EASE

Tag: predatory publishers

  • EASE Member Webinar: Deceptive journals and how to avoid them

    EASE Member Webinar: Deceptive journals and how to avoid them

  • Another step towards defining predatory journals

    A new comment article in Nature, headed up by lead-author Agnes Grudniewicz, unveils a new consensus-formed definition of predatory publishing, and provides some suggestions of steps to take in the future to tackle the problems developing from the phenomena.

    The group of 43 participants, consisting of members of industry organisations, society and commercial publishers, research institutes, libraries, policymakers and other key academic roles, provided answers to 28 questions, and engaged in 12 hours of discussion to develop the documents, followed by 2 further rounds of feedback and revision.

    The definition put forward by the group is as follows:

    “Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.”

    The key characteristics defined by the group consist of just a small number of broad headings:

    • False or misleading information.
    • Deviation from best editorial and publication practices.
    • Lack of transparency.
    • Aggressive, indiscriminate solicitation.

    The paper also states some items which the group deliberately left out of the defining characteristics. Though they provide justification (and admit they are controversial), there are some surprising omissions, which among other things include peer review processes and intent to deceive, as the group say are too difficult or subjective to assess.

    Despite their omissions, these concepts are still incorporated into the areas which are considered for assessment. For example, transparency of processes can require journals to provide evidence of peer review processes being conducted, and determining false and misleading information would encompass attempts to deceive.

    The problem of these publishers is unlikely to go away of its own accord, in a world which combines the existence of both harsh publishing demands on researchers and high open access fees of legitimate publishers, there is a market for affordable publication venues.  These documents, and the work of this group are yet another step towards providing resources to help researchers, and many other members of academia and the publishing industry, navigate, identify and reduce the potential harms done by poorly governed research publishing.

    Supporting files can be accessed on OSF here, including a Call to Action statement which can be signed to discuss a roadmap of activities related to monitoring, measuring, and stopping predatory journals.

    References:

    Grudniewicz et al. Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature 576, 210-212 (2019)

    Cobey, K. D., Moher, D., Lalu, M. M., Grudniewicz, A., Cukier, S., & Bryson, G. L. (2019, December 11). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Retrieved from osf.io/8xvpm  

  • Thematic analysis of predatory black- and white-lists

    A new preprint on the PeerJ, authored by Michaela Strinzel​, Anna Severin, Katrin Milzow, and Matthias Egger hopes to make sense of quality criteria for journals by analysing trends in blacklist and whitelists of scholarly titles.

    The paper, titled “Blacklists” and “whitelists” to tackle predatory publishing: A cross-sectional comparison and thematic analysis analyses the content of two blacklists (Beall’s and Cabell’s) and two whitelists (DOAJ and Cabell’s).

    The number of journals in each list ranged from 1,404 to 12,357 and the number of publishers from 473 to 5,638. From these large numbers, the study found 73 journals and 42 publishers which were listed in both a black- and white- list.

    Seven key themes were identified from a total of 198 different inclusion criteria detailed by each of the lists:

    (i) peer review
    (ii) editorial services
    (iii) policy
    (iv) business practices
    (v) publishing, archiving and access
    (vi) website and
    (vii) indexing and metrics.

    Business practices accounted for almost half of the elements in blacklists’ criteria, whereas policy and guidelines played a more prominent role in determining inclusion in whitelists.

    Criteria were grouped into four broad concepts:

    (i) transparency
    (ii) ethics
    (iii) professional standards and
    (iv) peer review and other services.

    Whitelists gave more weight to the positive features of transparency, whereas blacklists focused on negative behaviours, features or a lack of evidence for ethics and professional standards. Neither type of list was found to give much emphasis to the quality of peer review, which seems contrary to the prevailing attitude towards predatory publishers as those journals which perform no peer review at all.  However, the study also found that there were several aspects central to the evaluation criteria that were difficult to verify, and thus also received insufficient weight and attention in the assessment processes.

    This is a very interesting paper which makes a good attempt at disambiguating the blurred boundaries between publishing model attitudes, and the ways in which editorial practices are conducted. It is a good complement to last year’s paper by Cobey et al in F1000, What is a predatory journal? A scoping review, which summarises a wealth of literature on predatory journals, describes some of the characteristics of the phenomena, and extracts empirical descriptions of potential characteristics.

    Strinzel M, Severin A, Milzow K, Egger M. 2019. “Blacklists” and “whitelists” to tackle predatory publishing : A cross-sectional comparison and thematic analysis. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27532v1

  • Predatory Publishers, Rogue Journals, and the Potential Corruption of Addiction Science

    An interesting article addressing ‘predatory publishing’ has been published by EASE member Tom Babor and Judit Ward, in a recent issue of Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

    The name predatory publisher has been applied by academic librarian Jeffrey Beall to describe an open-access, scholarly publishing business model in which publication fees are charged to authors without providing the editorial judgment, peer-review process, and publishing services associated with more established journals. In the addiction field, as many as 20 journal titles now operate according to this model, and most of their editors are either nonexistent or impossible to contact. Although predatory publishing should not be equated with open access, this article argues that predatory publishers are diluting scientific quality in the addiction field by taking advantage of the open-access movement. Beyond the damage done to the reputations of naive authors and figurehead editorial board members, there is a cascade of effects resulting from the shabby publication process itself. If the addiction field is to be protected from predatory publishers, all sectors need to be involved. Declarations of “buyer beware” and “the emperor has no clothes” are just the first steps in a process of preventing further damage to the integrity of addiction science. As described in this article, concerted action will be required by authors, editors, and professional societies.

    Thomas F. Babor and Judit H. Ward, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 2018 79:4, 509-513 https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2018.79.509

  • Guidance needed about trustworthy publishing outlets

    The preliminary results from a survey conducted in September 2018 by the Think. Check. Submit. initiative have been published on the OASPA wesite.

    Think.Check.Submit is an educational initiative to help authors identify trustworthy publishers. The survey was completed by 410 respondents. The initial results indicates researchers and librarians are happy with the initiative, but require further guidance, and levels of detail on the issue.

    Relevance to their field, inclusion in indexes/impact factor, and belief that the journal was trustworthy were the top three reasons respondents selected journals in which to publish.

    In 2019, the initiative will provide more in-depth analysis of the findings, and develop further educational resources for librarians and researchers.

  • Think.Check.Submit User Survey

    Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals for their research.

    Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative helps educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications.

    The team behind Think. Check. Submit. wants to ensure that the initiative is as useful as possible to researchers, librarians and others around the world so have created this short survey about user experiences and what might make the initiative more effective.

    This survey will be open until 28th September 2018 and should take about 10 minutes to complete. Please share with any colleagues who you think might be interested.

    The survey is anonymous. However, if you would like to be informed about developments with Think. Check. Submit. there will be an opportunity to share your email address at the end.

    https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/STZS5TJ