What is predatory publication for the academic world?

Predatory publishing is when an entity, such as an academic journal or publisher, uses an author’s work for personal profit with no regard to legitimacy and accuracy.  It is an exploitative model where a publisher charges an author fees to publish their work without any sort of quality control.  This means that the publisher does not check the works for accuracy, plagiarism, and legitimacy. The publisher does not provide any editorial services to the authors either, so scholars are deceived into thinking that the publisher is a safe platform for their work.  By providing an unsafe publishing platform, it is a cheap model for predatory publishers to profit off others’ works.

The ‘predatory publishing’ label is often linked to open access in order to discredit it, evoking as this concept does both vanity and self-publishing [1].

Most predatory publishers incorporate the “open access model” to their business, which allows work to be distributed to the public for free or with few access.  This makes it easy for predatory publishers to profit because they make authors pay to publish their work.

Their definition of ‘predatory open access journals’ was those whose publications require large fees without providing robust editorial or publishing services [2].

Predatory publishing is the systematic, fraudulent, or deceptive publication of scholarly content without regard to quality assurance. Predatory publishers, also called fraudulent, deceptive, or pseudo-journals, take advantage of authors by asking them to publish for a fee without providing peer-review or editing services. They may also use other deceptive practices, such as:

• Misrepresenting members of the journal’s editorial board
• Hiding information about Article Processing Charges (APCs)
• Using journal names or website designs that can be confused with established journals

Predatory publishers may be predatory on purpose, through neglect, mismanagement, or inexperience. They are defined by their failure to deliver products and services that meet author expectations and scholarly publishing requirements.

Here are some tips for avoiding predatory journals:

• Trust your judgment
• If something doesn’t feel right with the publisher, further investigation is needed
• Think of the publishing process as you would online shopping and exercise similar levels of caution
• Look at the names of the editor and editorial board
• Contact some of them if you have concerns
• If in doubt, find another journal

Predatory publishing in the academic world refers to an exploitative business model employed by certain publishers. Here are the key characteristics:

1. Charging Fees: Predatory publishers charge publication fees to authors for publishing their work. However, they often provide minimal quality checks and lack the comprehensive editorial and publishing services offered by legitimate academic journals, whether they are open access or not.

2. Superficial Review: These publishers only superficially check articles for quality and legitimacy. Unlike reputable journals, they do not provide thorough peer review or editorial support.

3. Deceptive Practices: Authors may be tricked into publishing with predatory journals. Some scholars knowingly publish in these journals despite their poor quality or fraudulent nature. New researchers from developing countries are particularly vulnerable to such deception.

4. Low Citations: Articles published in predatory journals often receive few or no citations over time, indicating their lack of impact and credibility.

5. Beall’s List: Jeffrey Beall’s Beall’s List was a well-known resource that categorized publications as predatory. Although it is no longer maintained, other efforts have emerged to identify such publishers, including the Cabell’s blacklist and other lists based on Beall’s original work.

References

1. Bell, K., Claassen, J., Nyahodza, L., Raju, R., & Stetka, V. (2012). Predatory publishing.
2. Wallace, W. A. (2019). Publish and be damned: the damage being created by predatory publishing. The bone & joint journal, 101(5), 500-501.