Open Access and Scholarly Communication: Predatory Publishers

What is a Predatory Publisher?  Publishers that exist mostly in the scholarly open-access environment who charge publication fees to authors without the providing editorial/peer-reviewer services that are common in legitimate scholarly journals.

Checklist:

• Be wary of email invitations to submit to journals, conference, or become a member of an editorial board.
• Beware of fast acceptance rates and turnaround times
• No peer-review process or a “fake” process done in 24-48 hours
• Fake ISSN number
• Check that the publisher provides full, verifiable contact information (not just a web form)
• Check that the journal’s editorial board lists recognized experts with full affiliations
• Check that the journal prominently displays its policy for author fees or author processing fees (especially in the open-access environment).
• If you're unsure, please contact your librarian.

Jennifer Huffman (2017) Publisher Package and Open Access Journals: Are Any of Them Predatory?, The Serials Librarian, 73:3-4, 248-268, DOI: 10.1080/0361526X.2017.1389796

Clark, A. M. and Thompson, D. R. (2017), Five (bad) reasons to publish your research in predatory journals. J Adv Nurs, 73: 2499-2501. DOI:10.1111/jan.13090

Nerissa Nelson & Jennifer Huffman (2015) Predatory Journals in Library Databases: How Much Should We Worry?, The Serials Librarian, 69:2, 169-192, DOI: 10.1080/0361526X.2015.1080782

• Beall's List of Predatory Publishers
  • Established a black list of illegitimate publishers/journals
  • Published list through personal blog “Scholarly Open Access,” ceased publication in January 2017 (list still exists in cached websites, but is not maintained)
• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
  • Community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
• DOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)

• An authoritative directory of academic open access repositories.

• OASIS (Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook)
  • Resource and support for open-access publishing
• SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)
  • An international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication.
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
  • COPE provides leadership in thinking on publication ethics, practical resources to educate and support members, and offers a professional voice in current debates.
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
  • Represents the interests of Open Access (OA) journal and book publishers globally, across all subjects and disciplines
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
• Cabell’s Scholarly Analytics
  • Publishes Journal White List and Black List, available via subscription (the Library does not have a subscription at this time)
• Retraction Watch
  • Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
• Ulrich’s Periodical Database

This video by Jeffrey Beall (University of Colorado Denver) gives an overview of predatory publishing.