The Dark Side of Publishing

Predatory Journals – What are they and what can we do about

them?

Peter L Munk MDCM, FRCPC, FSIR

Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia
Professor of Radiology, Orthopedics and Palliative Care
University of British Columbia
Director MSK Radiology, Vancouver General Hospital
Editor in Chief, Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal
Disclosure
The authors have no relevant financial
grants, assistance, or other disclosures to
declare
 The Internet – a New Frontier
• A powerful new tool for dissemination of
information
• Provide free, unfettered / unregulated
access to information ….
• ….. A new model for information access
Open Access Journals
• Scholarly journals available online to
readers without barriers – financial,
technical or legal / copyright
• Cost borne by authors or sponsoring
institutions (~ US$ 178 per article on
average)

Shen C, Bo-Christer B, BMC Medicine 2015;13:230

Open Access Journal Characteristics
• Authors retain their own copyright
• Entire Journal content free
• Use a form of Creative Commons License
– allow authors to communicate which rights
they reserve, and which rights they waive for
the benefit of recipients or other authors
• www.creativecommons.org
Open Access Journals
• First examples late 1980s
• Journal of Medical Internet Research
1998 first medical journal
• 2009 4800 journals / 190,000 articles
• 2014 8000 journals / 420,000 articles
• 2015 >10,000 journals
Open Access
• Many major reputable publishers involved
including standard conventional hard copy
publishers (Sage, Elsevier etc…)
• Others established which are oriented
almost only toward non-hard copy (PLOS,
BioMedCentral, Hindawi ……
• Directory of Open Access Journals
http://www.doaj.org/
The Open Access Journal
• Faster publication
• Less cost
• More accessible……
• …….. What could possibly go wrong?
The eJournal
• With increased internet use many
subscription journals began publishing
parallel electronic versions
• Often possible to opt for one or the other
with many readers using only electronic
• Consumers have become used to e-
journals
The New Perspective
• Publishers repositioning themselves….

– Old: content provider to readers

– New : service provider to authors

 Open Access

Predatory Journal
What is a Predatory Journal??
• Exploitative open-access publishing
business
• Charge publication fees to authors without
meeting scholarly standards or providing
robust editorial and review services of
traditional legitimate journals
Why are these successful?
• Open Access has received a lot of publicity
• Resentment of traditional publishers
– Slowness
– Subscription cost
– Loss of copy right…..
• Many granting agencies are moving
toward insisting on OA publication
Why are these successful?
• Pressure to publish
– Career advancement, vanity …….
• Provide “easy” publication
– Rapid review and turn around time
• Naïve authors
– Flattered, unaware of fraudulent nature of
providers
So why should we care?
• Poor quality / minimal to poor review
process
• Flooding the research world with garbage
(5-10% of open access already occupied
by predatory publisher material)
• Threatens the legitimacy of Open Access
Model
• Research not indexed by reputable
indexing services
So why should we care?
• Fraudulent open access publishers have a
conflict of interest ….
• ….. the more they publish the more
money they make
• Increasing number of citations of
questionable / poor quality thereby
propagating mis-information
• Poor peer review promotes plagiarism,
data falsification / manipulation
Article Solicitation
• Typically done by email
• Use email addresses from previously
published articles, hospital and practice
websites etc….
How Can you Tell ??????
• Can be hard to tell sometimes
• ……. Poor quality or amateurish or
inexperienced legitimate Journal ???
• ……. Or Predatory Journal?

– Have to use a series of clues to tip you off

that you may be dealing with a shady outfit….
Clues
• Journal you never heard of
• Not listed in PubMed, Scopus or other
reputable indices…
• Unusually broad range of topics covered
by the journal and / or large number of
journals by single publisher you are
unfamilar with
Clues
• Look for poor English
– Mis-spelled words
– Poor syntax and grammar
– Non professional language
– May require copy right transfer
– Often difficult to find any mention of author
charges / costs
Clues
• Often hard to contact the journal, no
street or mail address, phone or fax
• If these exist may be fake or no response
• Editorial boards questionable
– May all be from one country
– Same /similar to other journals of the same
publisher
– “Members” may not even know about it
Clues
• Rapid turn around often promised
• Short time requested for submission
• May refer to previous articles you have
published
Sigh …… isn’t there a list?
• Black list
– Listing guilty journals to be wary of ….
• White list
– Listing vetted journals that appear safe……
“Blacklist”
• Scholarly Open Access
• Website and blog to assist in recognizing /
identifying and understanding predatory
journals

