There are many "publishers" who misuse the Open Access principle to enrich themselves. These "publishers" create fraudulent or pseudoscientific publications and journals and their primary purpose is to make money on APC’s.
Predatory journals or publications are characterized by not going through a quality peer review process and not having the information verified and/or confirmed by reviewers. Articles published in these journals are generally not of high scientific quality and are not perceived as credible in the scientific community.
A good place where to start a verification of a journal credibility is Think. Check. Submit.
A basic guide how to verify the credibility of a conference is provided at Think. Check. Attend.
There have been published a lot of articles on the topic, an interesting overview was published in December 2019 in Nature journal.
An updated list of predatory journals can be found at https://www.openacessjournal.com.
For example, Lambert Academic Publishing, a part of Omniscriptum Publishing Group (former VDM Verlag Dr. Müller) most often approaches the graduates with an offer to publish their thesis. The principle is absolutely the same as with predatory journals – a lack of quality control, higher costs, low readership, inability to publish the results with a reputable publisher.
Why are the predatory journals “dangerous”?
Journals don't pass quality peer review. Their content is debatable, the information published may not be trustworthy, and they may contain serious errors or misleading conclusions.
The author’s results do not reach the desired scientific community, the readership and citation rate of such journals is questionable.
Since the results are already published, it is not possible to reuse them for a reputable journal.
Discussions with such a publisher for retraction or possible correction of the article are not usually successful.
The author associates his/her name with an untrustworthy publisher, which reduces his/her reputation. The journals remain traceable and there is “no way back."
1. Misleading metrics
2. Confusing identities
Predator |
Original |
The International Journal of Engineering and Science |
International Journal of Engineering Science |
Veliger |
The Veliger |
Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology |
Journal of Analytical Toxicology |
3. Stolen identity
Predator: ARCTIC Journal (https://arcticjournal.org/index.html).
Original: ARCTIC Journal (https://arctic.ucalgary.ca/about-arctic-journal).
More and more often there are also predatory conferences being organized. Their main purpose is to collect conference fees. An invitation to such a conference often resembles a travel agency proposal rather than an invitation to share professional information. The basic features of predatory conferences can be found at this web page or here.
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