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• 08 February 2021

Hundreds of ‘predatory’ journals indexed on leading scholarly database

• Dalmeet Singh Chawla

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The widely used academic database Scopus hosts papers from more than 300 potentially ‘predatory’ journals that have questionable publishing practices, an analysis has found 1 . Together, these titles contributed more than 160,000 articles over three years — almost 3% of the studies indexed on Scopus during the period. Their presence on Scopus and other popular research databases raises concerns that poor-quality studies could mislead scientists and pollute the scientific literature.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00239-0

Macháček, V. & Srholec, M. Scientometrics https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03852-4 (2021).

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Severin, A. & Low, N. Int. J. Public Health 64 , 1123–1124 (2019).

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Manca, A. et al. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 98 , 1051–1056 (2017).

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Princeton University Library

Understanding predatory publishing.

• Introduction
• Basics of Predatory Publishing
• Evaluation Tools
• Database Sources and Lists
• Request a consultation

An overview

What is predatory publishing?

There are many ways to describe predatory publishing. The most recent definition of predatory journals and publishers can be found in the December 2019 issue of Nature   where the   consensus definition was: “Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.”

Why does predatory publishing exist?

It is widely recognized that the phenomenon of predatory publishing grew with the emergence of online publishing, especially open access (OA). In the OA publishing business model, authors are charged fees for publication. This business model is not the problem. Many legitimate and prestigious publishers/journals run the business model successfully.  What is problematic is that the predatory journals or publishers exist solely for collecting the funds (Article Publication Charges-APCs) without any commitment to publication ethics or integrity.

What harm would predatory publishing do to academia and/or the individual?

"Predatory publishing harms the integrity of the scientific record and the reputation of scholarly publishing. Predatory journals provide readers with content that has not been properly vetted and is often of poor quality. Citations to articles from predatory journals, which occur with some regularity in legitimate journals, risk providing misinformation to readers. Predatory publishing also harms individuals. Predatory journals take advantage of unsuspecting authors. Predatory journals’ deceptive names mimic the titles of legitimate journals, which can cause people to confuse a predatory journal with a similarly‐named legitimate journal. Authors who publish their work in predatory journals will not have it indexed in bibliographic databases, such as MEDLINE and CINAHL. Articles in predatory journals may be difficult to locate because of the poor quality of these journals' websites. Authors may even have their articles disappear entirely if a journal ceases publication because predatory publishers rarely have appropriate archiving. People may find themselves listed as editorial board members for predatory journals, with or without their knowledge. Ultimately, involvement with predatory publishing may damage individuals’ work and reputations."  (from Predatory Publishing: The Threat Continues; https://doi.org/10.1111/jmwh.13056 )

In addition, for individuals, falling into the trap of predatory publishing could hinder future publishing opportunities for their research. According to the experience of victims, it is usually very difficult to withdraw a submitted paper from a predatory publisher. Sometimes, predatory publishers will publish a manuscript without the author's permission, making it unlikely be to publishable anywhere else. 

Where can I get help in determining if a journal is predatory?

The easiest way is to start with your subject librarian . The Scholarly Communications Office is also a source of help and can be reached at [email protected] . Please also see the Evaluation Tools tab of this guide.

• Next: Basics of Predatory Publishing >>
• Last Updated: Dec 19, 2023 4:44 PM
• URL: https://libguides.princeton.edu/predatorypublishing

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How to avoid being duped by predatory journals

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• eva.amsen{at}gmail.com

Some journals capitalise on researchers’ and clinicians’ need for publications by luring them in with flattering emails, only to subject them to poor editing practices and threatening invoices. The best way to avoid this is to learn to spot the warning signs, writes Eva Amsen

There are tens of thousands of academic journals, with new ones appearing all the time, creating a complicated landscape of many potential homes for every article. “Unfortunately, because it’s so big and confusing, predatory journals have taken advantage of this system,” says Dominic Mitchell, operations manager at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and current chair of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, a trade association of open access journal and book publishers.

“A predatory publication is one that is deceptive in some way; where the publishers are not transparent about what they’re doing,” explains Katherine Stephan, research support librarian at Liverpool John Moores University.

In 2019 a US court ordered OMICS Publishing Group to pay $50.1m to the Federal Trade Commission for misleading researchers. 1 The court found that OMICS engaged in numerous deceptive practices. Often authors were not told about publishing fees until after their articles were accepted. Those who then asked for their articles to be withdrawn were frequently refused.

And this is just the tip of an iceberg of bad publishing practices. Keeping track of the deception is difficult—partly because there is no hard line between what’s considered predatory and what’s not. But publishing experts are trying to make sense of it and help researchers make informed choices.

A spectrum of bad practices

In 2019 an international panel of publishers, librarians, researchers, and others agreed a general definition of predatory publishing: “Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritise self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterised by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.” 2

The definition emphasises the many different behaviours that could be considered “predatory” and that few journals will show all of them at once.

“Researchers often see this as a binary—a publisher is either predatory or not,” says David Moher, director of the Centre for Journalology at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and co-organiser of the panel that set the definition. “But, as in most things in life, there’s a spectrum,” he says.

At the extreme of the spectrum are publishers that add researchers’ names to articles or editorial boards without their knowledge, or place fake impact factors on their websites. At the other end are those that may not have any intention to mislead, but whose editorial processes might have moved away from best practices. Regardless of intent, any lack of quality control creates risks for both authors and readers of scientific articles.

When you read a journal article, you usually can’t see how scrupulous the editing and peer review process was. At first glance, articles with mistakes, oversights, or even made-up data can be difficult to differentiate from any other article, and researchers and clinicians are at risk of unintentionally amplifying unvetted data.

For authors, a journal’s lack of editorial processes may become clear once a paper comes back from peer review with no comments, or when editors introduce errors into the paper. At that point it may, however, be too late to withdraw the submission, and the author risks being stuck with a publication that does not reflect the quality of their work.

“People from all walks of life end up having papers in predatory journals,” says Moher (see box). Some of them might be under pressure to publish quickly and a call for submissions can arrive at just the right time. Recognising the sign of a predatory email can prevent people from being lured into a publication they may regret.

Flattering, desperate emails

Peter Gøtzsche, epidemiologist and director of the Institute for Scientific Freedom in Copenhagen, receives so many unsolicited requests for articles that he decided to analyse these emails for a month. “The emails are always flattering,” he says, “and they say that they are in a desperate situation.” Emails will ask for urgent submissions, and cite the recipient’s own work and praise their qualities as a researcher.

Gøtzsche collected many of these examples in a preprint. 3 A few weeks later, he found another email in his inbox, this time urging him to submit this very preprint—the one about predatory emails—to a predatory journal. 4

Blocking senders doesn’t help. Gøtzsche noticed that one publisher was using email addresses from dozens of different web domains to bypass filters. The best course of action is to ignore such emails completely. But Sam Shuster, emeritus professor of dermatology at Newcastle University, decided to reply to some of the emails he received, just to see what would happen. “They were anxious to get a paper to fill the journal,” he says. But when he feigned interest and replied, it quickly became clear that what they really wanted was his money rather than his research papers. 5

Shuster and Gøtzsche knew that the emails they so regularly received were predatory tactics. “They’re easily detected,” says Shuster.

“It virtually never happens that I am invited by a decent journal to write something,” explains Gøtzsche. And when it does happen, it’s for an editorial or opinion piece, never for a research article. Moher agrees, “It is very rare for a legitimate journal to write to you and ask for a paper.”

However, Theodora Bloom, executive editor of The BMJ , disagrees: “It is absolutely not uncommon for journals (including some published by BMJ) to call for papers or call for contributions to special issues. Editors also frequently approach researchers whose work is of interest to encourage them to submit relevant work to their journal.”

So, an email requesting urgent submissions may not be a clear red flag, but there are other signs that such an email isn’t genuine. Excessive praise and poor grammar are examples given by Schuster.

Some predatory journals may mention editors that have no idea that their name is being used to recruit articles. “I remind people regularly to check Google that they haven’t become an editor of a suspicious journal,” says Moher.

This happened to Shuster, who discovered that he is named as editor of a journal published by Longdom. It even published an editorial in his name that he didn’t write. “It’s awful,” he says. Shuster tried unsuccessfully to get the editorial and his profile removed by contacting the journal and publisher Longdom through a formal letter. Longdom did not respond to The BMJ’ s request for comment.

The limitations of lists and databases

Researchers and librarians have sometimes checked whether publishers they hadn’t heard of were included in “Beall’s list.” This list was curated by librarian Jeffrey Beall, who also coined the term “predatory publisher,” but he stopped updating it in 2017. 6 There are newer websites that do similar lists, but Mitchell and Stephan are cautious about relying on them.

“Lists like that have a danger of being extremely subjective,” Mitchell says. Whoever curates the list decides which publications are labelled as predatory. “Lists are also biased towards higher income countries and to English language publications,” adds Stephan. That means that many predatory journals from other places and in other languages will be missed.

A less biased, but also imperfect, method is to do the opposite and check whether a journal is included in a database that requires publishers to adhere to some level of editorial practices, such as DOAJ, Medline, or Scopus.

“It’s like the Yellow Pages of open access journals,” says Mitchell about DOAJ. “It’s a way for people to find an approved journal that they know somebody has looked at and reviewed.” However, DOAJ only includes open access journals, so it’s not an exhaustive list.

Biomedical journals are also not automatically above board if they appear in PubMed.

“If research is publicly funded and there’s an article from it, there is a back channel for predatory publishers to get themselves into PubMed,” says Moher. Any papers that were supported by grants from funders with an open access requirement can be uploaded to PubMedCentral, which will get them indexed in PubMed, regardless of the journal. 7

Learning to spot the signs

Instead of relying on lists of journals, Mitchell recommends researchers learn what to look for when submitting a paper.

Mitchell and Stephan are both committee members of Think. Check. Submit, an initiative set up by several international scholarly publishing associations to make researchers more aware of what to look for when submitting to a journal. 8

“Think. Check. Submit is not trying to say, ‘This publisher is bad,’ or ‘This journal is bad’,” says Stephan. “Just that you have to dig a bit deeper.” The website offers a checklist researchers can use to assess a journal before they submit. It includes questions such as “Do you or your colleagues know the journal?” “Is it clear what fees will be charged?” and “Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?”

Asking questions like this will help researchers to recognise when a journal might be concealing information about their process. “It all comes back to transparency,” says Stephan.

Moher’s Centre for Journalology is developing a tool that will help researchers evaluate the transparency of different publishers. 9 Meanwhile, the group also provides other resources and advice for people who are concerned or unsure about journals’ predatory tactics.

“It’s not a black and white matter,” he says. “It’s based on thinking about the behaviours and actions of publishers.”

Whether to submit to a journal or not is up to every individual researcher (and their coauthors). But understanding the hallmarks of predatory publishers and knowing the risks of submitting to them is the best way to avoid being misled.

Non-standard impact factors, poor editing, and persistent threats—two researchers reveal their experiences

It can happen to anyone. Samantha Brooks, reader in cognitive neuroscience at Liverpool John Moores University, was dealing with a family illness when she submitted a paper in response to an email from what turned out to be a predatory journal. “They caught me at a difficult time,” she says. “It was embarrassing because I normally notice these things.”

Steven Lim, infectious disease specialist at Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun in Malaysia, says that he was “young and naïve” when in 2016 he responded to a predatory email. After a brief peer review process, Lim’s paper went through an editing process during which data went missing and tables were badly formatted. “I had to make multiple requests for corrections,” he says.

Neither author was told about publication fees when they submitted, but then invoices arrived. By now, Brooks realised that the journal in her case, published by OMICS, was not using a standard impact factor. A request for article withdrawal was not acted on, but her fee was waived. Despite this, she continued to get emails asking for money, some threatening legal action. OMICS did not respond to The BMJ ’s request for comment.

Lim started getting invoices from the publisher of his article in his case in 2020, four years after his article was published. “I was dubious about the situation as I had no dealings with the publishers themselves, and then I found out that they had a chequered history,” says Lim, who also tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his article.

Brooks and Lim both got support from their respective institutes and research organisations and were advised to ignore the threatening emails. Their experiences were stressful, however, and their articles are still out there, in journals they regret submitting to.

I have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following: EA was employed at publishers the Company of Biologists (2010-13) and F1000Research (2013-16). EA has carried out occasional freelance work for online or news sections for publishers ACS, Hindawi, PNAS, and Springer Nature. EA did not contribute to editorial selection of any manuscripts for these publishers.

• Grudniewicz A ,
• Gøtzsche PC
• ↵ Gøtzsche PC. Predatory journal “invites” me to submit my preprint manuscript about invitations to publish in predatory journals. Institute for Scientific Freedom. 2023. www.scientificfreedom.dk/2023/06/02/predatory-journal-invites-me-to-submit-my-preprint-manuscript-about-invitations-to-publish-in-predatory-journals
• ↵ Shuster S. Predatory pirate journals and what we can do about them. BMJ Opinion. 2021. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/11/05/sam-shuster-predatory-pirate-journals-and-what-we-can-do-about-them
• Cortegiani A ,
• Ingoglia G ,
• ↵ Think. Check. Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org
• ↵ Centre for Journalology. Journal transparency tool. https://ohri.ca/journalology/oss-journal-transparency .

