What is predatory publishing in higher education?

Predatory journals and conferences are an emerging problem in scientific literature as they have financial motives, without guaranteeing scientific quality and exposure. The main objective of the ASGLOS project is to investigate the predatory e-email characteristics, management, and possible consequences and to analyse the extent of the current problem at each academic level. To collect the personal experiences of physicians' mailboxes on predatory publishing, a Google Form® survey was designed and disseminated from September 2021 to April 2022. A total of 978 responses were analysed from 58 countries around the world. A total of 64.8% of participants indicated the need for 3 or fewer emails to acquire a criticality view in distinguishing a real invitation from a spam, while 11.5% still have doubt regardless of how many emails they get. The AGLOS Study clearly highlights the problem of academic e-mail spam by predatory journals and conferences. Our findings signify the importance of providing academic career-oriented advice and organising training sessions to increase awareness of predatory publishing for those conducting scientific research.

ABSTRACT Predatory publishing has recently emerged as a menace in academia. University professors and researchers often exploit this practice for their economic gains and institutional prestige. The present study investigates such existing predatory publishing practices in Pakistani public sector universities drawing on the notion of symbolic violence. For this purpose, we analyzed 495 articles published by 50 university professors in the social sciences and humanities over the period 2017–2021. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 postgraduate students to gather their perspectives on publishing practices. The study shows that 69% of the sample papers were published in predatory journals, as identified in Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) online journal recognition system (HJRS). Postgraduate students’ insights inform the study that the students misrecognize these malpractices in academia as a problem what is referred to as “symbolic violence.” Consequently, they engage in the process to increase their publications. Such publications enable both the university professors and the students to achieve the desired benefit, such as promotions, tenure, and academic degrees. We recommend that this practice must be altered at the policy level since it not only violates the HEC’s standards for quality research but also damages the researchers’ credibility and country’s scientific reputation.

Predatory publishing is a major threat to contemporary publishing, as it offers 'to unaware scientist's',a quick open-access publication against fees without peer-review procedures.. Lack of peer-review leads to unethical practices, as plagiarism, publication of unscientific falsified data, and even unsafe clinical practices. As these journals threaten the credibility of academic publishing, significant work has been done from many scientific teams, in the last years, in establishing discriminating criteria between predatory and legitimate publishing. In the present review, we include mechanisms used by predatory editors to convince eager researchers to submit to their journals. We also provide useful links giving information about potential predatory journals and publishers, as well as scholarly writing. Joining the efforts of different scientific disciplines which compiled "green" lists with journals in their field, we conducted a "green" list with genuine orthopaedic research journals based on the directory of open-access journals (DOAJ) and Thomson Reuters journal citation reports. Ninety-six legitimate orthopaedic journals were identified based on the Thomson Reuters journal citation reports. One hundred thirty hits were found on the DOAJ site using the keywords "orthopaedics, orthopedics, sports medicine, musculoskeletal, trauma, traumatology, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, cartilage, bone, hand, shoulder, knee, hip, foot, wound." Twenty-one journals on the DOAJ site occurred overlapping with keywords. Researchers and clinicians in the field of orthopaedics are advised to use all available tools in order to recognize predatory practices and avoid publishing in predatory journals.

Predatory or deceptive publishing is still a persistent issue in scholarly communication. A large number of predatory journals are being published, and it is essential to keep them in check as the potential harm they could do to the scientific discourse is enormous. With the Open Science Framework (OSF) project titled "Decoding Predatory Publishing Practices for Academia (DePA)," the authors try to equip users to identify potential predatory journals and endorse ethical and quality publishing. The project will consist of training materials and a rubric developed to examine the quality of an open-access scientific journal by combining the publisher and individual journal aspects. The project includes a rubric consisting of different aspects regarding publication in scientific journals, quantifying the quality of the publishing practices adopted by these journals. Predatory or deceptive publishing is still a persistent issue in scholarly communication. For instance, deceptive publishers could hold the unpublished manuscript indefinitely, and little can be done if the author has signed a copyright transfer agreement. We can reduce the impact of predatory publishers by aiding the scholar community with simple and easy-to-understand devices that help them analyse the journals and publishers themselves. This could be part of the orientation at a researcher’s, library’s, or mentor’s level.

Academic publishing has been increasing greatly with the spread of open access journals and the shift to online publishing. However, authors must be aware of predatory journals and publishers while submitting their academic works for publication. Publishing in predatory journals is just a waste of efforts, money, and time as it does not add any scientific merits to the authors. The practice of predatory publishing can also damage the reputation of institutions and funding agencies. Therefore, there is an urgent need for awareness among researchers regarding predatory publishing. Local, national and international regulatory bodies should take stern actions against predatory publications while granting research funds and evaluating the researchers’ performance for job promotion and academic degrees.

