Measuring Research Impact: Predatory Journals

Predatory Journals:

The word predatory is coined by Jefferey Beall, a scholarly communication librarian at the University of Colarado, Denver.

Jeffrey Beall, a former librarian, collated a list of potential and possible predatory scholarly open access journals.

Predatory journals exploit the publisher model where the authors pay to publish articles and that are usually made available for free on web.

The main purpose is to prey on scholars and academia desperation to publish the results of their research.

These journals are rarely peer reviewed and provide no relevant information about the members of editorial board, peer review process, scope and purpose of the journals etc.

The list of possible predatory publishers was based on Beall's opinion, and it has been continued to be widely used.

Potential predatory scholarly open-access journals

Standalone Journals

https://beallslist.net/

Scholarly Kitchen

Nature

List of Journals who claim to be in DOAJ

Potential Risk in publishing Predatory Journals

1. Loss of credibility: Publishing in a predatory journal dents your credibility and the credibility of your research.
2. Loss of control of your copyright: Predatory journals may ask you to sign over the copyright of your article, and may delay the process of publishing, close all communication channels
3. Predatory publishers will exploit your profile:  Your reputation as a researcher may be used to enhance their own. Typically adding your name to lists of editors, even if you haven’t agreed to be one.
4. Lost opportunity-You lose the opportunity to publish your research in a credible journal., as they ask to sign and provide no explanations over the delay in publication

SPARC: SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials in order to democratize access to knowledge, accelerate discovery, and increase the return on our investment in research and education.

COPE: COPE(Committee on Publication Ethics) is committed to educating and supporting editors, publishers and those involved in publication ethics with the aim of moving the culture of publishing towards one where ethical practice become a normal part of the publishing culture.

LIBER: Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche is an Association of European Research Libraries to promote world-class research. The network of liber is covering organizations in Europe and beyond and is based on goal-oriented partnerships. LIBER's 2018-2022 policy endorses the exceptional focus on the key topics of Copyright Reform, Digital Humanities, Open Access, Metrics, Research Data Management, etc.