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Predatory Journals and Publishers – Dilemmas: How to Assess it and How to Avoid it?

1 Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

2 World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), 4225 Solano Avenue, Suite 631, Napa, CA 94558, USA

3 European Academy of Sciences and Arts, (EASA), Salzburg, Austria

1. WHY IS WRITTEN AND TO WHOM THIS EDITORIAL TARGETED?

A few days ago authors of the papers deposited on the ResearchGate platform informed us by a letter from the ResearchGate team titled: "A note on recent content takedowns" where has been noticed that ResearchGate recently received demands from two publishers: Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS) - "to remove certain content that they alleged infringed their copyrights" ( 1 ).

The main statement of the ResearchGate (RG) is: "These types of requests are not new: we have received many similar requests from them in the past, and, in accordance with applicable law, have complied with them. But these most recent requests were notable because of the number of articles involved. Although privately stored files were not affected, the demands by Elsevier and ACS resulted in the removal of around 200,000 public files. In the context of a community of over 20 million researchers, this is unfortunate, rather than existential, but it has sparked an acute reaction from many of our members who believe in the importance of open science" ( 1 ). Further RG explains: "Some of you have commented on the serious nature of our communications with you regarding the removal of content. We appreciate that the tone of our messaging was rather direct. International laws require that we implement a policy regarding repeat takedown requests from publishers, and we felt duty-bound to communicate these policies to you in no uncertain terms. This is done for the protection of users and the benefit of the ResearchGate community" ( 1 ).

Concerning the future work (perspectives) RG stated: "Finally, we are mindful of recent changes in European copyright law in some countries, particularly relating to Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market ( 2 ). While we believe we are not subject to such laws due to the nature of our business, we decided to nonetheless take advantage of advancements in technology which we believe will be beneficial for researchers. In particular, we have started implementing a new system - called "Jarvis" - which matches publisher rights information with user content at the time of upload. Where a publisher has provided the required information, Jarvis can prevent a researcher from unintentionally uploading content that is not allowed to be public. As always, it remains the responsibility of researchers to know and confirm their rights before uploading any content" ( 1 ).

The final message of the RG team sent to its users’ is: "The future of academic publishing is open. Let’s work together to unlock its true potential" ( 1 ).

According to this letter and content of the message from the RG team, as an experienced former and current Editor of a few indexed journals and prolific contributor and author of a lot of papers, especially in the Science Editing field and Scientometrics ( 3 - 9 ), let me expressed some views and comments regarding important facts and problems within Science Editing area and concerns of the scientific and academic community.

Two extremely important problems in scientific publishing represent plagiarism and predation. More and more authors of articles in this scientific field, in the absence of other opportunities to engage in science, in this period of the Corona pandemic crisis imposed as a devastating consequence, began to deal with these topics, write about plagiarism and predation, conduct meta-analyze, and recommend what and how authors, especially who are not close to the fields of Science Editing and Publishing, to deal (prevent and avoid) these issues.

So, it would be interesting to make a serious study and reveal to which fields do all the authors, who have written articles on these topics, so far belong, and what are their essential intentions in order to make advancement in science or produce something else?

This is the main reason why I wrote possible assumptions about both, in this Editorial.

Namely, from 2012 to 2015, I was a member of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) Council. At my first meeting with a large number of editors of journals from several scientific fields from Europe and worldwide, held in Tallinn (Estonia) in December 2012, I publicly discussed the problem of plagiarism and unethical behavior in the field of Science Editing.

From then until today, I have published several articles on this issue ( 10 - 20 ), but also organized several scientific conferences in this area ( 21 , 22 ). Finally, with a group of like-minded people and fellow editors of biomedical journals in the Balkans, we have prepared several strategic documents ( 23 , 24 ) to try to prevent and reduce the problems in editing and publishing journals to a minimum, because these problems cannot be eradicated by any known methods and mechanisms. And there are many reasons for that.

Then, in 2013, at the meeting of EASE Council and journal's editors in Split (Croatia), I made one statement: that the job of an editor is difficult, stressful, arduous, and expensive. If you are a journal editor, your loved ones protest and hate you (because you steal the time you need to devote to them), some authors of articles (because we often do not accept their articles for publication), some of our contributors (because they hate this type of work), etc. The practice has caused me this feelings and impressions for attitude of others.

Let me elaborate and comment the mentioned two main problems in science and publishing, with main focus (emphasis) to predatory publishers and journals:

a) Plagiarism is probably the greatest problem in the academic community, especially in the Balkan region, which is not possible to solve it by Editors of the journals and academic institutions which are responsible for avoiding it in the practice as recommended by the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE) and other associations and bodies. In the Chapter 19 I authored in the book "A Guide to the Scientific Career" ( 25 ) I concluded that even we can check and detect online every submitted paper via computer system (by Plagiarism Checker(s) and a few other ICT types of equipment as help to us during editing papers, this problem is fully unsolvable.

Plagiarism is the most common way to compromise the academic integrity of the author. It is defined as illegal trespassing spiritual property that includes any use of other people's ideas, opinions or theories, either literally, or paraphrased, which does not mention the author and source of information ( 26 - 31 ). It is assumed that the most cited person in the academic community, scholars, and experts who have published their research results in one of the journals indexed in the references of the world-renowned databases and whose articles are available for assessment of their scientific validity through their representation in the form of abstracts or full article on the website of these on-line databases ( 3 - 6 ).

COPE Guidelines for prevention and dealing with plagiarism ( 32 ) are based on the ICMJE criteria ( 33 ), as well as guidelines and recommendations of other associations and documents, such as EASE ( 34 ), Council of Science Editors ( 35 ), "Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Journals" ( 23 ), etc.

b) Predatory in publishing is also very serious and somehow neglected problem in the scientific community worldwide without proper guidelines and approach for preventing and solving it ( 36 - 40 ). A special case for analysis is the role and significance of the effects of the List of Predatory Journals by American librarian Jeffrey Beall, whose "List of Potential Predatory journals" is cited by many authors, "based on his criteria that none of the world's scientific and academic institutions have analyzed or accredited, but which could be officially used" ( 41 , 42 ).

The Beall’s list has provoked a storm of outrage among thousands of publishers and editors of journals, who have been put in a position to be scientifically belittled by his criteria and list, and many authors to avoid them as potential journals in which to publish their articles. The authors which are quoting Beall and his list did not use a scientific method of meta-analyzing articles from his list in which they could confirm Beall's assessments and the content and quality of articles from the list of predatory journals ( 9 , 39 , 41 ).

An illustrative article by Refat Aljumili on a serious and critical approach has revealed what we have stated in this article: "The story of „Beall's List" started probably in early or late 2010 when a guy called Jeffrey Beall – a librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado, in Denver, Colorado – came up with a blog „Scholarly Open Access", as well as a list of questionable journals and publishers, or as Jeffrey Beall likes to call it „Potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers", and gave himself the right to ward academic scholarly publication" ( 41 ).

Shortly after this list was established, Jeffrey Beall added many open-access publishers to it and continued to update it regularly – by adding to the list and removing from it - and introduced many authors and researchers to the assumption that Open Access Journals (OAJ) are essentially "Predatory publishers and low-quality journals" ( 9 , 41 ).

Beall's background and intentions in particular came away believing that "Beall's list" is a recognized authority in evaluating scholarly journals ( 9 , 42 ). "Well, the truth is "Beall's list" has no affiliation to any governing body or organization accredited to scholarly publishing, and has no legal or academic value. If you follow some of Beall's work on his blog, and it makes no sense whatsoever!

His official web blog exposed the truth about Jeffrey Beall, particularly Walt Crawford's 2014 article "The Sad Case of Jeffrey Beall - Case and Insights", which provides a very detailed history about OAJs and directly addresses some of the broader issues with "Beall's list" ( 9 , 42 ).

Additionally, as an example and argument, we can present a few cases in our practice, who can prove my statement: A case of Hatixhe-Latifi Pupovci and Taulant Muka (both cases presented in power presentation and deposited on www.avicenapublisher.org ( 43 ), were publisher explained the un-ethical behavior of them, but who causes Beall's decision about putting Avicena's name on his list ( Figure 1 ).

Another case is presented in Figure 2 , where the falsified Memo of Medical Archives journal by somebody without reasons why and for what purpose. We still research reasons and who have done it.

Additional examples are a few another cases - the journals from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) accepted for indexing in the Scopus database as unprofessional and unethical examples. The journal "Folia Medica Facultatis Medicinae Universitatis Saraeviensis" ( 44 ), which was also accepted to Scopus several years ago without serious evaluation (re-established after more than 20 years of break). It is stated that its last issue is printed in March 2019, and the journal is signed as a Croatian journal that belongs to the University of Zagreb (Croatia). But the journal is published in Sarajevo (B&H), and its h-index is 1 ( 45 ). Other examples of mistakes of Scopus are two journals from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Acta Medica Academica (AMA) ( http://ama.ba/index.php/ama/about ) and Medicina Academica Mostariensia (MAM) ( https://lnss-bosnia-herzegovina.libguides.com/c.php?g=669777&p=4819669 )), which Scopus accepted for indexing without checking when they have been founded, what was the name when journal started with printing, when stopped to print it and when re-started with a new name without mentioning breaking continuity of printing. AMA was printed almost 40 years as an Annual of Academy of Sciences and Arts of BiH and MAM is printing as a supplement of Psychiatria Danubina (the publisher is Medicinska Naklada, Zagreb, founded in 2013). The same case is new established Journal of Science, Arts and Religion (founded in 2021), which is published as a supplement of Psychiatria Danubina journal (Medicinska naklada, Zagreb, and in Impressum of the journal is written that journal is indexed in the same databases as Psychiatria Danubina ( https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=toc&id_broj=20451&lang=en ). Both of mentioned journals are out of scope of Psychiatria Danubina journal. There are a lot of similar examples in other countries, but nobody analyzed the current problems.

But, the Scopus expert's evaluation team rejected Medical Archives and Materia Socio-Medica journals to include them in the Scopus database because Publisher Avicena is on Beall's list. The same situation is with the WoS evaluation team. A lot of other journal's cases "suffering" as consequences of following opinion/assessment of bibliographer's expert Beall's standards about the state of him - who is the predator.

2. THE REAL AND FINAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT VARIOUS CONSEQUENCES PREDATORY CAN PRODUCE

Furthermore, in the last 10 years, with exponential progression, both invited and uninvited, informed and uninformed, those with experience and those without it in this scientific sphere, have embarked on various debates about predation - about the problem that reminds us by e-mail messages from predatory publishers and journals in our inboxes we are receiving almost every day. We get PDF versions of the published publications of various authors around the world, who think about predation and give their criticisms and "judgments", very often unsubstantiated and inaccurate, and rely on the now well-known "Beall's list" of predator's publishers and journals.

I have taken it upon myself to express my opinion and judgment in this Editorial on the occasion of a recent debate initiated by a group of authors.

I believe, as well as my close associates in this journal, that both in the previously cited articles, are somewhat right, but above all their debate pointed to a key problem - that Beal's list is not transparent enough. Jeffrey Beall, the librarian by academic basic activity (Ph.D. in the field of librarianship), has taken upon himself the responsibility to (and only it/he) to make a list of predators of journal publishers according to some of his criteria and standards. In his superficial opinion and without proper analysis and evidence, he put publishers on some kind of "black list", not thinking about consequences, that these publishers do other jobs and make a living from those jobs. And the harm he caused in manner ruined those jobs by tarnishing their name. And he has not been adequately sanctioned for such behavior so far. On the contrary, quoting his views and actions, the mentioned authors give him formality as if they were in order and, by God (Beall), allow the public to settle accounts with publishers and editors based on them. On the other hand, it is clear that Springer, as a publisher, is trying to hide the fact that it is a predatory organization, at least when it comes to Frontiers.

An open debate is going on in 2021 about a published paper by two Polish authors in the following dynamics:

• On Feb. 7, 2021, Vít Macháček và Martin Srholec from Charles University published this paper "Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences" in Scientometrics ( 46 );
• A day later, Nature comments about this news that Scopus has stopped adding content from most of the flagged titles, but the analysis highlights how poor-quality science is infiltrating literature ( 47 );
• On 6/5, Fred Fenter, Editor of Frontiers publisher requested Scientometrics to retract that paper due to mention about 29 journals of Frontiers ( 48 );
• On 19/5, the authors of the paper, Martin Srholec and Vít Macháček, sent a letter of response to the Editor-in-Chief of Scientometrics, Wolfgang Glänzel ( 49 );
• After that, Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of Scientometrics send this paper for post-publication review.
• On 12/7, the authors of the paper, Vít Macháček và Martin Srholec, replied to reviewer's comments ( 50 );
• On 17/8, EIC of Scientometrics decided to retract this paper ( 51 );
• The Editor of Scientometrics is Ismael Rafols, from Leiden University, The Netherlands, decided to resign against this EIC's decision;
• On 9/9, another editor of Scientometrics, Cassidy Sugimoto, from Georgia University (USA), (President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics) requested to withdraw the decision of retraction as this paper was corrected;
• The EIC of Scientometrics Fred Fenter kept silent and did not reply to any comment;
• Many comments related to this paper are favoring authors. They doubted that Springer hold the stock of Frontiers and they needed to retract this paper to save Frontiers. Both of the authors strongly disagree with the retraction, because there is no credible academic justification for it ( 52 ).