https://scholarlyoa.com
Beall’s list
• Run by Jeffrey Beall, librarian at Auraria
Library, University of Colorado, Denver
• Associate Professor
Beall’s List
• Listing
– Hijacked journals
– Predatory publishers
– Companies providing mis-leading indices /
metrics
Beall’s List…… RIP
• Very well researched but not a guarantee
• Some publishers / journals merely sloppy
and unprofessional
• Clearly stated on the website
• Appeal process panel of adjudicators for
those who feel they shouldn’t be listed
• Removed in January ---- legal issues???
Beall’s List…… RIP
DOAJ
(Directory of Open Access Journals)
• Sponsored by the Open Access Institute,
Open Society Institute, University of Lund
• Funding by Memberships / Library
Consortia / Academic Libraries and other
donors
• Vetting done by volunteers supervised by
editors
DOAJ
(Directory of Open Access Journals)
• Lists open access journals
• “….journals that meet high standards by
exercising peer review or editorial quality
control and use a funding model that does
not charge readers or their institutions for
access…
• www.doaj.org
DOAJ
(Directory of Open Access Journals)
• Journals apply to be listed
• Once vetted appear on the list
• May be investigated further if told that a
journal follows questionable practice
• Do not list journals that do not meet their
criteria
Cabell’s Lists
• Both good (White list) and bad (black list)
• New service 2017
• Claim to provide comprehensive highly
researched list of carefully assessed
journals
• Very expensive
Bohannon Experiment
• J Bohannon Science 2013;342:60-65
• Submitted a very poor quality bogus paper
to 304 fee charging OA journals (including
167 DOAJ, 121 Beall’s list, 16 listed by
both)
• Accepted by 157
Bohannon Experiment
• 60% no sign of peer review
• 36 detected the faults but of these 16
accepted the paper anyway
• 82% of Beall’s list publishers that
reviewed accepted the paper
• 45% of DOAJ publishers that reviewed
accepted the paper …. Resulting in implementation of new
criteria by DOAJ
What is the Answer ?
• Better education of the consumer ……
authors who want to publish
• ? not for profit independent certification
agency
– Who will run it /supervise setting up
• COPE? PubMed? DOAJ?
– How to finance it?
• Fee from authors? Publishers? Libraries?
Stormy Times Ahead….
• We must be very vigilant ….. We are
dealing with sophisticated fraudsters
• Undermines the future of scholarly
publishing
• New to develop a more robust way of
policing Open Access to preserve its
integrity
The Hijacked Journal … What is it?
• Legitimate academic journal for which a
bogus website is created for the purpose
of defrauding academics wishing to
publish
• Most often occurs with journals that have
only a print version and may not have a
website
The Hijacked Journal
• First well documented examples in 2012
• Archives des Sciences (est 1791)
• Wulfenia (est 1994)
• neither journal had its own dedicated
website and became easy prey for
imposters
The Hijacked Journal
• Wulfenia
• www.wulfeniajournal.at
• www.wulfeniajournal.com
• www.multidisciplinarywulfinia.org
The Hijacked Journal
• Often provide plausible webpages
• If you search the print edition it does
exist……
• …… but no legitimate website does
The Hijacked Journal
• Fake website will use the name of the
legitimate journal or a name that is very
close with only minor details changed
• Targeted journals are often high quality,
with legitimate impact factors …. Thereby
attracting prospective authors
• May even create fake websites for journals
that have real ones…….
Kardiologiya
• Real
http://ores.su/en/journals/kardiologiya
• Fake
http://www.kardiolgiyajournal.org
JAMA
• Real
www.jama.jamanetwork.com
• Fake
www.ama-journal.org
The Hijacked Journal
• If journals are careless web domains can
be taken over
• Simple as non-renewal of annual domain
subscription charges
• Even if your journal is not planning on an
eJournal version prudent to buy the web
domain with your name
The Hijacked Journal
• These fake websites accept submissions
• As with most open access payment is
required ….. which is collected by the
fraudulent operators
The Hijacked Journal
• How do we detect these fraudsters
• No simple sure fire way to do so
• Clues are available to us ……..
Clues
• Examine web domain names carefully
• Odd spellings
www.sciencmag.org
www.sciencemag.org