Scholarly Publishing

Predatory Publishing: what it is and how to avoid it

February 2016Sharon Bunce

Scholarly Communication and Repository Service, Learning and Research Services

CC Image courtesy of : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGeorgia_Aquarium_-_Giant_Grouper

Scholarly Publishing

Overview

• Context: changes in scholarly communication• Predatory publishing: why, what, and how• Identifying the predators – avoiding the pitfalls• Tools for finding reputable journals

Scholarly Publishing

Game Changer

Context: changes in scholarly publishing

eJournalsOpen Access RepositoriesHyperlinked referencesCitation trackingScholarly BlogsTwitterScholarly Social Media

Open Access

https://101innovations.wordpress.com/about-1/

Scholarly Publishing

Rise of Open Access

Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles, coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment (SPARC)More access means more potential for impact

Not just those with a UQ Login!

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• Over 90 research funding agencies now require open access for grant-related articles

Funders and OA

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Context: Publish or perish

Why publish?• Disseminate new

knowledge• Increase the impact and

visibility of your research• Establish/build your

reputation• Esteem measures based on publication• Be visible or vanish!

30 – 60%Rejection rate

Scholarly Publishing

What is predatory publishing?

Scholarly Publishing

• Sends spam invitations to students and academics

• Editorial Board either non-existent or same person is

named as Editor of multiple journals

• Name of the journal does not reflect its origin (or does

not reveal its location)

• Name of journal is VERY broad (to attract more content)

• Grammatical errors on website

How to spot a predatorQuestionable practices of predatory journals

a selection

Scholarly Publishing

Questionable practices of predatory journals

• Publishes pseudo-science articles

• Launches with fleet of empty journals

• No value-add services such as reference linking

• Not indexed by genuine indexes such as Scopus or Web

of Science

• Misleading information about having an ‘impact factor’

Scholarly Publishing

Examples of scam emails

This is from Frontiers of Engineering Mechanics Research (FEMR). It is a great honor writing to you. We found a paper you published. It’s an excellent paper which is well matched with the Focus & Scope of FEMR. Title: Erratum: Theory of thin-film, narrowband, linear-polarization rejection filters with superlattice structure (Optics Communications (2006) 268:1 (182-188) DOI:10.1016/j.optcom.2006.07.006)

To promote the communications in the area of engineering mechanics, we are now sending our earnest invitation for you to submit new paper to FEMR. If you are interested in it, please submit your paper online, Website: http://www.academicpub.org/femr/SubmissionGuidelines.aspx

If you are interested in being our reviewer, please send us your CV (including your title, affiliation, department, research interests, qualification, email, etc.). We appreciate the cooperation with you and look forward you hearing from you in the near future. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Best regards,

Scholarly Publishing

Dear ……,I was hoping to talk with you at some point over the next week. I came across your research and I wanted to speak with you about the possibility of highlighting the broader scope and impact of you work in our research publication ……. so I thought I would pop you an e-mail.

Scholarly Publishing

http://weeklyscience.org/default.aspxExamples of journal websites

Scholarly Publishing

Scholarly Publishing

Editorial board for each of its 36 journals is : “Chief Editor, Council for Innovative Research http://www.cirworld.com, United States.”

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Fake Impact Factors

Access via UQ Library Database searchJCRweb or Journal Citation Reports

Scholarly Publishing

‘Sting’ operation exposes fake peer review

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60/suppl/DC1

Scholarly Publishing

Impact upon the Researcher• Longer term reputation sacrificed for immediate gains – no

academic gain (no/poor quality peer review or academic rigor)

• Permanent ? on your academic reputation• Even if your research is sound, it will likely be disregarded by

the academic community if published in a predatory journal• Waste of your research funding – may be held accountable by

your funding agency

Authors want their work to be read and cited - publish in journals that you know authors in your discipline are reading!

Scholarly Publishing

How to catch a predator and avoid publishing pitfalls

Learn to identify and evaluate and select suitable publishing outlets

http://guides.library.uq.edu.au/getting-published

Scholarly Publishing

Where to publish: journal evaluation.

Identify list of peer-reviewed journal titles Ulrich's

AccessHow will you make your publication available open access?UQ Open Access Policy

Impact/prestige• Journal impact factors• Predatory Publishers

Aims/scope• Discipline area• Publishes work you cite• Audience

Likelihood of acceptance for ECRs.

READ journal publishing guidelines

Scholarly Publishing

Scholarly Publishing

Useful tools for avoiding predatory publishers

• Jeffrey Beall’s List and blog• Characteristics of a predatory publisher• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)• Ulrich’s Database of (Ulrichsweb)• Journal Citation Reports (JCRweb) - impact

factors.

Scholarly Publishing

Before submitting a manuscript

Ask yourself• Is this a journal you read?• Is your supervisor familiar with this journal?• Is it indexed by Scopus or Web of Science or a

reputable data base that is relevant to your discipline (PubMed/EMBASE for Medicine)?

• Is the journal or publisher named on the ‘Predatory Publisher List’? http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

Scholarly Publishing

Supporting OA at UQ – consider ‘green’

UQ eSpaceUQ’s official digital space for:

• the research outputs

• the research data

of staff and students of

The University of Queensland

Post-print

Scholarly Publishing

References: Crawford, W (2011). ALA Editions Special Reports : Open Access: What you need to know now. Chicago, Il. American Library Association Editions.