We think that – to take a side with any of them in this debate will not contribute anything, on the contrary, it can do more harm. Such zealots are ready for any lawsuits and other methods of inflicting harm on anyone who tells them something that does not suit them.

As the ResearchGate team stated, the decision by Elsevier and ACS to simply remove content "is disappointing to the entire research community, not just because of the loss to science and researchers, but because there is a better way. Publishers such as Springer Nature and Wiley are working with us to explore the opportunities that openness unlocks for all actors in the scholarly publishing ecosystem, with the researcher at the center. Specifically, through ( 1 ) content syndication program, these publishers have placed their content on ResearchGate (not taken it away) and made it seamlessly available to eligible researchers". "This drives the consumption of content, reaches new audiences, and makes discovery and access easier for the researcher. This is the path for a brighter future in science" ( 1 ).

3. PREDATORY IN SCIENCE EDITING - FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

Namely, predation in publishing is mostly a consequence, not a cause. Predation arose because there was a complete formalization in official science, or only points of published papers are important for getting a job at universities and elsewhere. Few people wonder what is written in these articles. Since this is the case, and a job at a university or institute means a good salary and social influence, through which additional money can be earned, every year more and more cunning and immoral people, with published papers by predatory publishers and journals, go to universities and institutes, who do not choose the means to achieve that goal (money and influence). They are not interested in science or profession, only money, and influence, in a word, the POWER. To achieve that as soon as possible, they are ready for anything, and to invest (especially other people's money, for example in college) just to get to the credits, which they will later charge heavily. Predatory journals have only emerged due to high demand, or a large number of such authors described in this text.

Publishing, which is not predatory officially, is present in the Balkans, and some previously known publishers failed only because they traded publications, and in much darker ways than paying with money. There are many (which are just the tip of the iceberg) predatory practices, false reviews, "friendly" reviews, commissioned works from the pharmaceutical industry, etc., just as in reputable journals.

One of perhaps the most realistic and key solutions could be a GLOBAL appeal to the only possible thing that can save science from this horde of cunning liars and thieves IS its their complete separation from money and social influence.

How to achieve this perhaps utopian goal is neither easy nor a job for one individual or institution, but an invitation to all well-meaning scientists, especially those with editorial experience, to create standards and guidelines on how this problem can be solved or even aleviated globally - perhaps step by step.

4. CONCLUSION

The story of "Beall's List" induced and spoiled a lot of matters in the science editing area. Since 2010, this list has disavowed many authors and discouraged them from possibly applying their article to a journal to which they would potentially send an article for publication, but the "Beall's List" discourages them from deciding yes or no.

Many under-informed authors on predation in scientific publishing - who have probably never edited or published journals in their careers, scientific, academic or otherwise, with their analyzes, very often unfounded on real facts, which was one of the reasons for some journal or publisher found on the "Beall's List", undermine the author's doubts about their decisions, when it comes to where, when and to whom to send an article with the results of their study.

The most important fact is that Editors and reviewers of the submitted papers to some journals need to approach the evaluation of manuscripts submitted to journals with higher responsibility. Editors and reviewers should not reject articles without arguments, nor accept articles without checking that the submitted articles are written following the appropriate elements of the methodology that guarantee impartiality and proper application of statistics, all in order to reach the scientific truth in medicine. Besides, looking/checking is journal potentially deposited on Beall's list.

Regarding Copyright rules and necessary documents which every author and co-authors need to signed and deposit during the submission of their papers on the websites of the journals, publishers and authors have different opinions: that their upload does not qualify as infringement. Some have variously stated that their content was the subject of a rights buyout and is now open access, the content has passed its embargo period, or the content cannot be restricted because it is a government-created work. Others have an opinion that they never signed copyright transfer agreements and that therefore they still own their works. But, if we want to miss problems like it was described in this text, the author must strictly follow rules of IJCME, EASE, COPE, Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Journals and sign all necessary documents which will prove that the presented content and results written in the submitted paper are legal and fully protected with appropriate bodies in academic or scientific institutions were author work and executed their investigation and research.

Acknowledgments:

I thank academicians Doncho Donev, Slobodan Jankovic and Muharem Zildzic for critical review of the text before sending it to the print.

Author’s contribution:

Author was involved in all steps of preparation this article, including final proofreading:

Conflict of interest:

None declared.

Financial support and sponsorship:

College & Research Libraries News  ( C&RL News ) is the official newsmagazine and publication of record of the Association of College & Research Libraries,  providing articles on the latest trends and practices affecting academic and research libraries.

C&RL News  became an online-only publication beginning with the January 2022 issue.

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Monica Berger is electronic resources and technical services librarian at New York City College of Technology-CUNY, email: [email protected]

Jill Cirasella is associate librarian for public services and scholarly communication at The Graduate Center, CUNY, email: [email protected]

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Beyond Beall’s List: Better understanding predatory publishers

Monica Berger; Jill Cirasella

If you have even a fleeting interest in the evolving landscape of scholarly communication, you’ve probably heard of predatory open access (OA) journals. These are OA 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.

Charging a fee is not itself a marker of a predatory publisher: many reputable OA journals use APCs to cover costs, especially in fields where research is often funded by grants. (Many subscription-based journals also charge authors fees, sometimes per page or illustration.) However, predatory journals are primarily fee-collecting operations—they exist for that purpose and only incidentally publish articles, generally without rigorous peer review, despite claims to the contrary.

Of course, low-quality publishing is not new. There have long been opportunistic publishers (e.g., vanity presses and sellers of public domain content) and deceptive publishing practices (e.g., yellow journalism and advertisements formatted to look like articles).

It is also not unique to OA journals. There are many mediocre subscription-based journals, and even respected subscription-based journals have accepted deeply problematic submissions (e.g., Andrew Wakefield et al.’s article linking autism to vaccines in The Lancet 1 and Alan Sokal’s nonsense article in Social Text) . 2

Although predatory publishers predate OA, their recent explosion was expedited by the emergence and success of fee-charging OA journals. No matter how strong our urge to support and defend OA, librarians cannot deny the profusion of predators in the OA arena; John Bohannon’s recent “sting” made abundantly clear (despite methodological flaws) that there are many bad actors. 3 Rather, we should seek to understand their methods, track their evolution, and communicate their characteristics to our patrons.

Blacklists, whitelists, and other defenses against predatory publishers

The highest-profile watchdog of predatory publishers is Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado-Denver, who curates a blacklist of “potential, possible, or probable” predatory OA publishers and journals. 4 Beall’s list has become a go-to tool and has even been featured in The New York Times , 5 but it is not the final word on predatory publishing, partially because Beall himself has a complicated, and not entirely supportive, attitude toward OA in general.

Without a doubt, Beall has amassed considerable knowledge and greatly increased awareness of predatory publishing. He is recognized as a leading expert and has gone largely unchallenged, probably both because nonexperts are eager for blacklists that seemingly obviate the need for individual analysis of publishers and journals, and because little empirical research has been done on the phenomenon of predatory publishing. However, in 2014, Walt Crawford took Beall to task in an article called “Ethics and Access 1: The Sad Case of Jeffrey Beall.” 6

Crawford criticizes Beall for not contextualizing predatory or low-quality publishing as a phenomenon that predates OA and is not exclusive to OA journals. He also points out that Beall favors toll-access publishers, specifically Elsevier, praising its “consistent high quality.” 7 However, a simple Google search for “fake Elsevier journals” reveals Beall’s position as tenuous. Furthermore, Beall conflates OA journals with “author pays” journals, and reveals his skepticism, if not hostility, about OA. 8

Politics aside, Beall’s laser-like focus on predatory publishers may prevent him from having a broader perspective on scholarly communication. Case in point: Beall has blithely declared the “serials crisis” to be over, 9 but those of us who manage resources beg to differ.

Another concerning aspect of Beall’s work is his evaluation of OA publishers from less economically developed countries. Crawford, Karen Coyle, and Jill Emery have all noted Beall’s bias against these publishers. 10 , 11 , 12 Imperfect English or a predominantly non-Western editorial board does not make a journal predatory. An interesting example is Hindawi, an Egyptian publisher once considered predatory that improved its practices and standards over time. If we accept that there is a continuum from devious and duplicitous to simply low-quality and amateurish, then it is likely, as Crawford believes, that some of the publishers on Beall’s list are not actually predatory. 13

Although Beall’s contributions are arguably compromised by his attitudes about OA, the criteria he uses for his list are an excellent starting point for thinking about the hallmarks of predatory publishers and journals. 14 He encourages thorough analysis, including scrutiny of editorial boards and business practices. Some of his red flags provide a lot of “bang for your buck” in that they are both easy to spot and likely to indicate a predatory operation. These include editors or editorial board members with no or fake academic affiliations, lack of clarity about fees, publisher names and journal titles with geographic terms that have no connection to the publisher’s physical location or journal’s geographic scope, bogus impact factor claims and invented metrics, and false claims about where the journal is indexed.

Beall also lists common practices indicative of low-quality but not necessarily predatory journals. He is rightfully wary of journals that solicit manuscripts by spamming researchers, as established publishers generally do not approach scholars, as well as publishers or editors with email addresses from Gmail, Yahoo, etc. Also, he wisely warns researchers away from journals with bizarrely broad or disjointed scopes and journals that boast extremely rapid publication, which usually suggests no or only cursory peer review.

Given the fuzziness between low-quality and predatory publishers, whitelisting, or listing publishers and journals that have been vetted and verified as satisfying certain standards, may be a better solution than blacklisting. The central player in the whitelisting movement is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

In response to the Bohannon sting, DOAJ removed 114 journals and revamped its criteria for inclusion. 15 Journals accepted into DOAJ after March 2014 under the stricter rules are marked with a green tick symbol, and DOAJ has announced that it will require the remaining 99% of its listed journals to reapply for acceptance.

At the basic level, a journal must be chiefly scholarly; make the content immediately available (i.e., no embargoes); provide quality control through an editor, editorial board, and peer review; have a registered International Standard Serial Number (ISSN); and exercise transparency about APCs. Journals that meet additional requirements, such as providing external archiving and creating persistent links, are recognized with the DOAJ Seal. DOAJ receives an assist from the ISSN Centre, which in 2014 added language reserving the right to deny ISSNs to publishers that provide misleading information. 16

An organization that whitelists publishers by accepting them as members is the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Members must apply and pledge to adhere to a code of conduct that disallows any form of predatory be-havior. 17 OASPA has made errors in vetting applicants, though: it admitted some publishers that it later had to reject (e.g., Dove Medical Press).

Of course, no blacklist or whitelist can substitute for head-on investigation of a journal. Open Access Journal Quality Indicators, a rubric by Sarah Beaubien and Max Eckard featuring both positive and negative journal characteristics, can help researchers perform such evaluation. 18 Furthermore, any tool or practice that gives researchers more information is a boon. For example, altmetrics provide a broad picture of an article’s impact (not necessarily correlated to its quality), and open peer review—i.e., any form of peer review where the reviewer’s identity is not hidden—increases transparency and allows journals to demonstrate their standards. 19

The role of librarians

As librarians, we need to understand the hallmarks and methods of predatory publishers for several reasons. Most obviously, we must help researchers avoid becoming prey and help readers recognize low-quality journals. In addition, we need to counteract the misconceptions and alarmism that stymie the acceptance of OA.

For example, many researchers conflate journal quality with publication model or business model, and librarians can help untangle those concepts. To do so, we must arm ourselves with clear, convincing explanations that quality and reputation are independent of openness, that OA journals do not necessarily charge fees, and that fees do not necessarily imply predatoriness. We should be ready with examples of high-quality and well-respected OA journals, as well as reassuring facts about fees (e.g., as of January 2015, 63% of journals listed in DOAJ have no fees) and efforts to marginalize predatory publishers.

Furthermore, we need to make sure that researchers understand that OA can be achieved not only through OA journals but also through self-archiving in repositories. Confusion on this point is still rampant, and too many researchers write off OA entirely because they’ve encountered suspect OA journals.

Clarifying the two approaches can reengage these researchers with the prospect of opening scholarly literature. Of course, it is always strategic to explain the benefits of OA in general, including increased readership and citations.

In other words, we need to be able to describe the beast, its implications, and its limitations—neither understating nor overstating its size and danger. By informing ourselves and our patrons, we not only counter confusion about OA journal publishing but also help starve predators and therefore contribute to the future of scholarly communication.

More broadly, librarians play an important role as participants in blacklisting, whitelisting, and other projects endeavoring to deter predatory publishers and promote best practices. We are key stakeholders in scholarly and professional conversations reimagining various aspects of scholarly communication.

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Predatory Publishing: Home

• Evaluating Predatory Journals
• Predatory vs. Legitimate
• Predatory Conferences
• Protecting Yourself
• Jeffrey Beall

Predatory Publishing Defined!

