i odabrati publikacije u kojima mogu publicirati svoje članke, zadovoljavajući uvjete za postizanje znanstvenih i nastavnih zvanja. Naime, s " eksplozijom " broja novoutemeljenih znanstvenih časopisa, zadatak odabira može biti vrlo težak, a pritom osobit problem stvaraju tzv. predatorski časopisi (PČ). PČ, kao specifični oblik kriminaliteta, ostvaruju zaradu krađom identiteta legitimnih časopisa, krivotvorenjem metrike i baza u kojima se citiraju, a uz prikupljanje pristojbe za objavu članaka. Nastoje pridobiti znanstvenike dobro razvijenom mrežom koja uključuje izradu web stranica, intenzivni e-mail marketing i dobar izbor žrtava. Pokušaji razlučivanja legitimnih i nelegitimnih časopisa, kreiranjem liste sumnjivih časopisa (Jeffrey Beallov popis), uz zahtijevanje izdavanja pismene izjave o transparentnosti u izdavaštvu (udruge Open Access Scholarly Publishers (OAS) i drugih globalnih organizacija), te postroženje kriterija indeksiranja od strane ureda OAS. Na žalost, niti jedna od postojećih mjera nije se pokazala posve učinkovita, pa se autorima savjetuje stalno sustavno provjeravanje postojećih lista PČ zbog njihove sve češće pojave. Naime, rezultati provedene analize Beallove liste predatorskih izdavača, časopisa, metrike i " ukradenih " časopisa (2011-2015), pokazuju drastične razlike u verižnim (prosječna stopa promjene 84-267), a osobito u baznim (138-4883) indeksima (kod usporedbe početnog i finalnog razdoblja). Ključne riječi: izdavačka etika, Jeffrey Beall popis, kontrola kvalitete, krađa identiteta, otvoren pristup Predatory Journals: increasing problem of the scientific community

In academic publishing some publishers are exploiting the model of open access publishing. These publishers may e.g. accept manuscripts that are flawed in terms of scientific or scholarly quality or charge fees to authors without providing essential editorial and publishing services. These publishers are known as predatory open access publishers. The term ‘predatory open access’ was conceived Jeffrey Beall, Associate Professor and Scholarly Initiatives Librarian, Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver, USA. In response to a number of questions by the research community regarding the possible occurrence of predatory open access journals in the VABB-SHW1 journal lists, the bureau of the Gezaghebbende Panel (GP) invited ECOOM-UAntwerpen to compare both lists in order to identify any overlap. ECOOM-UAntwerpen accepted this task and set out to identify the journals belonging to the publishers listed on Beall’s list mid October 2013. However, this proved to be an enormous task, as...

Press freedom and worldwide internet access have opened ample opportunity for a staggering number of poor open access journals and junk publishers to emerge. Dubious publishers are abusing and camouflaging the golden open access model. In 2012, Jeffery Beall shed light on the predatory journals (as he preferred to call them) and the threat to open access scientific publication. Publishing in predatory journals is continuing to be a major threat for the development of science in developing countries. The authors of this article proposed solutions and outline a fresh perspective to help authors avoid publishing in predatory journals.

Many factors influence a scientist’s choice of research problem: past interests and training, serendipitous yet consequential encounters with new collaborators, expertise, or information, institutional context or disciplinary culture; commercial opportunities, pressures, and commercially related policies can change the composition of scientific research and the choices that guide it. “Research agendas reflect what gets funded”, so it is no surprise that searching for external funding is having an impact on the research agendas of individual faculty members, as research is being pursued based on donors’ interests. This panel wants to contribute to the discussion on freedom in science, but also to its accountability. In times of ‘neo‐liberal scientism’ or ‘academic capitalism’, what are the trends in science? Priority will be given to empirical works that analyze the development of scientists’ work (in the broad sense: biology, economics, political science, sociology, etc.), changes in publishers’ policies, and governmental influence.

En el marco del EEES uno de los ítems más valorados es la capacidad investigadora del profesorado y, dentro de ella y como consecuencia directa de ésta, su producto final: la publicación científica. Las publicaciones de los científicos se emplean cada vez más como medida de la competencia y el éxito profesional de éstos; y la capacidad de obtener recursos económicos, promoción profesional y reconocimiento público depende actualmente, en gran medida, de la cantidad y calidad de las publicaciones científicas. Los investigadores aspiran a publicar en las revistas que más se referencian, pero esto no siempre es posible, por lo que muchas veces se convierten en presas fáciles de las denominadas-editoriales y/o revistas predadoras‖ (predatory publisher). Con la ayuda de un ordenador, un sitio web con acceso abierto y la habilidad necesaria para inventar títulos atractivos de revistas, en apariencia científicas, existe hoy en día un gran número de individuos disimulados como editoriales y/o revistas. En este trabajo abordamos el cómo y el porqué de su proliferación, cómo pueden identificarse, cuáles pueden considerarse como tales; y, finalmente, cómo podemos evitar ser víctimas de este tipo de fraude. A modo de ejemplo diremos que existen más de 40 criterios para su identificación, muchos de ellos polémicos, pues existen publicaciones legítimas que incurren en algunos de ellos. Pero lo cierto es que, si bien dichos criterios necesitan ser revisados, constituye una valiosa fuente de referencia a la hora de reconocer el terreno que se pisa en términos de legitimidad editorial.

An unexpected, relatively unknown, pitfall of electronic journals is the proliferation of “fake journals,” fake in so far as there are no editorial boards nor peer reviews of submitted manuscripts. The author’s investigation and personal experience with one such journal is described. Although most of the submissions to that journal have been from Third World scholars taking advantage of the low fees, it is only a matter of time before unsuspecting scholars from Europe and North America become entangled in such journals.

Open access of journals is one of the changing aspects of journal publishing in modern day. This system is a blessing for scientific communities because it is easily available in digital form and allows user to read, download, copy, distribute, and print without any barrier, thus increases impact of the published material. The progress of scientific knowledge in any field depends on retrieval and accessibility of relevant literature and in this regard archiving and access of open access  literature plays a major role.