The Rewards of Predatory Publications at a Small Business School

Abstract

This study is the first to compare the rewards of publishing in predatory journals with the rewards of publishing in traditional journals. It finds that the majority of faculty with research responsibilities at a small Canadian business school have publications in predatory journals. In terms of financial compensation, these publications produce greater rewards than many non-predatory journal publications. Publications in predatory journals are also positively correlated with receiving internal research awards. By improving the understanding of the incentives to publish in predatory journals, this research aims to contribute to a better-informed debate on policies dealing with predatory journals.

Is open access affordable? Why current models do not work and why we need internet‐era transformation of scholarly communications

“…When some evaluation and hiring systems reward academics for the quantity of what they publish, not the quality, no wonder there is a ready demand for these low-priced journals (Beall, 2017;Kurt, 2018;Oberhaus, 2018;Poynder, 2018b;Pyne, 2017). Concerned that scholarship is being undermined by fake science, these titles, which publish tens of thousands of articles annually, are gaining the attention of regulators and the mainstream media (Anderson, K., 2018b;Anderson, R., 2018;Hern & Duncan, 2018;Priyadarshini, 2018;The Economist, 2018).…”

“…Whilst some authors, including those from elite institutions, have felt conned by the so‐called ‘predatory’ nature of low‐priced publishers, others consider their journals a godsend because they do not discriminate against non‐Western researchers, offer rapid turnaround times, advance careers, and build reputations. When some evaluation and hiring systems reward academics for the quantity of what they publish, not the quality, no wonder there is a ready demand for these low‐priced journals (Beall, ; Kurt, ; Oberhaus, ; Poynder, ; Pyne, ). Concerned that scholarship is being undermined by fake science, these titles, which publish tens of thousands of articles annually, are gaining the attention of regulators and the mainstream media (Anderson, K., ; Anderson, R., ; Hern & Duncan, ; Priyadarshini, ; The Economist, ).…”

We’re Still Failing to Deliver Open Access and Solve the Serials Crisis: To Succeed We Need a Digital Transformation of Scholarly Communication Using Internet-Era Principles

“…APC prices at these levels create a market opportunity for new entrants offering publication fees as low as US$200 (Shen & Björk, 2015). While some authors, including from elite institutions, have felt conned by the so-called 'predatory' nature of these new entrants, others consider these journals a godsend because they do not discriminate against non-Western researchers, offer rapid turnaround times, advance careers and build reputation (Poynder, 2018b;Beall, 2017;Kurt, 2018;Pyne, 2017;Oberhaus, 2018). In India and China, the evaluation systems used for hiring and promotion can reward academics for the quantity of publications they publish, not the quality, so no wonder there is a ready demand for these low-priced journals.…”

Do not feed the predators

“…To this end, we have compiled and analysed a dataset of 728 articles with South African affiliated authors, published in the five most popular predatory journals in economic and management sciences for the period 2013 to mid-2016. We identified journals as predatory by their inclusion on the nowwithdrawn Beall's list (Beall, 2016), as done in a number of other studies (Bagues, Sylos-Labini & Zionovyeva, 2016;Mouton & Valentine, 2017;Pyne, 2017;Wallace & Perri, 2016). Beall is widely acknowledged as a leading authority on predatory publishers (Berger & Cirasella, 2015:132;Butler, 2013).…”

“…Pyne (2017) found "that the majority of faculty with research responsibilities at a small Canadian business school have publications in predatory journals." In Italy, Bagues, Sylos-Labini and Zionovyeva (2016) found that about 5% of researchers have such publications.…”