Until recently, there was no generally agreed-upon definition of predatory publishing. In April of 2019, a group of 43 participants from 10 countries met to create a definition of predatory publishing. Participants included publishing society members, research funders, policymakers, academic institutions, libraries, patients, and caregivers who engage in research.

"Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices."

Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., Cobey, K. D., Bryson, G. L., Cukier, S., Allen, K., ... & Ciro, J. B. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Science (576)7786. 210-212.

What is Predatory Publishing?

Predatory publishers use the open access publishing model for their own profit.

“Predatory” publishers solicit articles from faculty and researchers with the intention of exploiting authors who need to publish their research findings in order to meet promotion and tenure or grant funding requirements. These publishers collect extravagant fees from authors without providing the peer review services that legitimate journals provide prior to publishing papers.

Predatory publishers share common characteristics:

• Ultimate goal is to make money - not to publish scholarly research
• Use deception to appear legitimate
• Make false claims about services offered (peer review)
• Unethical business practices
• Exploit the need for academics to publish
• No concern for the quality of work published
• Do not follow accepted scholarly publishing best practices

How Predatory Publishing Works

Since the open access publishing model covers publishing costs by collecting fees from authors (rather than from readers or subscribers), predatory publishers pretend to operate legitimate open access journals and convince authors to submit manuscripts for publication with the promise of speedy peer-review. In most cases, no peer-review process actually exists. Some predatory publishers often target novice faculty members who face pressure to publish and are less familiar with traditional publishing business practices.

Predatory publishers may also promise low article processing fees. However, once an article is "published," the publisher will invoice the author a much larger price than originally quoted. Once an article is published, authors have very little recourse.

Common Tactics of Predatory Publishers

• Establishing an online presence with web pages filled with bogus journals.  On the surface, many of these websites appear to be legitimate. However, closer scrutiny reveals the articles to be plagiarized, completely fake, or promoting unsound science that would not have been published in more mainstream journals.
• Advertising a bogus impact factor  on their website and in emails to prospective authors. They can also list editors for their journals who either did not agree to be an editor or use fake names to populate the editorial board.
• Advertising expedited peer review  to get your article published quicker.
• Soliciting you to edit  a special theme issue in your area of research. They use this as a way to convince you to recruit your colleagues.
• Engaging in questionable business practices  such as charging exorbitant author publishing fees or failing to disclose the cost of publication fees to potential authors.  

Why Predatory Publishing is Harmful

When you decide to publish your article with a legitimate publisher, they will provide services such as peer-review, archiving, and discovery services that enable others to find your work easily, and copyright protection. Predatory journals do not provide such services.

The dangers of publishing in a predatory journal can include:

• establishes the validity of the research
• prevents falsified work from being accepted and published
• allows authors to revise and improve papers before publication

Predatory publishers often publish papers that have not gone through any peer-review process.

• ​ Your Work   Could Disappear:  Legitimate publishers are committed to preserving your published work. Predatory publishers are focused on making money, and do not care about preserving the articles they "publish." Papers published in predatory journals could disappear from the journal's website at any time. This makes it difficult to prove that your paper was ever published in a said journal when applying for promotion or tenure.
• Your Work Will be Difficult to Find:  Predatory publishers often claim to be indexed in popular databases such as Scopus, PubMed, or Web of Science when they are not indexed in these resources. Fortunately, it is easy to double-check this claim by doing a simple search for the journal in these databases. You can also check UlrichsWeb for indexing information.
• Harmful to Reputation : Publishing in a predatory journal can hurt your reputation and the reputation of your institution. Publishing in predatory journals can also be harmful to your career advancement.

Library Liaison

Predatory Publishing Check-Up Service

If you've been approached by a publisher as an author or editor and are concerned it may be predatory, email Ruth Bueter, Associate Director of Library Operations ( [email protected] ).

Priority is given to requests submitted by members of the GW community.

Use of this Guide

This guide is intended to provide information about predatory publishing and is intended as a guide only. Deciding where to publish is solely the responsibility of individual authors. 

Deceptive Publishing Article

• Deceptive Publishing Anderson, R. OSI Issue Briefs, March 2019.

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Predatory publishing practices: what researchers should know before submitting their manuscript

Predatory publishing is currently a critical problem for researchers, particularly with the continuous rise of online journals and the increasing challenge of distinguishing between journals that can be trusted and those which should be avoided. This article begins by providing an overview of predatory publishing, focusing specifically on its definition and impacts and the prevailing predatory practices current in scientific publications. Next, the article discusses how researchers can avoid publishing with predatory publishers. We recommend that researchers do not rely solely on watchlists, rather that they develop their own skills to enable them to detect predatory practices. Finally, the article provides some practical recommendations and resources for researchers to use to assess journals as publishing venues.

• scholarly publishing
• predatory publishing
• deceptive journals
• publishing ethics
• questionable publishers

Definition of predatory publishing

The term ‘predatory’ publishing was initially introduced by American librarian Jeffrey Beall, who created and maintained a free list of ‘potential, possible, or probable predatory publishers and journals’. 1 This list was widely used and discussed among research communities even though it received criticism for its subjective evaluation criteria and the damage caused to the reputation of open access (OA) publishing. People have long been misled into believing that predatory publishing is unique to OA journals, while predatory behaviours could be seen among traditional commercial publishers as well. 2 Predatory journals are also known as dubious, deceptive, or fake journals. However, concerns about academic fraud are not limited to predatory practice committed by publishers through predation on researchers but also include individual research misconduct engaged by a researcher or researchers which can take various forms, namely, falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. Recently, a rising threat posed by the activities of ‘paper mills’, where organizations offer scholarly papers, authorship or other deceptive academic products for sale, has worsened the situation. This article specifically concentrates on predatory publishers and journals. It contributes to the current literature on this topic by providing recommendations on how to self-detect predatory journals curated from the authors’ many years of practical experience in assessing the quality of OA journals. The recommendation also includes a list of available resources that researchers can use for selecting a journal for their research.

Efforts to define what constitutes predatory journals and publishers continue in academic articles and public discussions but, at the time of writing, there remains a lack of general agreement on these definitions by key stakeholders. This article will use an international consensus definition published in the journal Nature that helps to cover this gap. 3 Predatory journals and publishers are defined as ‘entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices’. 4 It is acknowledged that the dynamic nature of predatory behaviours has made it challenging to distinguish a predatory journal from a journal that is poorly resourced. 5 The relatively low costs of setting up electronic journals made possible by digital technologies has also increased the number of online journals, albeit with many of them lacking editorial rigour. Some journals judged to be suspicious may fail to comply with good editorial and publishing practices due to limited budget and resources and do not necessarily have the intent to deceive authors.

The impact of predatory publishing

Predatory publishing is a global threat, with every country experiencing it at different levels. A study identified the extent of predatory journals in the Brazilian journal ranking system using Beall’s list, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scimago Journal and Country Rank (SJR) and Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and indicated that while there was an exponential growth, it only represented a small proportion. 6 By contrast, in India predatory publishing has been widespread, 7 and the University Grants Commission-Consortium for Research and Academic Ethics, popularly known as UGC-CARE, list was launched in 2018 to combat this menace. 8 Earlier studies indicate that early career researchers from developing countries are assumed to be the largest contributors to predatory journals, 9 however, recent empirical evidence found that articles in such journals are authored by researchers from all levels of academic experience and not limited to early career researchers. 10

These predatory journals corrupt the scholarly record, posing a threat to the credibility and integrity of scientific research. They also tarnish the authority of researchers who may have publications in such journals and naively remain unaware of their ill-reputed practices. On the other hand, authors may be wilfully publishing in these illegitimate journals, especially in regions where research assessment is based on quantity rather than quality, because publishing in them is an easy way to get your research published quickly with little or no scrutiny. 11 Retractions from such journals are difficult, with authors and their institutions permanently linked to predatory publishers, damaging their future career prospects. 12 Predatory publishing also creates a dent in research funding, with resources and money being wasted on research outputs that bear no value to science or society. According to one study, 60% of articles published in predatory journals receive no citations over the five-year period following publication, compared to only 9% in journals listed in the Scopus index. 13 On the contrary ‘junk’ science may be cited by other studies, generating information that is misleading and harmful in some cases. Avidan and Shapiro found an article published in a medical journal that references a study including fabricated research data. 14 The implications of such research built on fraudulent publications are huge.

Predatory outfits have been quick to reinvent themselves to evade detection. A gloomy consequence is the recent emergence of academic paper mills practising large scale fraud with sophisticated techniques to manipulate the content of the article. 15

A list of prevailing predatory practices in scholarly publishing

In the past, predatory journals could be identified by obvious cues such as poor language, badly designed websites, exaggerated claims of their indexing status and the prominent display of their ‘citation metrics’ either fabricated or presented with an intent to mislead authors. A popular strategy is to portray a journal as an international title and/or with a multidisciplinary scope promising quick review and publication in the hope of luring authors under pressure to publish in an international journal. Of course, more evidence about article quality, the legitimacy of the editorial board, reputation and transparency of the publisher and review process is required before labelling a publisher as predatory.

To avoid confusing a predatory journal with a legitimate journal, researchers must gain sufficient awareness of these predatory practices, and practise diligence before submitting their research for publication. Some of these known predatory publishing practices are listed below:

• Retconning Recognized predatory publishers rebrand themselves and offer the same titles under a different name. For example, OMICS, a predatory publisher and conference organizer, has other publishing brands like Hilaris, ImedPub and Longdom. 16
• Publishing bootlegged articles These publishers republish or plagiarize articles from legitimate journals and pass them off as original work. This also includes fabricating archives by copying articles and changing the dates to make them look as though they were published earlier. 17
• Hijacked journals These are duplicate websites or illegal ‘clones’ of a legitimate journal, including print journals, with the purpose of misleading authors to believe they are the authentic journal and collect author charges. 18
• Questionable conferences Many journals, especially those that conceal their business models, run sham conferences. Authors are lured to present at conferences held in international destinations and conference fees are collected in exchange for promised publication of their presentation. Conference organizers and committee members may often be found on the journal’s editorial board, implying little or no peer review due to the conflict of interest. 19
• Selling authorship These publishers not only sell articles that may have been already accepted but also offer co-authorship to these articles. Authors are promised publication in legitimate journals cited in coveted indexes. 20

How can researchers avoid predatory publishing venues?

When it comes to detecting predatory publishing, the first response from researchers may be to choose a watchlist where they can find quick and easy answers. The purpose of designing a watchlist or similar is to register deceptive and dubious publishers and journals, however, this remains a controversial activity which continues to receive some criticisms such as lack of reliability and transparency on the common scientific criteria used to determine predatory journals as well as vulnerability of such a list to personal bias. 21 In fact, there is no single watchlist that can guarantee identification of all the existing journals.

Due to these limitations, it is of critical importance for researchers to go beyond checking watchlists and to develop their own skills to self-detect predatory practices, such as those championed by the Think. Check. Submit initiative. 22 Researchers are also encouraged to acquaint themselves with trusted resources, such as the DOAJ, a global index of fully OA scholarly journals across all disciplines and languages that is freely accessible to everyone. It receives and reviews an average of 800 applications from OA journals every month and in 2022 only 26% of the journals that applied were accepted into the index. The DOAJ is committed to combating predatory publishing practices and engages an expert team of reviewers to keep the index free from predatory publishers, helping to protect researchers from becoming trapped by such publishers. 23 These rigorous standards have made the DOAJ a reliable, de facto source of quality OA journals for not just the scientific community but for anyone wishing to access credible information. In fact, listing journals in the DOAJ makes them compliant with funder initiatives such as Plan S 24 in Europe and the electronic journal collection in Latin America, SciELo-Chile. 25

So far, many frameworks are available to detect predatory journals. A systematic review by Cukier et al. identified a large number of checklists published in the past eight years but stressed that very few are evidence-based. 26 With little or no empirical evidence, the usefulness of some checklists can be questioned, and they may not provide a definite answer if the journal is predatory.

Table 1 presents some practical recommendations derived from the authors’ professional experience in evaluating OA journals and publishers, which can serve as a reference point for researchers when they choose a journal to submit their manuscript to. To prevent predatory publishers from using these recommendations to evade detection, the authors have refrained from a full discussion.

Recommendations

Other resources available to researchers

This section will summarize an additional list of resources available to further assist researchers in making the best decision for their research. Some could also be used by librarians when they make a recommendation to researchers on how to select the right journal.

The university or research institute specific guidelines or checklists

Many university libraries and librarians offer their researchers guidelines or a checklist for reference to help them understand and identify predatory publishers, for example, the Be iNFORMEd checklist from Duke University’s medical centre library 27 to assess the quality of a journal and the listing of Open Access Journal Quality Indicators developed by two librarians from the Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Libraries 28 to evaluate open access publications.

