Predatory journals: how to avoid falling into the trap…

Nele BRUSSELAERS Associate Professor in Clinical Epidemiology Centre For Translational Microbiome Research (CTMR)

“The act of instituting financial transactions between scholarly authors and scholarly publishers is corrupting scholarly communication.

This was one of the great benefits of the traditional scholarly publishing system – it had no monetary component in the relationship between publishers and their authors.

Adding the monetary component has created the problem of predatory publishers and the problem of financing author fees.“ (Beall) ▪ Beall has estimated that predatory journals publish about 5-10 percent of all open access articles. [1]

▪ >= 25 percent of open access journals are predatory.[2]

▪ He has been particularly critical of Publishing Group, which he described as "the worst of the worst" in a 2016 Inside Higher Education article.[3]

1. Butler, D. (2013). "Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing". . 495 (7442): 433–435. 2. Harbison, Martha (April 9, 2013). "Bogus Academic Conferences Lure Scientists". Popular . Retrieved January 31, 2015. 3. Straumsheim, Carl (August 29, 2016). "Feds Target 'Predatory' Publishers". Inside Higher Education. Retrieved September 23, 2016 https://blogs.jwatch.org/hiv-id-observations/index.php/predatory-journals-big-problem-not-even-funny/2018/05/28/ https://www.acsm.org/blog-detail/acsm-blog/2018/08/16/predatory-publishing-avoid-exploitative-journals

Why do they exist and sustain?

“There is no easy solution. I learned that the publishers now have much political power, and they will do anything possible, including collusion with universities, to attack their critics.

Unfortunately, many professors love the easy, automatic publishing.

There is no risk of your scientific paper being rejected for publication, so you can essentially buy a promotion at your university.” (Beall) https://www.slideshare.net/gauravhtandon1/predatory-journals https://www.slideshare.net/gauravhtandon1/predatory-journals https://www.slideshare.net/gauravhtandon1/predatory-journals https://www.slideshare.net/gauravhtandon1/predatory-journals Why NOT publish in predatory journals

▪ No (proper) peer-review ▪ Unprofessional or questionable/deceptive editorial practices ▪ Reputation damage (researcher, group, institution, …) ▪ “Public access to poor-quality articles harms the public” ▪ Not acceptable as “published & peer-reviewed paper” for PhD defenses ▪ You may not receive “credit” for your publications through bibliometrics, activity funding etc. ▪ Costly! “Many open-access publishers publish fake, junk, and pseudo-science. They only want to make easy money, so they don’t reject fake research.” (Beall) Guidelines from KI

https://kib.ki.se/en/publish-analyse/strategic-publishing Guidelines KI

https://kib.ki.se/en/publish-analyse/strategic-publishing

Which journal to select?

▪ Is it indexed in the Web of Science – does it have a REAL ?

▪ Which publisher (, , Taylor & Francis, Wiley-Blackwell…)

https://kib.ki.se/en/publish-analyse/strategic-publishing http://jane.biosemantics.org/index.php

Beall also questioned “Oncotarget” journal

Removed from PubMed and Web of Science in 2017 (now back on PubMed)

https://web.archive.org/web/20160420033752/https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/04/19/oncotargets-peer-review-is-highly-questionable/ https://web.archive.org/web/ 20160420033752/https://sc holarlyoa.com/2016/04/19/o ncotargets-peer-review-is- highly-questionable/ Blagosklonny’s lawyer threatens me to love Oncotarget or else

Oncotarget, the somewhat controversial OA journal, switched from pretend-soliciting my services to threatening to sue me for defamation. Their lawyer writes my disrespect caused them financial damage.

https://forbetterscience.com/2019/07/27/blagosklonnys-lawyer-threatens-me-to-love-oncotarget-or-else/ https://predatoryjournals.com/ What to do?

▪ Double check the journal – even as a co-author!

▪ Think twice if you are personally invited to submit an article, become an editorial board member or to attend a conference: →Is the person a big name in the field? →Is the journal indexed in PubMed, Web of Science? →If you need to pay something, it may be predatory

▪ https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/07/falling-prey-to-predatory-oa-publisher.html What to do if you already submitted your work?

▪ Try to retract immediately! NOW! ▪ Do not pay anything! ▪ Even if they say you do not need to pay, retract the paper! ▪ Say that you will take legal action unless they let you retract the paper, and do it NOW! ▪ Act quickly!!!! → Predatory journals may publish your article within a few days after you submitted, even if you didn’t pay or send in “a revised version”! → Before you realise you fell in the trap, the article will have a doi and will appear in databases such as ResearchGate and Google → Once it appears online, it will be impossible to get it published elsewhere (unless you can convince the editors of the new journal…) Some links

Predatory publishers – better safe than sorry. Interview with our former colleague Anders Wändahl. Stefan Eriksson & Gert Helgesson.

The false academy: in science and bioethics. Med Health Care Philos. 2016 Oct 7.

A list of unserious journals and publishers can be found at the web site Stop Predatory Journals. The list is based on the work done by , librarian at the University of Colorado. As a individual researcher, you can contribute to the list by adding unserious journals and publishers.

The University of Borås has published a guide that can help researchers to assess whether a publisher is serious or not.

https://kib.ki.se/en/publish-analyse/strategic-publishing

Thanks ☺

https://navigus.in/blog/predatory-journals-and-academic-publishing-fallacy-in-ugc-approved-journals/