Being a Deliberate Prey of a Predator – Researchers’ Thoughts after having Published in a Predatory Journal

Abstract

A central question concerning scientific publishing is how researchers select journals to which they submit their work, since the choice of publication channel can make or break researchers. The gold-digger mentality developed by some publishers created the so-called predatory journals that accept manuscripts for a fee with little peer review. The literature claims that mainly researchers from low-ranked universities in developing countries publish in predatory journals. We decided to challenge this claim using the University of Southern Denmark as a case. We ran the Beall's List against our research registration database and identified 31 possibly predatory publications from a set of 6,851 publications within 2015-2016. A qualitative research interview revealed that experienced researchers from the developed world publish in predatory journals mainly for the same reasons as do researchers from developing countries: lack of awareness, speed and ease of the publication process, and a chance to get elsewhere rejected work published. However, our findings indicate that the Open Access potential and a larger readership outreach were also motives for publishing in Open Access journals with quick acceptance rates.

Publishing at Any Cost? The Need for the Improvement of the Quality of Scholarly Publications

“…Burggren et al (2018) advocate that, instead of using complex metrics, evaluation committees, whether for merit, promotion or tenure, should base their assessments on the quality of the work published, as well as the quality of the journal itself. This would lead to a redefinition in terms of the choice of the journals to publish in on the part of academics (Shaghaei et al, 2018;Teixeira da Silva & Tsigaris, 2018;Cress & Sarwer, 2019;Severin & Low, 2019).…”

“…However, it is important to use some caution when condemning predatory journals, especially within some scientific fields. On their 2018 study, Shaghaei et al (2018) alert that common views about predatory journals may not always be accurate, and there is a grey zone between real and presumed predatory journals.…”

How reliable and useful is Cabell's Blacklist ? A data-driven analysis

“…First, some legitimate commercial publishers can very much be considered to "prey" on researchers and libraries as they request high APCs or subscription fees (see Rentier, 2018, p.25), or both. Second, some authors publishing in fake journals "are aware that the journals do not adhere to accepted standards but choose to publish in them anyway, hence they are not 'prey'" (Laine & Winker, 2017); they deliberately choose to publish in such fake journals for reasons that include fierce competition and a desire of career advancement (Shaghaei et al, 2018). 2 We are aware that using the terms blacklist and whitelist may have some racist overtones for some readers (Houghton & Houghton, 2018).…”

Peer review under the ethical lens: possible questions

“…On the other hand, there are reviewers who take the editor's role and conflicts may appear especially when articles are published against their recommendation for a rejection. This issue must now be weighted cautiously, because predatory journals were proven to have published articles rejected by other journals (Björk, 2018), even despite the recommendations of reviewers (Shaghaei et al 2018). The latest generated Publons, a platform that allowed reviewers to see what happened to their reviewing work.…”