Do Preys Prey on Their Predators? Confusion Over Predatory "Hage-taka" Journals.

Kazuaki Takabe,Masayuki Nagahashi,Ali Linsk Butash ,Toshifumi Wakai

doi:10.31662/jmaj.2019-0011

Abstract

For the last several years, predatory journals have been a topic of discussion in top scientific journals, such as Nature. Predatory journals are problematic because they create public mistrust of scientific publication as a whole by the mass production of non-credible publications with the sole aim of profit. Recently, articles in a Japanese newspaper and online articles exposed domestic institutions for the number of publications in predatory journals, saying that they “abused predatory journals to increase the number of their publications and falsely inflate their academic achievements.” We do not subscribe to this point of view because publications in predatory journals do not count as scholarly achievements, and we believe it is an information literacy problem. We feel strongly that it is both important and beneficial for the readers of The Japan Medical Association Journal to be aware of and understand this issue.

Highlights

For the last several years, predatory journals have been a topic of discussion in top scientific journals, such as Nature
What is wrong with predatory journals? Researchers are bombarded with spam solicitation emails from predatory journals
Gasparyan AY et al raised this notion of “predatory authors” that use predatory journals to boost their publication records .(4) We do not subscribe to this point of view because publications in predatory journals do not count as scholarly achievements .(2) On the contrary, the “predatory authors” lose money as a result of the fees, and they risk the above hazards

Summary

Introduction

For the last several years, predatory journals have been a topic of discussion in top scientific journals, such as Nature. Predatory journals generate profits by charging authors processing fees that exceed the actual operational running cost. Beall published a blacklist of predatory journals; his blog, including the list, was shut down in 2017 .(1)

Results

Conclusion