Investigating academic nurse researchers' knowledge, experience, and attitude toward predatory journals

Abstract

BackgroundSelecting a journal with an appropriate scope and breadth, well-respected by other scholars in the field, and widely indexed and accessible to readers is an integral part of publishing. Academic publishing has recently seen a significant shift away from traditional print publications and toward open access journals and online publications. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate academic nurse researchers' knowledge, experience, and attitudes regarding predatory journals. MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study design was conducted using Predatory Journals Questionnaire to collect the data from academic nurse educators working at X and XX University. ResultsAlmost two-thirds (68.6 %) of participants had previous knowledge of the term “predatory journal.” As well as, the majority of academic educators had previous experience as they had used predatory journals before, as by being asked to publish in their journal (84.3 %) or serve on its editorial board (24.3 %), participants were more likely to receive requests to submit an article to a predatory journal (52.9 %) via email, mail, or phone. In addition, academic nurse researchers had a moderate perspective (mean = 3.87 ± 1.06; mean % score = 71.71) toward predatory journals. ConclusionPublishing in a predatory journal, whether done knowingly or unknowingly, can harm authors' reputations as academics, their capacity to submit to other journals, and the quality of their work. According to the results of our study, many researchers still lacked a thorough understanding of the predatory journal publishing model, which is a phenomenon that demands an increasing amount of research, despite hearing about the phenomenon of a predatory journal and having previously attended training.