Tools from other industry organizations

• The DOAJ 29 maintains a list of journals that falsely claim to be in the DOAJ
• Retraction Watch 30 provides an updated list of hijacked journals
• Think. Check. Submit 31 is a tool for researchers to identify presumed legitimate publications
• Think. Check. Attend 32 is a tool that guides researchers to choose whether an academic conference can be trusted to attend and submit their abstracts to
• Latindex 33 a regional indexing database in Latin America, creates guidelines for local researchers to avoid publications in predatory journals
• B!SON 34 is a journal recommender tool using DOAJ metadata to give researchers a list of suitable OA journals for their publication based on thematic relevance.

Other reading materials

• The 2022 version of COPE’s Committee on Publication Ethics’ principles of transparency and best practices that elaborates the best publishing and editing standards for scholarly publishers and editors to conform to 35
• The latest report from the Interacademy Partnership (IAP) on combating predatory academic journals and conferences available in seven languages 36
• An e-book titled The Predator Effect: Understanding the Past, Present and Future of Deceptive Academic Journals authored by Simon Linacre 37
• COPE’s discussion document on predatory publishing covering introduction to and potential solutions to counter this issue. 38

Abbreviations and Acronyms

A list of the abbreviations and acronyms used in this and other Insight s articles can be accessed here – click on the URL below and then select the ‘full list of industry A&As’ link: http://www.uksg.org/publications#aa .

Competing interests

The authors have declared no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

11 October 2023. This article was updated to correct the authors’ affiliations.

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“Home,” Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (UGC-Care), University Grants Commission, https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/apps1/home/index (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Jingfeng Xia et al., “WHO Publishes in ‘Predatory’ Journals?” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 66, no. 7 (2014): 1406–17, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23265 (accessed 24 August 2023); W.E. Nwagwu, “Open Access in the Developing Regions: Situating the Altercations About Predatory Publishing / L’accès libre dans les régions en voie de développement : Situation de la controverse concernant les pratiques d’édition déloyales,” Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 40, no. 1 (2016): 58–80, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/611577 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Sefika Mertkan, Gulen Onurkan Aliusta, and Nilgun Suphi, “Profile of Authors Publishing in ‘Predatory’ Journals and Causal Factors behind Their Decision: A Systematic Review,” Research Evaluation 30, no. 4 (2021) 470–483, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvab032 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Nicole Shu Ling Yeo-Teh and Bor Luen Tang, “Wilfully Submitting to and Publishing in Predatory Journals - a Covert Form of Research Misconduct?,” Biochemia medica 31, no. 3 (2021): 395–402, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11613/bm.2021.030201 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Ricardo Jorge Dinis-Oliveira, “Predatory Journals and Meetings in Forensic Sciences: What Every Expert Needs to Know about This ‘Parasitic’ Publishing Model,” Forensic Sciences Research 6, no. 4 (2021): 303–9, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/20961790.2021.1989548 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Bo-Christer Björk, Sari Kanto-Karvonen, and J. Tuomas Harviainen. “How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited,” ArXiv , (2019), https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1912/1912.10228.pdf (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Alexander Avidan, and Joel Shapiro, “Citation of Studies by Research Fraudsters in Medical Journals,” British Journal of Anaesthesia 130, no. 3 (2023), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2022.11.022 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Anna Abalkina and Dorothy V. M. Bishop, “Paper Mills: A Novel Form of Publishing Malpractice Affecting Psychology,” PsyArXiv Preprints , (September 5, 2022), DOI: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2yf8z (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Kyle Siler et al., “Predatory Publishers’ Latest Scam: Bootlegged and Rebranded Papers,” Nature 598, no. 7882 (2021): 563–65, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02906-8 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Siler et al., “Predatory Publishers’ Latest Scam.”  

Varun G. Menon, “Hijacked Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them,” Clarivate (blog) , July 20, 2021, https://clarivate.com/blog/hijacked-journals-what-they-are-and-how-to-avoid-them/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Choosing the right conference to attend and present your research.” Think. Check. Attend., May 16, 2022, https://thinkcheckattend.org/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Holly Else, “Multimillion-Dollar Trade in Paper Authorships Alarms Publishers,” Nature 613, no. 7945 (2023): 617–18, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00062-9 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Cameron Neylon, “Blacklists Are Technically Infeasible, Practically Unreliable and predatory. Period,” Web log , January 29, 2017, https://cameronneylon.net/blog/blacklists-are-technically-infeasible-practically-unreliable-and-unethical-period/ (accessed 31 August 2023); Christophe Dony et al., “How Reliable and Useful Is Cabell’s Blacklist? A Data-Driven Analysis” LIBER Quarterly 30, no. 1 (2020): 1–20, DOI: https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10339 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Identify Trusted Publishers for Your Research, Think. Check. Submit,” Think. Check. Submit, May 16, 2022, https://thinkchecksubmit.org/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Why Index Your Journal in DOAJ?,” Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), https://doaj.org/apply/why-index/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Technical Guidance and Requirements,” Plan S, European Science Foundation, https://www.coalition-s.org/technical-guidance_and_requirements/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Postulación Scielo-Chile,” Documento sin título. SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online, https://www.scielo.cl/sr_scielocl/postulacion/PostulacionSciELO-Chile.html (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Samantha Cukier et al., “Checklists to Detect Potential Predatory Biomedical Journals: A Systematic Review,” BMC Medicine 18, no. 1 (2020), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01566-1 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Be INFORMEd!” Duke University Medical Centre Library, https://kansascity.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=55623651 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Open Access Journal Quality Indicators,” GVSU Libraries: Scholarly Communications, Grand Valley State University, https://www.gvsu.edu/library/sc/open-access-journal-quality-indicators-5.htm (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Journals and Publishers That Falsely Claim They Are Indexed in DOAJ,” Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y_Sza4rPDkf-NNX9kwiErGrKeNTM75md9B63A_gVpaQ/edit#gid=0 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker,” Web log, Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-hijacked-journal-checker/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Think.Check.Submit, “Identify Trusted Publishers for Your Research.”  

Think.Check.Attend, “Choosing the Right Conference.”  

Teresa Abejon Peña et al., “Identification and Treatment of Spurious Journals in Latindex, Guide for Editors,” Zenodo , 2020, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5586863 (accessed 31 August 2023).  

“How it works,” B!SON, https://service.tib.eu/bison/how (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing,” COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics, https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences (Full Report in English), (The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), March 2022), https://www.interacademies.org/publication/predatory-practices-report-English (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Simon Linacre, The Predator Effect: Understanding the Past, Present and Future of Deceptive Academic Journals , (Ann Arbor, MI: Against the Grain (Media), LLC, 2022), DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12739277 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Predatory Publishing,” COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics, https://publicationethics.org/predatory-publishing-discussion-document (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Central and eastern Europe bites back at predatory publishers

The communist legacy leaves researchers exposed to fee-charging publishers who don’t do peer review or editing. But a fightback is underway

Photo: Selena N. B. H / Flickr

“After a more than modest career, some researchers started to publish a very high number of articles, in some cases more than 100 research articles per year, which means one article every three days,”said Romania’s top research association, Ad Astra, in March, as it signalled that a troubling culture of publication fraud is taking root.

Researchers in Romania have been struggling for a while with the rise of predatory publishing, in which charges per paper are levied by rogue publishers who do not conduct quality control, peer review, or do any editing. But now, there is a push back against what has become a growing phenomenon in the world of academic publishing.

This spring, the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj, announced new open science strategy, with the aim of both making research accessible and of ensuring its integrity. Radu Silaghi-Dumitrescu, president of the scientific council, said the university’s approach is rooted in the Diamond Access Publishing model, under which neither authors nor readers pay for access, but rather publishers are recompensed by public or charitable bodies.

The battle against predatory publishing started some two years ago, when research evaluation criteria published by the university excluded publications found on Beall’s list — an informal catalogue of predatory open access publishers, and of any article published by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, an open access publisher viewed by many to be predatory.

In Poland, the fightback against predatory publishing has been based on changes to the research evaluation system. Emanuel Kulczycki, head of the Scholarly Communication Research group at Adam Mickiewicz University, said there has been a shift from quantity-focused metrics to a more qualitative approach, encouraging researchers to publish fewer but higher-quality papers.

“The aim is to show researchers it's good to publish less,” Kulczcki said. This shift is crucial because the pressure to have a long list of published papers drives researchers towards predatory journals.

The Czech Republic presents another interesting case, where the notorious "Kafemlejnek" or "coffee grinder" system of counting research outputs when allocating funding, has been replaced by a more nuanced evaluation method, Methodology 2017+. This prioritises expert reviews over quantity of published papers, to encourage genuine research quality and impact.

In parallel, an international project that the Czech Republic is involved in, the Stop Predatory Practices initiative, is aiming to educate the academic community about the dangers of predatory publishing, offering training and workshops.

Soviet roots

Predatory publishing is an issue across Europe, but is more of a problem in central and eastern European countries. “When I investigate or observe the situation in Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, I see totally different patterns than in Belgium, France, Spain or the UK,” says Kulczycki, who is the author of a book tracing the roots of current evaluation systems in the east to their Russian origin.

Researchers are exposed to predatory publishers in cases where quantitative metrics are used in evaluating research, which is a holdover from the Soviet era. There is particular pressure to publish internationally, another perceived attraction of predatory publishers.

In the Czech Republic the scar left by the soviet heritage is still evident in social sciences, as seen in a study co-authored by Vít Macháček, a former academic. “There were virtually no social sciences during the soviet era, so after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we needed to immediately compete, starting from very low levels of quality with the west.” That left social sciences particularly susceptible to predatory publishing, with up to 80% of the research output in this domain being published in either predatory journals or local journals. This is both a result of the coffee-grinder evaluation of research and the drive for rapid catch up post-communism.

Traditional metrics

There are efforts to combat predatory publishing across Europe. The European Commission’s initiative to reform research assessment emphasises qualitative judgments and responsible use of quantitative indicators. This agreement, endorsed by over 350 organisations, aims to move beyond traditional metrics like publication counts and citations.

Science Europe, which represents major public organisations that fund or perform research in Europe, is also pushing for open access. Some of its best practices now include examples from Poland, where the national funding agency has developed an interactive webpage with clear guidance and checklists on its application and evaluation processes. Similarly, Croatia, is building international partnerships to expand its pool of reviewers, to combat quality issues and reviewer fatigue.

The fight against predatory publishing is complicated by the difficulty of defining it. A comment published in Nature in 2019 told the story of a summit that took 12 hours of discussions and three rounds of voting to decide on a broad definition that encompasses the characteristics of misleading information, lack of transparency, and poor editorial practices. But even this definition is not clear enough to be able to handle all cases.

On top of the problem of definition, the war against predatory publishing has become more complicated because these publishers have morphed from small, local publishers, with no scientific credentials, to larger, global companies, Kulczycki notes. “When I had responsibility at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland for designing a national ranking of journals for evaluation purposes, it was easy to communicate  […] not [to] publish in small publishers who are predatory. But it was impossible to communicate [where] we should stop publishing internationally.”

To complicate things further, not all attempts to push back against predatory publishing are motivated by the right reasons. Silaghi-Dumitrescu pointed to a troubling trend in Romania, where some influential individuals, who have built their careers on hollow titles, are pushing for very strict evaluations. “The old generation, who managed to take advantage of the system, now feels threatened by those who have published a lot, including in predatory journals,” Silaghi-Dumitrescu said.

As disparate initiatives pop up in various central and eastern European countries, the answer seems to lie not in the fighting predatory journals, but in reducing the pressure on researchers by valuing quality over quantity. “After ten years of research and also science policy, I think that the only way is a systemic change by reducing the publication pressure,” Kulczycki said.

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Predatory Publishers

• Intro to Predatory Publishers
• Detecting a Predatory Publisher
• Step by Step Evaluation

Frequently Asked Questions

What is predatory publishing?

Publishers and journals categorized as "predatory" are uninterested in sharing properly cited and reviewed work or respecting the rights of authors; they are interested solely in profit and often ask authors to pay huge publishing or presenting fees. Some predatory journals claim to be legitimately Open Access, which results in scholars sometimes conflating OA with predatory practices. 

Predatory journals are the product of predatory publishers, institutions that are unethical in their publishing practices by not following proper academic and ethical standards for the publication of scholarly work. This includes lack of proper peer review, proper citation, and the charging of exorbitant fees for publications that will never be reviewed or published in the way that the publisher proposes. 

How can I determine if a journal is considered predatory?

What is so bad about predatory publishing.

Without proper standards, reputable publishing is impossible to enforce. Predatory publishers flood sites with unedited and unchecked data, upon which other writers, assuming that the work has already been properly cited and proofread, can build layers of misguided analysis.

These publishers could disappear overnight, often because of lawsuits, abruptly ending links to their "publications."

Attaining a publication in a predatory journal and then being discovered by a prospective employer is often more damaging than having little to no published research, and might compromise one's future opportunities to publish.

Articles accepted by predatory publishers are considered to be “previously published,” and as such, legitimate publishers may not be able to accept them for publication in one of their journals.

Predatory journals are generally ignored or not indexed into academic databases, decreasing readership and impact.

Are all open access journals considered predatory?

No. There are many respectable open access journals that are not considered predatory. Regardless of whether the journal is subscription-based or open access, authors should research the journal in which they hope to publish.

