Hijacked journals - threats and challenges to countries' scientific ranking

Hijacked journals, hijacked web-sites, journal phishing, misleading metrics, and predatory publishing: actual and potential threats to academic integrity and publishing ethics

“…Hijacked journals, a term first coined by Dr. Mehrdad Jalalian in 2012 [15], assume fake websites that mimic authentic and reputable journals and their websites, abusing both established names and identities such as the ISSN [16]. The first ever hijacked journals to be detected were created in early 2011 with the cybercriminal(s) registering an expired domain ''sciencerecord.com'' to launch three hijacked journals, namely Science Series data report, Innova Ciencia, and Science and nature [17].…”

“…The number of published papers in 19 hijacked journals in the first half of 2015 shows that there is still a lack of knowledge about hijacked journals in scholarly publishing (relative to POAJs), they pose a real challenge and risk to science because they abuse the names and ISSNs of reputable academic and scholarly journals, without any visible control measures [15]. Consequently, they can receive more papers than POAJs [22].…”

“…However, for now, such highly visible cases appear to be the exception rather than the rule. Since most papers in hijacked journals will not be indexed in scientific data-bases such as Scopus or Thomson Reuters' Web of Science Ò , such papers become ''invisible'' to legitimate international scientific communication and any country that has been a target by a hijacked journal may lose its academic ranking [15]. Since a hijacked journal's website might only be available for a short period of time, a sector of science and research may risk becoming unavailable [23].…”

Journal hijacking: Challenges and potential solutions

“…Hijacked journals ‘were detected for the first time by Dr. Mehrdad Jalalian in early 2012’ (Dadkhah & Maliszewski, 2015, p. 282). Hijacked journals exploit the Gold Open Access (OA) model (also called the ‘Pay to Publish’ model).…”

Methodological considerations for identifying questionable publishing in a national context: The case of Swedish Higher Education Institutions

“…These journals also operate under false pretenses (e.g., using high-status entity names in titles without having real connections, inventing fake journal impact metrics, or listing prominent researchers as editors without their knowledge). Some studies have also raised the issue of hijacked journals (Dadkhah & Maliszewski, 2015;Jalalian & Dadkhah, 2015;Shahri, Jazi, et al, 2018) where the titles and ISSNs of both existing and discontinued journals have been picked up by shady actors. The problem is perceived as so widespread that tools for distinguishing real from hijacked journals have been developed (Asadi, Rahbar, et al, 2017).…”