Predatory Journals : Do Not Enter
Main Article Content
Abstract
Abstract
The escalation in open-access publishing has fueled the rise of questionable businesses, namely, ‘predatory’ journals. Predatory journals and their publishers seek manuscripts through aggressive electronic solicitation and execute flawed peer-review practices, consequently undermining the scholarly record and current research cultures, globally. As these journals are not indexed in any legitimate databases, the research they publish is often undiscoverable and fails to be disseminated to a worldwide readership. Acknowledging this threat to the credibility of science, this article aims to alert researchers at various levels of their career of the increasing global issue of predatory journals, and offer helpful advice and resources for identifying and avoiding them.
Résumé
L’essor de la publication en accès libre a alimenté l’expansion d’entreprises douteuses, à savoir des revues « prédatrices ». Les revues prédatrices et leurs éditeurs recherchent des manuscrits au moyen de requêtes électroniques agressives et effectuent des évaluations erronées par les pairs, compromettant ainsi les archives scientifiques et les présentes cultures de recherche dans l’ensemble. Puisque ces revues ne sont pas répertoriées dans des bases de données légitimes, la recherche qu’elles publient est souvent introuvable et ne parvient pas à être diffusée à un lectorat mondial. En reconnaissant cette menace à la crédibilité scientifique, cet article vise à alerter les chercheurs à diverses étapes de leur carrière du problème global croissant que constituent les revues prédatrices, et à leur offrir des conseils utiles et des ressources permettant de les identifier et de les éviter.
Article Details
- Authors publishing in the UOJM retain copyright of their articles, including all the drafts and the final published version in the journal.
- While UOJM does not retain any rights to the articles submitted, by agreeing to publish in UOJM, authors are granting the journal right of first publication and distribution rights of their articles.
- Authors are free to submit their works to other publications, including journals, institutional repositories or books, with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in UOJM.
- Copies of UOJM are distributed both in print and online, and all materials will be publicly available online. The journal holds no legal responsibility as to how these materials will be used by the public.
- Please ensure that all authors, co-authors and investigators have read and agree to these terms.
- Works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
2. Clark J, Smith R. Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ. 2015; 350:h210.
3. Beall J. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature. 2012;489(7415):179.
4. Beall J. Beall’s list of predatory publishers [Internet, cited 2016 Jul 9]. Available from: https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/bealls-list-of-predatory- publishers-2016/.
5. Shen C, Bjork BC. ‘Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics. BMC Med. 2015;13:230.
6. The Guardian. Journal accepts bogus paper requesting removal from mailing list [Internet, cited 2016 Jul 9]. Available from: https://www.theguard- ian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/25/journal-accepts-paper-requesting- removal-from-mailing-list .
7. Xia J, Harmon JL, Connolly KG, Donnelly RM, Anderson MR, Howard HA. Who publishes in “predatory” journals? J Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2015;66(7):1406– 17.
8. Beall J. Beall’s List of Standalone Journals [Internet, cited 2016 Sep 4]. Available from: https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/bealls-list-of-predatory- publishers-2016/.
9. Beall J. Beall’s List of Publishers [Internet, cited 2016 Sep 9]. Available from: https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/.
10. Think, Check, Submit Initiative. [Internet, cited 2016 Jul 9]. Available from: http://thinkchecksubmit.org.
11. Cobey KD, Galipeau J, Shamseer L, Moher D. Report on a pilot project to introduce a publications officer. CMAJ. 2016;188(12):E279-80.
12. Moher D, Srivastava A. You are invited to submit.... BMC Med. 2015;13:180.