Is it typical for a legimate journal to contact me and request I submit an article?

It is a red flag if a publisher or journal editor approaches you to publish in their journal. Typically, the opposite occurs and the researcher pursues the journal. Spam-like email or web pages with marketing-heavy content are also signals that the journal may be predatory. Thoroughly evaluate the journal before submitting your article. When in doubt, please contact the IU Libraries Scholarly Communication Department.

If an open access publisher or journal asks me to pay, are they predatory?

Not always. When your article is published in an open access journal, you will likely be required to pay an article processing charge or APC. The issues with payments arise when journals lie to you about their fees during the publication process or neglect to mention any fee (or a lack of one) on their website.

Why do I sometimes have to pay the publisher to get an article published in open access?

Open access journal content is “free” to the reader, but since open access publication does not charge users, some open access journals require a fee for publishing services and maintenance of their publication.

Are predatory journals limited to a few disciplines?

Unfortunately, predatory journals are present in every discipline.

​   box inspired by James C. Kirkpatrick Library @ University of Central Missouri  

Open Access and Predatory Publishing

Open Access works to allow increased accessibility to scholarly publications, while still respecting the rights and wishes of respective authors. 

Thanks to a policy passed by Indiana University Bloomington in February 2017, our scholars are encouraged to publish their work openly. For more specific details about IU Open Access Policy, publication rights and concerns, and general questions, check out our  Open Access Guide .  

• Next: Detecting a Predatory Publisher >>
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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 16 March 2017

Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison

• Larissa Shamseer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3690-3378 1 , 2 ,
• David Moher 1 , 2 ,
• Onyi Maduekwe 3 ,
• Lucy Turner 4 ,
• Virginia Barbour 5 ,
• Rebecca Burch 6 ,
• Jocalyn Clark 7 ,
• James Galipeau 1 ,
• Jason Roberts 8 &
• Beverley J. Shea 9  

BMC Medicine volume  15 , Article number:  28 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

68k Accesses

227 Citations

592 Altmetric

Metrics details

The Internet has transformed scholarly publishing, most notably, by the introduction of open access publishing. Recently, there has been a rise of online journals characterized as ‘predatory’, which actively solicit manuscripts and charge publications fees without providing robust peer review and editorial services. We carried out a cross-sectional comparison of characteristics of potential predatory, legitimate open access, and legitimate subscription-based biomedical journals.

On July 10, 2014, scholarly journals from each of the following groups were identified – potential predatory journals (source: Beall’s List), presumed legitimate, fully open access journals (source: PubMed Central), and presumed legitimate subscription-based (including hybrid) journals (source: Abridged Index Medicus). MEDLINE journal inclusion criteria were used to screen and identify biomedical journals from within the potential predatory journals group. One hundred journals from each group were randomly selected. Journal characteristics (e.g., website integrity, look and feel, editors and staff, editorial/peer review process, instructions to authors, publication model, copyright and licensing, journal location, and contact) were collected by one assessor and verified by a second. Summary statistics were calculated.

Ninety-three predatory journals, 99 open access, and 100 subscription-based journals were analyzed; exclusions were due to website unavailability. Many more predatory journals’ homepages contained spelling errors (61/93, 66%) and distorted or potentially unauthorized images (59/93, 63%) compared to open access journals (6/99, 6% and 5/99, 5%, respectively) and subscription-based journals (3/100, 3% and 1/100, 1%, respectively). Thirty-one (33%) predatory journals promoted a bogus impact metric – the Index Copernicus Value – versus three (3%) open access journals and no subscription-based journals. Nearly three quarters ( n  = 66, 73%) of predatory journals had editors or editorial board members whose affiliation with the journal was unverified versus two (2%) open access journals and one (1%) subscription-based journal in which this was the case. Predatory journals charge a considerably smaller publication fee (median $100 USD, IQR $63–$150) than open access journals ($1865 USD, IQR $800–$2205) and subscription-based hybrid journals ($3000 USD, IQR $2500–$3000).

Conclusions

We identified 13 evidence-based characteristics by which predatory journals may potentially be distinguished from presumed legitimate journals. These may be useful for authors who are assessing journals for possible submission or for others, such as universities evaluating candidates’ publications as part of the hiring process.

Peer Review reports

The Internet has transformed scholarly publishing. It has allowed for the digitalization of content and subsequent online experimentation by publishers, enabling print journals to host content online, and set the course for online open-access publishing. Nevertheless, an unwelcome consequence of the Internet age of publishing has been the rise of so-called predatory publishing.

In the traditional subscription model of publishing, journals typically require transfer of copyright from authors for articles they publish and their primary revenue stream is through fees charged to readers to access journal content, typically subscription fees or pay-per-article charges. Open access publishing, in contrast, typically allows for authors to retain copyright, and is combined with a license (often from Creative Commons), which enables free and immediate access to published content coupled with rights of reuse [ 1 ]. Some open access journals [ 2 ] and many hybrid journals (i.e., those with some open access content and also with non-open access content) [ 3 ] use a business model that relies upon publication charges (often called article publication or processing charges, or APC) to the author or funder of the research to permit immediate and free access.

Predatory publishing is a relatively recent phenomenon that seems to be exploiting some key features of the open access publishing model. It is sustained by collecting APCs that are far less than those found in presumably legitimate open access journals and which are not always apparent to authors prior to article submission. Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver, first sounded the alarm about ‘predatory journals’ and coined the term. He initiated and maintains a listing of journals and publishers that he deems to be potentially, possibly, or probably predatory, called Beall’s List [ 4 ] (content unavailable at the time of publishing). Their status is determined by a single person (Jeffrey Beall), against a set of evolving criteria (in its 3rd edition at the time of writing) that Beall has based largely on The Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct for Journal Editors and membership criteria of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher’s Association [ 5 – 7 ]. Others have suggested similar criteria for defining predatory journals [ 8 , 9 ].

The phenomenon of predatory publishing is growing and opinions on its effects are divided. Critics say that it is extremely damaging to the scientific record and must be stopped [ 10 , 11 ]. Others feel that, while problematic, predatory publishing is a transient state in publishing and will disappear or become obvious over time [ 12 ]. A fundamental problem of predatory journals seems to be that they collect an APC from authors without offering concomitant scholarly peer review (although many claim to [ 13 ]) that is typical of legitimate journals [ 14 ]. Additionally, they do not appear to provide typical publishing services such as quality control, licensing, indexing, and perpetual content preservation and may not even be fully open access. They tend to solicit manuscripts from authors through repeated email invitations (i.e., spam) boasting open access, rapid peer review, and praising potential authors as experts or opinion leaders [ 13 ]. These invitations may seem attractive or an easy solution to inexperienced or early career researchers who need to publish in order to advance their career, or to those desperate to get a publication accepted after a number of rejections, or to those simply not paying attention. Predatory journals may also be a particular problem in emerging markets of scientific research, where researchers face the same pressure to publish, but lack the skills and awareness to discern legitimate journals from predatory ones.

Still, many researchers and potential authors are not aware of the problem of predatory journals and may not be able to detect a predatory journal or distinguish one from a legitimate journal. In order to assist readers, potential authors, and others in discerning legitimate journals from predatory journals, it would be useful to compare characteristics from both predatory and non-predatory journals to see how they differ.

In this study, we undertook a cross-sectional study comparing the characteristics of three types of biomedical journals, namely (1) potential predatory journals, (2) presumed legitimate, fully open access journals, and (3) presumed legitimate subscription-based biomedical journals that may have open access content (e.g., hybrid).

This was a cross-sectional study.

Journal identification and selection

We searched for journals on July 10, 2014. For feasibility, only journals with English-language websites were considered for inclusion and we set out to randomly select 100 journals within each comparison group. The following selection procedures were used to identify journals within each comparison group:

Potential predatory journals (‘Predatory’): We considered all journals named on Beall’s List of single publishers for potential inclusion. We applied the MEDLINE Journal Selection criteria [ 15 ]: “[Journals] predominantly devoted to reporting original investigations in the biomedical and health sciences, including research in the basic sciences; clinical trials of therapeutic agents; effectiveness of diagnostic or therapeutic techniques; or studies relating to the behavioural, epidemiological, or educational aspects of medicine. ” Three independent assessors (OM, DM, LS) carried out screening in duplicate. From the identified biomedical journals, a computer-generated random sample of 100 journals was selected for inclusion. Journals that were excluded during data extraction were not replaced.

Presumed legitimate fully open-access journals (‘Open Access’): A computer-generated, random sample of 95 journals from those listed on PubMed Central as being full, immediate open access, were included. In addition, five well-established open access journals were purposefully included: PLOS Medicine , PLOS One , PLOS Biology , BMC Medicine , and BMC Biology .

Presumed legitimate subscription-based journals (‘Subscription-based’): A computer-generated, random sample of 100 journals from those listed in the Abridged Index Medicus (AIM) was included. AIM was initiated in 1970 containing a selection of articles from 100 (now 119) English-language journals, as a source of relevant literature for practicing clinicians [ 16 ]. AIM was used here since all journals in this group were initiated prior to the digital era and presumed to have a maintained a partially or fully subscription-based publishing model [confirmed by us].

For all journals, their names and URLs were automatically obtained during the journal selection process and collected in Microsoft Excel. Screening and data extraction were carried out in the online study management software, Distiller SR (Evidence Partners, Ottawa, Canada). Journals with non-functioning websites at the time of data extraction or verification were excluded and not replaced.

Data extraction process

Data were extracted by a single assessor (OM) between October 2014 and February 2015. An independent audit (done by LS) of a random 10% of the sample showed discrepancies in 34/56 items (61%) on at least one occasion. As such, we proceeded to verify the entire sample by a second assessor. Verification was carried out in April 2015 by one of eight assessors (RB, JC, JG, DM, JR, LS, BJS, LT) with experience and expertise on various aspects of biomedical publishing process. Any disagreements that arose during the verification process were resolved by third party arbitration (by LS or LT). It was not possible to fully blind assessors to study groups due to involvement in the journal selection process (OM, DM, LS).

Data extraction items

Items for which data were extracted were based on a combination of items from Beall’s criteria (version 2, December 2012) for determining predatory open-access publishers [ 6 ], the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers ( http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct ), and the OASPA Membership criteria ( http://oaspa.org/membership/membership-criteria/ ). Data for 56 items were extracted in the following nine categories: aims and scope, journal name and publisher, homepage integrity (look and feel), indexing and impact factor, editors and staff, editorial process and peer review, publication ethics and policies, publication model and copyright, and journal location and contact.

Data analysis

Data were descriptively summarized within each arm. Continuous data were summarized by medians and interquartile range (IQR); dichotomous data were summarized using proportions.

Ninety-three potential predatory journals, 99 open access journals, and 100 subscription-based journals were included in the analysis. The process of journal identification, inclusion, and exclusions within each study group is outlined in Fig.  1 ; 397 journals were identified as potential predatory journals. After de-duplication and screening for journals publishing biomedical content, 156 journals were identified, from which a random sample of 100 were chosen. Seven journals from the predatory group and one from the legitimate open access group were excluded during data extraction due to non-functional websites. No journal appeared in more than one study group.

Flow diagram of journal identification, selection, and inclusion in each study group. a Potential predatory journals identified from Beall’s list. b Presumed legitimate fully open access journals identified from PubMed Central including five purposely selected journals: PLOS Medicine , PLOS One , PLOS Biology , BMC Medicine , and BMC Biology . c Subscription-based journals identified from AIM

There were four unanticipated journal exclusions during data extraction in the presumed legitimate open access and subscription-based groups for which randomly selected replacement journals were used. One journal was listed twice in the open access group and was deemed to be a magazine rather than a scientific journal. Two journals in the subscription-based journal group were deemed to be a magazine and a newsletter, respectively. The decision to exclude and replace these was made post-hoc, by agreement between LS and DM.

Our main findings of journal characteristics for each data extraction category are summarized in Tables  1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 and 9 .

Homepage and general characteristics

About half of the predatory journals in our sample indicated interest in publishing non-biomedical topics (e.g., agriculture, geography, astronomy, nuclear physics) alongside biomedical topics in the stated scope of the journal and seemed to publish on a larger number of topics than non-predatory journals (Table  1 ). Predatory journals included pharmacology and toxicology ( n  = 59) in the scope of their journal four and a half times more often than open access journals ( n  = 13) and almost 30 times more than subscription-based journals ( n  = 2).

When we examined the similarity of the journal name to other existing journals (e.g., one or two words different on the first page of Google search results), we found that over half of predatory journals ( n  = 51, 55.84%) had names that were similar to an existing journal compared to only 17 open access journals (17.17%) and 22 subscription-based journals (22.00%) (Table  2 ). In all study groups, the journal name was well reflected in the website URL. For journals that named a country in the journal title, some journals named a different country in the journal contact information (11/21 (52.38%) predatory; 4/13 (30.77%) open access; 1/31 (3.23%) subscription-based) (Table  3 ). There was a high prevalence of predatory journals from low or low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) (48/64, 75.00%) compared to open access journals (18/92, 19.56%); none of the subscription-based journals listed LMIC addresses.

