Crouching tiger and rejoice jackals: Scholarly vs predatory Open Access journals.

Jasimudeen S. & Vimal Kumar V.Research ScholarsSchool of Social SciencesMahatma Gandhi University

“Academic Racketeering”

Rapid rise of predatory journals,

Publications taking large fees without providing robust editorial or publishing services,

Predatory journals attract authors through aggressive marketing and spam emails, promising quick review and open access publication for a price.

The preys

Motive is financial gain, and they are corrupting the communication of science,

Their main victims are institutions and researchers in low and middle income countries, and the time has come to act rather than simply to decry them.

Features of predatory journals

Insufficient contact information,

Broad area of subject to attract more articles (Journal of Social Sciences),

Journals treat two or more fields of study together (e.g. International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology),

Sky high claims like “leading publisher”,

Fake/similar ISSN and absence of article DOI.

Reasons behind the growth of predatory journals

The introduction of academic performance indicator (API) by the UGC,

The focus on quantity over quality,

Lack of publishing avenues; absence of higher education institutions in scholarly publishing industry,

Lack of national machinery to monitor scholarly publishing industry,

Publication experience with a predatory journalThe manuscript, entitled “Deconstructing Access Points” was submitted on January 29th, 2009, to

The Open Information Science Journal (TOISCIJ),

a journal that claims to enforce peer-review.

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/06/10/nonsense-for-dollars/

Paper was generated using Scigen

Paper was accepted and asked for submission fee

The acceptance letter read: This is to inform you that your submitted article has been accepted for publication after peer-

reviewing process in TOISCIJ. I would be highly grateful to you if you please fill and sign the attached fee form and covering letter

and send them back via email as soon as possible to avoid further delay in publication.

Fake manuscript

Paper submission

Asking advancement payment

Quick publishing process !!

Beware of predatory journalsIs the publisher listed in any blacklist (Beall’s List),

Check in any whitelist like DOAJ,

Searching for the journal in databases (PubMedCentral, Web of Science),

Credible journals follow transparency in editorial and peer review processes.

ConclusionAvailability of National and international whitelist of journals,

Availability of more Open Access journals from research centres and higher education institutions,

Need more generous funding to initiate Open Access journals,

Need to encourage continuous (frequency) journals to accommodate more articles.