Predatory Publications in the Era of Internet and Technology: A Comment

Abstract

In an article published in this journal entitled “Predatory publications in the era of internet and technology: Open access publications are at risk”, Akhilesh Kumar, Ravi Gupta, Krishna Kant Tripathi & Rajani Ranjan Singh argue that the definition of predatory publications defame the open access journals putting the sustainability of these type of publications at risk which mushroomed in the age of internet and electronic freedom in disseminating academic and non-academic information. This note comments on their paper by arguing that (a) predatory practices are ubiquitous in the academic world, not only in publications; (b) charging a fee does not make an academic practice predatory; and (c) in the long-term no publication or an academic practice can survive if it does not offer some sort of “satisfaction” to users (readers and authors). The argument of peer review or not is irrelevant because a publication, once it becomes available, is constantly reviewed by its readers who are the ultimate judges of its quality. At the end of the day, what counts are the number of readers and the number of citations of a published work. Thanks to the internet these are now easily measurable. Keywords: open access, predatory journals, article processing charges, peer review