We assessed the integrity of the homepage by examining the content for errors (Table  4 ). Spelling and grammatical errors were more prevalent in predatory journals ( n  = 61, 65.59%) compared to in open access ( n  = 6, 6.06%) and subscription-based journals ( n  = 3, 3.00%). In addition, we found a higher frequency of distorted or potentially unauthorized image use (e.g., company logos such as Google, MEDLINE, COPE, Crossref) in predatory journals (n = 59, 63.44%) versus in open access ( n  = 5, 5.05%) and subscription-based journals ( n  = 1, 1%). Readers were the main target of language used on subscription-based journal webpages ( n  = 58, 58%) but less so in open access ( n  = 14, 14.14%) and predatory ( n  = 3, 3.23%) journals, where authors (predatory journals) or both authors and readers (open access journals) were the primary target.

Metrics and indexing

Most subscription-based journals indicated having a journal impact factor (assumed 2-year Thomson Reuters JIF unless otherwise indicated) ( n  = 80, median 4.275 (IQR 2.469–6.239)) compared to less than half of open access journals ( n  = 38, 1.750 (1.330–2.853)) and fewer predatory journals ( n  = 21, 2.958 (0.500–3.742)) (Table  5 ). More than half of predatory journals ( n  = 54, 58.06%) and subscription-based journals ( n  = 62, 62%) mentioned another journal-level metric, compared to only 16 (16.16%) open access journals. A metric called the Index Copernicus Value was the most common other metric mentioned in 31 predatory journals (33.33%) and in three open access journals (3.03%), followed by the 5-year impact factor (Thomson Reuters) mentioned in two open access journals (2.02%) and 27 subscription-based journals (27.00%), followed by the Scientific Journal Rankings (i.e., SCImago Journal Rank by Scopus) mentioned in seven predatory, six open access, and eight subscription-based journals. The top databases in which journals indicated being indexed were Google Scholar for predatory journals ( n  = 47, 50.54%), PubMed for open access journals ( n  = 85, 85.86%), and MEDLINE for subscription-based journals ( n  = 39, 39%). About half of predatory journals ( n  = 48, 51.61%) and 65 (65.65%) open access journals mention DOAJ (indexed in or applied for indexing). International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) was mentioned in some capacity in 16 predatory journals and about three quarters of non-predatory journals.

Editors and editorial process

Nearly a quarter ( n  = 22, 23.66%) of predatory journals, 17 (17.17%) open access journals, and 9 (9%) subscription-based journals did not name an editor-in-chief (EIC) (Table  6 ). Of those that did, 40 (56.33%) predatory, 71 (86.59%) open access, and 57 (62.64%) subscription-based journals provided an institutional affiliation for the named EIC. An editorial board listing individual members was provided in 60 (64.52%) predatory journals, 92 (92.93%) open access journals, and 72 (72%) subscription-based journals, each comprising a median of 23 (IQR 14–37), 32.5 (22–50), and 27.5 (16.5–62) board members, respectively. If editors, journal staff, or editorial board members were identified, we completed a subjective assessment of the validity of three arbitrary names and the likelihood of their association with the journal by performing a Google search of their name (in quotations) and searching any online profiles for affiliation with the journal. Details of this assessment can be found in Table  6 . For journals with names of editors, staff, or board members available, 100% of names checked in subscription-based journals were found to be legitimate as well as in 95/98 (96.94%) open access journals. Only 24/90 (26.67%) named editors, staff, or board members were assessed as having a legitimate association with the journal among predatory journals. Almost 100% of non-predatory journals appear to use a manuscript submission system, whereas just over half of predatory journals use such a system; almost 70% of predatory journals request that authors send their manuscripts by email and 63% of those journals provide what appears to be a non-professional (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo) email address to do so. Almost all journals (95% predatory journals, 100% open access journals, 92% of subscription-based journals) indicate using peer review during publication consideration (Table  7 ).

Publication ethics and policies

We examined journals’ promotion and practices around publications ethics (Table  8 ). About three quarters ( n  = 77, 77.78%) of open access journals and about a third ( n  = 33, 33.00%) of subscription-based journals mentioned COPE somewhere on their website whereas only 13 predatory journals (13.98%) did. Few predatory journals had policies about retractions ( n  = 12, 12.90%), corrections/errata ( n  = 22, 23.66%), or plagiarism ( n  = 44, 47.31%) whereas more than half of all non-predatory journals had available policies for all three (retractions: n  = 112, 56.28%; corrections/errata: n  = 100, 50.25%; plagiarism: n  = 199, 59.80%). Sixty-two subscription-based (62%), 56 open access (56.57%), and only 6 predatory (6.45%) journals suggested, recommended or required study registration. No predatory journals mentioned the Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of health Research (EQUATOR) Network, whereas about a quarter (49/195) of presumed legitimate journals did so.

Publication model, fees, and copyright

We assessed whether journals made any indication about accessibility, fees, and copyright (Table  9 ). Forty-two (42.00%) subscription-based journals indicated being partially open access in some capacity (e.g., hybrid or delayed access), with the remainder not mentioning open access. Almost all ( n  = 95, 95.00%) subscription-based journals indicated that there was a subscription charge. Eighty-three potential predatory (89.25%) and 94 open access (94.95%) journals claimed to be open access (presumed to be full, immediate open access as no qualification regarding partial or delayed access was stated). For the five (5.05%) open access journals that did not specifically indicate being open access, all had content that was free to access (we did not investigate this further). Subscription-based journals and open access journals seemed to collect revenue from a range of sources (Table  9 ), while predatory journals appeared to mainly collect revenues from APCs ( n  = 73, 78.49%) and to a lesser extent, subscription fees ( n  = 13, 13.98); in 14 predatory journals (15.05%), no sources of revenue (including an APC) could be found. Of journals listing an APC, the median fee (USD) was $100 ($63–$150) in predatory journals ( n  = 59), $1866 ($800–$2205) in open access journals ( n  = 70), and $3000 ($2500–$3000) in subscription-based hybrid journals ( n  = 44). Almost 90% of all journals indicated which party retained copyright of published work. Explicit statements that authors retained copyright were present in 68.09% ( n  = 64) of open access journals, 36.78% ( n 2 = 32) of the time in subscription-based journals, and in only 12% ( n  = 9) of predatory journals.

This study demonstrates that our sample of potential predatory journals is distinct in some key areas from presumed legitimate journals and provides evidence of how they differ. While criteria have been proposed previously to characterize potential predatory journals [ 7 ], measuring each journal against a long list of criteria is not practical for the average researcher. It can be time consuming and some criteria are not straightforward to apply, as we have learned during this study. For instance, whether or not the listed editors of a journal are real people or have real affiliations with a journal is quite subjective to assess. Another example pertains to preservation and permanent access to electronic journal content. We found that not all presumed legitimate journals made explicit statements about this; however, we know that in order to be indexed in MEDLINE, a journal must “ Have an acceptable arrangement for permanent preservation of, and access to, the content ” [ 17 ].

From our findings, we have developed a list of evidence-based, salient features of suspected predatory journals (Table  10 ) that are straightforward to assess; we describe them further below. We recognize that these criteria are likely not sensitive enough to detect all potentially illegitimate, predatory journals. However, we feel they are a good starting point.

Non-biomedical scope of interest

We found that predatory journals tend to indicate interest in publishing research that was both biomedical and non-biomedical (e.g., agriculture, geography, astrophysics) within their remit, presumably to avoid limiting submissions and increase potential revenues. While legitimate journals may do this periodically (we did not assess the scope of presumed legitimate biomedical journals), the topics usually have some relationship between them and represent a subgroup of a larger medical specialty (e.g., Law and Medicine). Authors should examine the scope and content (e.g., actual research) of the journals they intend to publish in to determine whether it is in line with what they plan to publish.

Spelling and grammar

The home page of a journal’s website may be a good initial indicator of their legitimacy. We found several homepage indicators that may be helpful in assessing a journal’s legitimacy and quality. The homepages of potential predatory journals’ websites contained at least 10 times more spelling and grammar errors than presumed legitimate journals. Such errors may be an artefact of foreign language translation into English, as the majority of predatory journals were based in countries where a non-English language is dominant. Further, legitimate publishers and journals may be more careful about such errors to maintain professionalism and a good reputation.

Fuzzy, distorted, or potentially unauthorized image

Potential predatory journals appeared to have images that were low-resolution (e.g., fuzzy around the edges) or distorted ‘knock-off’ versions of legitimate logos or images.

Language directed at authors

Another homepage check authors can do is to examine the actual written text to gauge the intended audience. We found that presumed legitimate journals appear to target readers with their language and content (e.g., highlighting new content), whereas potential predatory journals seem to target prospective authors by inviting submissions, promising rapid publication, and promoting different metrics (including the Index Copernicus Value).

Manuscript submission and editorial process/policies

Authors should be able to find information about what happens to their article after it is submitted. Potential predatory journals do not seem to provide much information about their operations compared to presumed legitimate journals. Furthermore, most potential predatory journals request that articles be submitted via email rather than a submission system (e.g., Editorial Manager, Scholar One), as presumed legitimate journals do. Typically, journals have requirements that must be met or checked by authors or the journal during submission (e.g., declaration of conflicts of interest, agreement that the manuscript adheres to authorship standards and other journal policies, plagiarism detection). When a manuscript is submitted via email, these checks are not automatic and may not ever occur. Authors should be cautious of publishing in journals that only take submissions via email and that do not appear to check manuscripts against journal policies as such journals are likely of low quality. In addition, the email address provided by a journal seems to be a good indicator of its legitimacy. Predatory journals seem to provide non-professional or non-academic email addresses such as from providers with non-secured servers like Gmail or Yahoo.

Very low APC and inappropriate copyright

Finally, authors should be cautious when the listed APC of a biomedical journal is under $150 USD. This is very low in comparison to presumed legitimate, fully open access biomedical journals for which the median APC is at least 18 times more. Hybrid subscription journals charge 30 times the amount of potential predatory journals to publish and make research openly accessible. It has been suggested that hybrid journals charge a higher fee in order to maintain their ‘prestige’ (e.g., journals can be more selective about their content based on who is willing to pay the high fee) [ 18 ]. On the contrary, extremely low APCs may simply be a way for potential predatory journals to attract as many submissions as possible in order to generate revenue and presumably to build their content and reputation. Evidently, the APC varies widely across journals, perhaps more than any other characteristic we measured. Journal APCs are constantly evolving and increasing requirements by funders to make research open access may have a drastic impact on APCs as we know them over the coming years.

Researchers should be trained on author responsibilities, including how to make decision about where to publish their research. Ideally, authors should start with a validated or ‘white’ list of acceptable journals. In addition to considering the items listed in Table  10 in their decision-making, tools to guide authors through the journal selection process have started to emerge, such as ThinkCheckSubmit ( http://thinkchecksubmit.org/ ). Recently, COPE, OASPA, DOAJ, and WAME produced principles of transparency against which, among other measures, DOAJ assesses journals in part, before they can be listed in the database ( https://doaj.org/bestpractice ). We also encourage researchers to examine all journals for quality and legitimacy using the characteristics in Table  10 when making a decision on where to submit their research. As the journal landscape changes, it is no longer sufficient for authors to make assumptions about the quality of journals based on arbitrary measures, such as perceived reputation, impact factor, or other metrics, particularly in an era where bogus metrics abound or legitimate ones are being imitated.

This study examined most of Beall’s criteria for identification of predatory publishers and journals together with items from the COPE and OASPA. While many of the characteristics we examined were useful to distinguish predatory journals from presumed legitimate journals, there were many that do not apply or that are not unique to predatory journals. For instance, defining criteria of predatory journals [ 4 ] suggest that no single individual is named as an editor and that such journals do not list an editorial board. We found that this was not the case in over two thirds of predatory journals and, in fact, a named EIC could not be identified for 26 (13.07%) of the presumed legitimate journals in our sample. Such non evidence-based criteria for defining journals may introduce confusion rather than clarity and distinction.

The existing designation of journals and publishers as predatory may be confusing for other reasons. For instance, more than one presumed-legitimate publisher has appeared on Beall’s list [ 19 ]. In October 2015, Frontiers Media, a well-known Lausanne-based open access publisher, appeared on Beall’s List [ 20 ]. Small, new, or under-resourced journals may appear to have the look and feel of a potential predatory journal because they do not have affiliations with large publishers or technologies (e.g., manuscript submission systems) or mature systems and the features of a legitimate journal. This is in line with our findings that journals from low-resourced (LMIC) countries were more often in the potentially predatory group of journals than either of the presumed-legitimate journal arms. However, this does not imply that they are necessarily predatory journals.

Another limitation is that the majority of the open access biomedical journals in our sample (95%) charged an APC, while generally many open access journals do not. May 2015 was the last time that the DOAJ provided complete information regarding APCs of journals that it indexes (fully open access, excluding delayed or partial open access). At that time, approximately 32% of journals charged an APC. At the time of writing this article, approximately 40% of medical journals in DOAJ appear to charge an APC. However, these figures do not account for the hybrid-subscription journals that have made accommodations in response to open access, many of which are included in our sample of subscription-based journals. For such journals, our data and that of others [ 21 ] show that their fees appear to be substantially higher than either potential predatory or fully open access journals.

