The Development of the Journal Evaluation Tool to Evaluate the Credibility of Publication Venues

Objective: The purpose of predatory open access (OA) journals is primarily to make a profit rather than to disseminate quality, peer-reviewed research. Publishing in these journals could negatively impact faculty reputation, promotion, and tenure, yet many still choose to do so. Therefore, the authors investigated faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory OA journals.Methods: A twenty-item questionnaire containing both quantitative and qualitative items was developed and piloted. All university and medical school faculty were invited to participate. The survey included knowledge questions that assessed respondents’ ability to identify predatory OA journals and attitudinal questions about such journals. Chi-square tests were used to detect differences between university and medical faculty.Results: A total of 183 faculty completed the survey: 63% were university and 37% were medical faculty. Nearly one-quarter (23%) had not previously heard of the term “predatory OA journal.” Most (87%) reported feeling very confident or confident in their ability to assess journal quality, but only 60% correctly identified a journal as predatory, when given a journal in their field to assess. Chi-square tests revealed that university faculty were more likely to correctly identify a predatory OA journal (p=0.0006) and have higher self-reported confidence in assessing journal quality, compared with medical faculty (p=0.0391).Conclusions: Survey results show that faculty recognize predatory OA journals as a problem. These attitudes plus the knowledge gaps identified in this study will be used to develop targeted educational interventions for faculty in all disciplines at our university.

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“…Check. Submit and a recently published checklist by Blas et al [27], would be beneficial for enhancing faculty skills in assessing journals [5].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory open access journals: a needs assessment study

Swanberg

Thielen

Bulgarelli

2020

jmla

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“…Many of those cater to specialized readerships. Although DOAJ attempts to list only valid OA journals, cautious authors can also apply the tools suggested by Blas, Rele, and Kennedy (2019) to check journals prior to publication. These examples illustrate free-to-read / free-to-publish OA funding approaches, which have persisted for many years.…”

Section: Plan S Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Changing Landscape of Open Access Publishing: Can Open Access Publishing Make the Scholarly World More Equitable and Productive?

Dudley

2021

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

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Almost 50% of scholarly articles are now open access in some form. This greatly benefits scholars at most institutions and is especially helpful to independent scholars and those without access to libraries. It also furthers the long-standing idea of knowledge as a public good. The changing dynamics of open access (OA) threaten this positive development by solidifying the pay-to-publish OA model which further marginalizes peripheral scholars and incentivizes the development of substandard and predatory journals. Causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are used to illustrate these interactions. THE RISE OF OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING The Generation of Academic Knowledge Much scholarly work is built on knowledge discovered or created by previous scholars. The details of that previous work are communicated via scholarly publications. Although the form of these has changed over the years, the most common form now is via journal articles and books. Access to this accumulated knowledge is an issue of vital importance to scholars Volume 9, General Issue JL SC 2 | eP2345 Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication around the world because, until recently, much of it was not available to most of them. Although open access (OA) publishing has made accumulated knowledge more available, scholars must also be able to publish their own findings so that others can benefit (Figure 1). This article examines how the evolving open access movement is changing the dynamics of scholarly publishing in a way that both helps, but also hinders, peripheral scholars. Causal loop diagrams are used to illustrate factors that cause, and reinforce, these trends, sometimes making them difficult to alter. 2 A Note on Reading Causal Loop Diagrams. Causal loop diagrams are diagrammatic representations of links among elements in a system: in this case the system of interlinked factors that affect open access publishing. Typically, elements in a causal loop diagram are connected with unidirectional arrows which link a cause to an effect. These arrows, or causal links, indicate how a change in the causal variable might affect change in the second variable. These causal links are generally thought of as causing either: 1. Change in the same

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Status, limitations, and challenges of blue carbon studies in the Philippines: A bibliographic analysis

Corcino

Gerona-Daga

Samoza

et al. 2023

Regional Studies in Marine Science

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The Development of the Journal Evaluation Tool to Evaluate the Credibility of Publication Venues

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

Faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory open access journals: a needs assessment study

Faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory open access journals: a needs assessment study

The Changing Landscape of Open Access Publishing: Can Open Access Publishing Make the Scholarly World More Equitable and Productive?

Status, limitations, and challenges of blue carbon studies in the Philippines: A bibliographic analysis

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