This commentary examines the problem of predatory journals, low-quality open-access journals that seek to earn revenue from scholarly authors without following scholarly publishing best practices. Seeking to accept as many papers as possible, they typically do not perform a standard peer review, leading to the publication of improperly vetted research. Some predatory journals repeatedly use templates as their peer review reports. Related scams also victimize education researchers.

ABSTRACT Predatory publishing is an emerging but worrisome trend among academics, including librarians, in Nigeria. It is in line with this that the paper investigated the awareness and knowledge of predatory journals among academic librarians in five selected Nigerian universities. The study is a survey design that is based on both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The population of the study comprised 50 academic staff that were purposively selected for the questionnaire distribution. In addition, five principal librarians, one from each of the universities, were purposively selected for the interview session. The findings of the study revealed that academic librarians are aware of the existence of predatory journals and are also aware of the negative implications of publishing in predatory journals. The study recommended an effective mentoring programme for academic librarians on how to publish their research works in accredited journals. The study contributes to knowledge by providing fresh data for policy-makers, library management and university management on ways to eradicate publishing in predatory journals.

Nowadays the world of scholarly publishing is in serious trouble because of the increasing number of predatory publishing. Besides, citation of articles from predatory journals is also unethical that undermines the quality of research papers. Because of ignorance of predatory publishing and/or compulsion of getting published in a limited time, scholars from Universities and young researchers become victim to predatory or hijacked journals. The purpose of this paper is to create awareness among authors, especially novice ones, about predatory publication. Research institutions should encourage their researchers to publish their articles in valuable journals indexed in Web of Science's Journal Citation Reports (JCR), Clarivate Analytics, formerly part of Thomson-Reuters) or other famous scientific databases such as Scopus, PubMed and MEDLINE. In this way, attention to the Thomson Reuters’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Journal Ranking (JRK) and Scopus grade (Q1, Q2 and Q3) may be useful and necessary.

Scholarly publishing scams and predatory journals are emerging threats to academic integrity. During the last few years, the number of bogus journals has dramatically increased, defraud authors by promising fast review and prompt publishing. The current research investigates the contribution of Iranian researchers in predatory open-access journals in 2014. In this research, a total of 21,817 articles published by 265 journals from Beall’s list of predatory standalone journals were investigated. Although Beall’s weblog was taken offline on January 15, 2017, data was collected between January and March 2016 when his weblog was accessible. Results of the study revealed that Iranian researchers have contributed to 1449 papers from 265 journals, ranked this country as having the second largest contributor after India. Surprisingly, institutions with the highest share of publication in predatory journals are among the most reputable and well-known universities of the country. Un-vetted papers published in predatory journals can hurt individuals’ reputation and be a base for future low-quality research in Iran and other world countries. To avoid being victimized by questionable journals, researchers should be more familiar with scholarly publishing literacy skills to recognize and avoid publishing scams.

The emergence of predatory journals is a global threat for scientific integrity, particularly in under-resourced settings such as low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A bilingual course on predatory publishing using a distance education approach was developed for Moroccan researchers as a response to the imperative need for training on research ethics to implement good scientific practices. A cross-sectional survey-based study was conducted to evaluate outcomes after delivering two education sessions in both French and English. Before this course, 40% of participants indicated that they don’t verify journal quality before manuscript submission and most of them consider Scopus indexing and the impact factor as the best criteria for journal publication. Approximately 50% of surveyees did not have previous information on predatory journals before the webinar. Pressure to publish by supervisors, institutions of affiliation, or funding agencies, was noticed in 43.4% of participants. After the webinar course was delivered, remarkably, the proportion of participants with knowledge on predatory publishing was meaningfully increased from 48.9% to 81%. Importantly, 83.7% of participants indicated that they are motivated to share their new knowledge on predatory publishing with their colleagues. Moreover, the majority of respondents (73.8%) reported that publishing their research in predatory journals may damage their career and professional future. Promisingly, nearly a half or more of participants recommended the use of training based on distance education, surveillance of researchers by their mentors and affiliations, and social networks to increase awareness on predatory publishing. Almost all participants were satisfied with the content of the webinar. Trainers and research institutions in LMICs should benefit from the advent of distance education using webinar platforms to increase awareness on the issue of predatory publishing in their settings.