In context of other research

To the best of our knowledge this is the first comparative study of predatory journal publishing and legitimate publishing models aimed at determining how they are different and similar. Previously, Shen and Björk [ 22 ] examined a sample of about 5% of journals listed on Beall’s List for a number of characteristics, including three that overlap with items for which we collected data: APC, country of publisher, and rapidity of (submission to) publishing [ 22 ]. In a large part, for the characteristics examined, our findings within the predatory journal group are very similar. For example, Shen and Björk [ 22 ] found the average APC for single publisher journals to be $98 USD, which is very similar to our results ($100 USD). They also found that 42% of single predatory journal publishers were located in India, whereas our estimates were closer to 62%. Differences between their study and ours may exist because we focused on biomedical journals while they included all subject areas.

Limitations

It was not possible to fully blind assessors to study groups since, given the expertise of team members, a minimum knowledge of non-predatory publishers was expected. In addition, we could only include items that could be assessed superficially rather than those requiring in-depth investigations for each journal. Many items can and should be investigated further.

Since some characteristics are likely purposely similar between journals (e.g., journals from all groups claim to be open access and indicate carrying out peer review) [ 14 ], and it was difficult to anticipate which, we did not carry out a logistic regression to determine whether characteristics were likely to be associated with predatory or presumed legitimate journals.

This research initiates the evidence-base illuminating the difference between major publishing models and, moreover, unique characteristics of potential predatory (or illegitimate) journals (Table  10 ).

The possibility that some journals are predatory is problematic for many stakeholders involved in research publication. Most researchers are not formally trained on publication skills and ethics, and as such may not be able to discern whether a journal is running legitimate operations or not. For early career researchers or for those who are unaware of the existence or characteristics of predatory journals, they can be difficult to distinguish from legitimate journals. However, this study indicates that predatory journals are offering at least 18-fold lower APCs than non-predatory journals, which may be attractive to uninformed authors and those with limited fiscal resources. Assuming that each journal publishes 100 articles annually, the revenues across all predatory journals would amount to at least a $USD 100 million dollar enterprise. This is a substantial amount of money being forfeited by authors, and potentially by funders and institutions, for publications that have not received legitimate professional editorial and publishing services, including indexing in databases.

Established researchers should beware of predatory journals as well. There are numerous anecdotes about researchers (even deceased researchers [ 23 ]) who have been put on a journal’s editorial board or named as an editor, who did not wish to be and who were unable to get their names delisted [ 24 ]. Aside from this potentially compromising the reputation of an individual that finds him or herself on the board, their affiliation with a potential predatory journal may confer legitimacy to the journal that is not deserved and that has the potential to confuse a naïve reader or author. As our findings indicate, this phenomenon appears to be a clear feature of predatory journals.

In addition to the costs and potential fiscal waste on publication in predatory journals, these journals do not appear to be indexed in appropriate databases to enable future researchers and other readers to consistently identify and access the research published within them. The majority of predatory journals indicated being ‘indexed’ in Google Scholar, which is not an indexing database. Google does not search pre-selected journals (as is the case with databases such as Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus), rather it searches the Internet for scholarly content. Some potentially predatory journals indicate being indexed in well-known biomedical databases; however, we have not verified the truthfulness of these claims by checking the databases. Nonetheless, if legitimate clinical research is being published in predatory journals and cannot be discovered, this is wasteful [ 25 ], in particular when it may impact systematic reviews. Equally, if non-peer reviewed, low quality research in predatory journals is discovered and included in a systematic review, it may pollute the scientific record. In biomedicine, this may have detrimental outcomes on patient care.

Future research

What is contained (i.e., ‘published’) within potential predatory journals is still unclear. To date, there has not been a large-scale evaluation of the content of predatory journals to determine whether research is being published, what types of studies predominate, and whether or not data (if any) are legitimate. In addition, we have little understanding of who is publishing in predatory journals (i.e., experience of author, geographic location, etc.) and why. Presumably, the low APC is an attractive feature; however, whether or not authors are intentionally or unintentionally publishing within these journals is critical to understanding the publishing landscape and anticipate future potential directions and considerations.

The findings presented here can facilitate education on how to differentiate between presumed legitimate journals and potential predatory journals.

Abbreviations

Abridged Index Medicus

article processing charge

CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials

Committee On Publication Ethics

Directory Of Open Access Journals

editor-in-chief

Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency of health Research

international standard serial number

journal impact factor

low- or middle-income country

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

Public Library Of Science

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses

STAndards for Reporting Diagnostic accuracy

STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology

United States Dollar

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No funding was received for this project.

Availability of data and materials

The screening and data extraction forms used, and the data generated, in this study are available from the authors on request.

Authors’ contributions

DM and LS conceived of this project and drafted the protocol, with revisions by VB. RB, JC, JG, OM, DM, JR, LS, BJS, and LT were involved in the conduct of this project. LS and LT performed analysis of data. LS drafted the manuscript. All authors provided feedback on this manuscript and approved the final version for publication.

Competing interests

VB is the Chair of COPE and the Executive Director of the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Transparency declaration.

David Moher affirms that this manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported, that no important aspects of the study have been omitted, and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Centre for Journalology, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, K1H 8L6, Canada

Larissa Shamseer, David Moher & James Galipeau

School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventative Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, K1H 8M5, Canada

Larissa Shamseer & David Moher

School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT9 7BL, UK

Onyi Maduekwe

Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, K1H 8L6, Canada

Lucy Turner

Office of Research Ethics and Integrity, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia

Virginia Barbour

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, USA

Rebecca Burch

icddr,b, Dhaka, 1000, Bangladesh

Jocalyn Clark

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Shamseer, L., Moher, D., Maduekwe, O. et al. Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC Med 15 , 28 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0785-9

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Instructions : first, find the journal’s publisher – it is usually written at the bottom of the journal’s webpage or in the “About” section. Then simply enter the publisher’s name or its URL in the search box above. If the journal does not have a publisher use the  Standalone Journals  list. All journals published by a predatory publisher are potentially predatory unless stated otherwise.

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• Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)  – I decided not to include MDPI on the list itself. However, I would urge anyone that wants to publish with this publisher to thoroughly  read this wiki article detailing their possible ethical/publishing problems, and a recent article discussing their growth.

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This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers. We recommend that scholars read the available reviews, assessments and descriptions provided here, and then decide for themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors or on editorial boards. In a few cases, non-open access publishers whose practices match those of predatory publishers have been added to the list as well. The criteria for determining predatory publishers are  here .​ We hope that tenure and promotion committees can also decide for themselves how importantly or not to rate articles published in these journals in the context of their own institutional standards and/or geocultural locus.  We emphasize that journal publishers and journals change in their business and editorial practices over time. This list is kept up-to-date to the best extent possible but may not reflect sudden, unreported, or unknown enhancements.

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Predatory publishers I: what are they?

If you are a published academic, it is almost inconceivable that you have not experienced the approaches of the predatory publishers. They manifest themselves in the daily onslaught of emails – often numbered in double figures- to publish in an increasing array of journals and offering cheap routes to open access and rapid peer review. They are marked by a bizarre range of specificity; sometimes the journals seem related to your field, e.g., healthcare if you are a nurse or doctor, but sometimes they are entirely unrelated. Often, they refer to something you have already published with a request for you to submit something similar. Sometimes they try to exert pressure such as only having to fill one slot before going to production.

In the same vein you will receive many ‘invitations’ to conferences. Frequently your presence is ‘expected’ and your keynote—which you have not even submitted—has already been accepted. Always these emails open with ridiculous salutations such as ‘greetings’ (some even say ‘salutations’), often a question about your state of health, and the hope that you are ‘having a good day’. Other variations on the themes above are invitations to join editorial boards—or congratulating you on your appointment to one—and invitations to edit special issues. The conference equivalent is an invitation to join the scientific committee for a conference or to organise a conference.

The final type of ‘scam’ operated by the predatory publishers, often linked to invitations to publish, is to mimic existing journals either in name or by having names very similar to established journals and then to lead you to websites that look similar – and sometimes identical – to genuine journal websites. But these are ‘hijacked’ or cloned websites and, at some point in the submission process, you will be asked for money. This can involve providing and thereby revealing your credit card details. You are very unlikely to see your manuscript published and you will never regain your money. You have also risked your financial security as your credit card details are now in the hands of criminals.

These are the predators, and their aim is simple: to deprive you of valuable manuscripts and money and to exploit – and often damage – your reputation. Reputable publishers never operate in this way and you should know that: familiarise yourself with the ways and wiles of the predatory publishers and take every step you can to avoid being taken in by them. Some people learn very early about the predators and realise that these are not genuine. However, people continue to be fooled and my own experience is that many colleagues in my own university and across the world are not aware of the dangers. In the next article I will consider what happens if you submit to a predatory publisher or subscribe to a predatory conference.

Declaration of interests

Roger Watson is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Advanced Nursing, Editor of Nursing Open and an Editorial Board member of the WikiJournal of Medicine.

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Predatory Publishing Checklist

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While there is no single criterion that points to whether or not a publication is legitimate, consult the following checklist to identity some of the typical practices used by deceptive publishers.

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Predatory tactics are continually evolving and becoming more sophisticated

More recently, there have been reports of researchers finding their names attributed to articles they have never written. It is possible this is a predatory tactic that may be used to improve the image of a journal to appear legitimate. Here are some tips to consider: 

• Set up a Google alert for your name to keep a watchful eye on if/when your name is being mentioned or attributed to content online 
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• If you find your name being attributed to work you did not publish, contact the U of T VPRI’s Research Oversight and Compliance Office via  [email protected]  for guidance

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Other helpful resources to consult: 

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• Ulrich's Web  (This U of T licensed resource include detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals)
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing  (COPE) 
• Research Impact & Researcher Identity guide  (The University of Toronto Libraries)

This checklist was created by the Division of the Vice President, Research and Innovation and the University of Toronto Libraries. The content of this webpage and checklist is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license . 

Comparison of the predatory impacts of indigenous and adventive ladybeetle species (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) using a functional response approach

• Original Article
• Published: 24 May 2024

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• Fateme Ranjbar 1 , 2 ,
• M. Amin Jalali   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4034-541X 1 , 2 ,
• Zahra Ahmadi 1 ,
• Xavier Pons 3 ,
• Alexandre Levi-Mourao 3 &
• Todd Ugine 4  

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Biological control has long been recognized for its economic and ecological benefits as a pest management approach, but the use of non-native natural enemies has raised concerns about potential risks and unintended consequences. Indigenous predatory ladybeetles, such as Oenopia conglobata , play a crucial role in controlling many sap-sucking pests, including Agonoscena pistaciae , which is the most destructive pest of pistachio trees in Iran and other pistachio-growing regions worldwide. However, the abundance of Oenopia conglobata has recently decreased due to the presence of an adventive predatory ladybeetle, Menochilus sexmaculatus . To better understand the potential risks associated with this adventive species, we investigated the functional responses of female adults of M. sexmaculatus and O. conglobata against the third and fourth instar nymphs of A. pistaciae and Aphis gossypii . Our findings revealed that both predators exhibited a type II functional response, with O. conglobata demonstrating a significantly higher attack rate against A. pistaciae nymphs than A. gossypii nymphs. In contrast, prey species did not have a significant effect on the attack rate of M. sexmaculatus . Notably, M. sexmaculatus displayed the highest predation rate and voracity against both prey species. These results provide valuable insights into the potential risks of M. sexmaculatus for indigenous predatory species like O. conglobata . The fact that M. sexmaculatus exhibits higher voracity for both prey species than O. conglobata does suggest that it may pose a threat to the native ladybeetle population, highlighting the need for further research and careful consideration when introducing non-native natural enemies for pest management.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Department of Plant Protection, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, Iran, for the use of greenhouse and laboratory facilities. We thank Dr Richard M. Twyman for English editing and improvement of original draft.

This work was funded by Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences (RUMS), Project No. 400283.

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Pistachio Safety Research Center, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, 771751735, Iran

Fateme Ranjbar, M. Amin Jalali & Zahra Ahmadi

Department of Crop Protection, College of Agriculture, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, 7713936417, Iran

Fateme Ranjbar & M. Amin Jalali

Department of Crop and Forest Sciences and Engineering, Agrotecnio Centre, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain

Xavier Pons & Alexandre Levi-Mourao

Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

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Contributions

FR was contributed to conceptualization, data collection, writing original draft. MAJ was contributed to supervision, conceptualization, experimental design, methodology. ZA was contributed to visualization, data analysis. XP was contributed to results interpretation, writing and editing. ALM was contributed to conceptualization, writing and editing. TU was contributed to writing and editing.

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Correspondence to M. Amin Jalali .

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Ranjbar, F., Jalali, M.A., Ahmadi, Z. et al. Comparison of the predatory impacts of indigenous and adventive ladybeetle species (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) using a functional response approach. J Plant Dis Prot (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41348-024-00936-8

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Received : 16 January 2024

Accepted : 03 May 2024

Published : 24 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s41348-024-00936-8

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