Predatory Publishing

A complex site run by a group of people who choose to remain anonymous while working to eliminate predatory publishing. Blogs, tweets, sample emails, soundbites and more.

"According to the complaint, the defendants deceptively claim that their journals provide authors with rigorous peer review and have editorial boards made up of prominent academics when in fact, many articles are published with little to no peer review and many individuals represented to be editors have not agreed to be affiliated with the journals."

"We spent 12 months rigorously characterizing nearly 2,000 biomedical articles from more than 200 journals thought likely to be predatory. More than half of the corresponding authors hailed from high- and upper-middle-income countries as defined by the World Bank."

With the ability to create official-looking web pages and emails, predatory publishers have gone global. Today, there are about 8,000 active "journals," publishing roughly 400,000 research articles a year [...]

An investigation finds that dozens of academic titles offered 'Dr Fraud' — a sham, unqualified scientist — a place on their editorial board. Katarzyna Pisanski and colleagues report.

Some researchers don’t see the red flags, blinded by pressure to publish. Others may choose to look the other way in order to pad their resumes. [...] But in the end, the problem of predatory journals goes beyond publisher and prey.

I realize that predatory publishing and phishing emails are not laughing matters. There has been an explosion of predatory publishers trying to con scientists out of their money. For a fee, these journals or books are just frothing at the mouth to collect your cash.

Overall, Cabell’s Blacklist is a welcome new product, but one that will need significant improvement before it is able to realize its full potential as a tool for helping maintaining the integrity of the scholarly-communication ecosystem.