To Catch a Predator:How to Recognize Predatory Journals and Conferences

M O N I C A B E R G E RA S S O C I A T E P R O F E S S O R , L I B R A R Y

N E W Y O R K C I T Y C O L L E G E O F T E C H N O L O G Y N O V. 1 5 , 2 0 1 3

Sponsored by the LACUNY Scholarly Communications Roundtable , the CUNY Office of Library Services,

and Just Publics @ 365

“Unfortunately, there is no objective way to measure or determine whether a publisher is predatory” --Jeffrey Beall

Beall, Jeffrey. "Unethical Practices in Scholarly, Open-Access Publishing."Journal of Information Ethics 22.1 (2013): 11-20.

HOW DO LIBRARIANS FIT

IN?

Part 1:

Background, definitions, what is new is old (sort of), Beall and Bohannon

Beall’s Definition

INTENT TO DECEIVE

What is new is old

More about Beall

•NY Times article •Lawsuits

http://scholarlyoa.com

APCs

Part II

•Common practices of predatory publishers • Examples of other kinds of predatory and/or low quality scholarship

Bad things happen to good scholars

1. “Articles published without complete author approval.2. Articles published before payment terms were either

understood or completed.3. Articles published with payment terms incomplete but

then negotiated, forcing authors into an uncomfortable position.

4. An editorial process that created more problems than it solved, with errors introduced during proof-reading, and authors “tearing their hair out” because of it.

5. Papers published without peer-review.”  

(Kent Anderson, Scholarly Kitchen)

OF PAPER MILLS AND

PLAGIARISM

Part III

HOW TO CATCHA PREDATOR

Identify …Predators [Beall] and

trustworthy publishers …

Trustworthy publishers

• OASPA http://oaspa.org/

• COPE http://publicationethics.org

• SPARC Europe Seal for OA http://sparceurope.org/our-work/sparc-europe-seal-for-open-access-journals/

• SPARC http://sparc.arl.org/

TRUST NOT …ALWAYS VERIFY

•Business model? All APCs? •Crosscheck editors, identify of journal/publisher•Read articles & judge!

• Rapid publication promise• Publisher=editor of the journals; editorial boards

multiple• No editor, board, staff and/or affiliations• Phishing, spammy contact=bulk email• Contradictions about editorial process, rights or

fees on the publisher’s site • Disconnected web contact forms• No .edu email for contact• Poorly written text, dead links, hasty creation• Zero interest in reader experience• Publisher very new• Lack of transparency about publisher

• Lack of transparency about fees • Too little, too much articles [three bears]• Lack of coherence in content scope/Vagueness of scope:

o “Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal,” “British Journal of Science”

• Copycat name• No CC license • Peer-review not explained clearly or in detail• No revisions post-submission• Not in DOAJ (but inclusion not meaningful conversely)• Falsely claims indexing and abstracting in library databases• Touts logos of well known indexing and abstracting library

databases• Links / logos of established organizations, publishers and such

when there’s no actual connection• Calls itself “American Journal of … “ when no base in the United

States, etc. • Copy look and feel of well-known publishers’ website• Weird metrics

SOLUTIONS? • Authors fight back in print• DOAJ rising standards—114 journals removed!

“Bohannon's article did highlight three important issues:There are predatory publishers.There are problems with peer review. Some of the exposed journals are indexed in DOAJ.”

• Open peer review?• Library Loon spurs a conversation. See Barbara Fister’s

great summary: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/judging-journals

Sources referenced in order of talk

Slides 2, 5: Beall, Jeffrey. "Unethical Practices in Scholarly, Open-Access Publishing."Journal of Information Ethics 22.1 (2013): 11-20.

Slide 8: Crawford, Walt. Open Access: What You Need to Know Now. ALA Editions(2011).

Slide 9: Butler, D. "The Dark Side of Publishing." Nature 495.7442 (2013): 433-435. ;

NY Times article on Beall: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/for-scientists-an-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto&_r=0&pagewanted=all.

Slides 11-13: Beall’s website http://scholarlyoa.com ;

Nature article: http://www.nature.com/news/specials/scipublishing/index.html

Slide 14: Dudley, Michael Quinn. "The Curious Case of Academic Publishing.“ Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research 8.1 (2013).

Slide 15: Bohannon, John. "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" Science 342.6154 (2013): 60-5. ;

Scholarly Kitchen: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/10/04/open-access-sting-reveals-deception-missed-opportunities/ and http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/11/12/post-open-access-sting-an-interview-with-john-bohannon/ ;

Butler (op. cit.)

Slide 16: Beall, Jeffrey. "Five Scholarly Open Access Publishers." The Charleston Advisor 13.4 (2012): 5-10. ;

Kozak, Marcin, and James Hartley. "Publication Fees for Open Access Journals: Different Disciplines? Different Methods."Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 64.12 (2013): 2591-4. ;

Morrison, Heather. "Economics of scholarly communication in transition." First Monday, 18.6 (2013).

Slide 18: Anderson, Kent. "“Predatory” Open Access Publishers — The Natural Extreme of an Author-Pays Model | The Scholarly Kitchen " http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/03/06/predatory-open-access-publishers-the-natural-extreme-of-an-author-pays-model/

Slide 19: http://www.nature.com/news/sham-journals-scam-authors-1.12681

Slide 20: Jansen, Patrick A., and Pierre-Michel Forget. "Predatory Publishers and Plagiarism Prevention." Science 336.6087 (2012): 1380.

Slide 21: description of a predatory conference: http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/09/12/conference-attendee-to-omics-i-want-out/

Slide 25: New DOAJ standards: http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=news&nId=303

Slide 26: Library Loon, http://gavialib.com/2012/04/assessing-the-scamminess-of-a-purported-open-access-publisher/;

Are ‘predatory’ publishers an American export? http://www.semantico.com/2013/05/are-predatory-publishers-an-american-export/

Sllde 29: da Silva, Jaime A. Teixeira, and Judit Dobránszki. "How Not to Publish an Open Access Journal: A Case Study.“;

DOAJ on the sting: http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=news&nId=317&uiLanguage=en

Fister’s summary of Library Loon discussion: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/judging-journals

Thank you! Monica Berger

mberger@citytech.cuny.edu