Research Guides: Issues in Scholarly Communication: Predatory Publishing

Predatory Publishing Defined

Predatory Publishers are:

Publishers using the gold open access model (where the journal itself is not funded by an institution through subscriptions, but rather by the authors who publish their works in that journal) to receive payments from authors while neglecting to undergo a true peer-review process.

"These [predatory publishers] are OA [Open Access] journals that exist for the sole purpose of profit, not the dissemination of high-quality research findings and furtherance of knowledge. These predators generate profits by charging author fees, also known as article processing charges (APCs), that far exceed the cost of running their low-quality, fly-by-night operations." - Berger and Cirasella, page 132.

Beall's List of Predatory Publishers
Jeffrey Beall created and cultivated a list of predatory publishers on his blog, scholarlyoa.com. Due to any number of pressures, he has since taken down his list and shut down his site, but others have recreated his list, like this group here.

On the rise:

from Times Higher Education: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/infographic-journals-and-publishers-setting-sights-on-the-unwary

What to Look for

Image taken from Stony Brook University Libraries, Scholarly Communication: http://library.stonybrook.edu/scholarly-communication/know-journal-legitimate/

Beware of:

Promises of quick publication (you all know there is no such thing as a "fast" peer-review process!)
Soliciting emails asking for your research, especially if they are not from a field in which you work
Lists of editors with little information on them/the same editors on every journal published by a particular company/editors with email addresses from Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
Submission fees
Bizarrely broad or disjointed scopes

Alternatives to Beall's Blacklist:

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
The OASPA publishes a "Whitelist" of vetted and proven publishers who subscribe to ethical practices and true peer-review processes.
Directory of Open Access Journals
The DOAJ is somewhat less strict than the OASPA, but in 2014 they cut more than 114 journals from their list because they were marked as "predatory" or didn't comply with peer-review standards of publication. Generally, a reliable list of reliable journals.
Cabell's International Whitelist and Blacklist
Cabell's is a publishing firm, and access to these lists is not free, so keep that in mind if you want to use it as a resource. They publish two lists: one of known predatory publishers (Blacklist), and one of known good publishers (Whitelist).

Examples of Predatory Publisher Websites

Journal of International Academic Research for Multidisciplinary (JIARM)
The title of this publication alone seems suspicious. "Multidisciplinary"? This website is flashy, but in a way that seems unprofessional. They also publish dozens of articles every month, and assure authors that if their manuscripts are submitted by the 5th of the month, they will be reviewed, edited, and published by the 10th of that same month. The first member of their editorial board, Kari Jabbour, also does not seem to exist. There is a Google Site for Dr. Kari Jabbour that has no affiliation with any school whatsoever. And the American College of Technology in Missouri no longer exists - it changed its name to the American Business and Technology University in 2014.
Pharmacologia
This one at first glance seems to be a reputable publisher, but there are several red flags here, as well. First of all, they have a tab entitled "For Referees" which describes how an editor should go about their work (including a note that they should declare a conflict of interest if the author is "your nemesis"). They also promise fast publishing, under the guise of disseminating research as widely and quickly as possible. Their editorial board is large and international, each name linking out. But every name links out to a LiveDNA site rather than any affiliated university or hospital, which, in conjunction with the other red flags here, makes it of questionable quality.
Universal Journals Publication
Although their website is streamlined and stark white, don't let those happy medical students fool you. Their editor in chief is the same person for all four (various disciplined) of their journals, and her email address, as well as all the other provided on their site, are gmail, unaffiliated with a research center. The publishing company is also "working for the Repid [sic] publications of peer–reviewed online Journals" and looking for articles of any kind to publish. Also alarming is that their manuscript submission seems to be set up as a plain text messaging system, although there seems to be no information on how they need the articles submitted. Perhaps the worst offense is the copyright, which is transferred to the journal upon submission, before it is even "peer-reviewed" or published.