What is meant by ‘predatory publisher’? Who is preyed on and by whom? What are the consequences of this publishing phenomenon? The Director of the US ISSN Center will draw on the experience of the ISSN Network and National Library of Medicine (NLM) to explore these issues. Criteria for inclusion in NLM’s indexes and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), as well as criteria for denying or revoking an ISSN, will be outlined. Statistics on the ubiquity and longevity of these publications, their impact on ISSN and NLM, and the role of librarians will be discussed.

1. REGINA ROMANO REYNOLDS
DIRECTOR, U.S. ISSN CENTER
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
UKSG, BOURNEMOUTH, 2016

3. BEALL’S DEFINITION
“predatory” publishers—those that
unprofessionally exploit the gold
open-access model for their own
profit. These publishers use deception
to appear legitimate, entrapping
researchers into submitting their work
and then charging them to publish it.
J. Beall, The Scientist Aug 1,
2012

4. PREDATORY PRACTICES DESCRIBED BY BEALL*
• Attracting revenue by deceiving their authors, their
readers, and/or those trying to evaluate the scholarly
achievements of their authors.
• Honesty (does it falsely claim editorial board members
or impact factors?)
• Business practices (does it engage in spam
solicitations or steal content from reputable
journals?), and
• Transparency (does it hide author charges until after
manuscript acceptance or hide its content from
search engines?).
https://www.ufv.ca/media/assets/research/workshops/Criteria-
for-Determining-Predatory-Publishers.pdf

5. WHO ARE THE PREDATORS?

6. PREDATORS?
• Beall’s list? —controversial
• Many publishers, open access or not?
• Large commercial and society publishers?
• Academics who edit predatory journals or serve
on their boards?
• Academia’s“publish or perish” requirement?
• Authors knowingly publishing in journals that
have names similar to well known journals?
• Publishers who employ deceptive practices
solely to reap profits?

7. WHO
IS BEING
PREYED ON?

8. PREY?
Authors?
Scholars
in
Developin
g
Libraries?
The Public?

9. THE DARK SIDE OF OPEN ACCESS:
TRUE TALES FROM
THE U.S. ISSN CENTER

10. GOOGLE MAPS PHOTO:
LOCATION OF A PUBLISHING OFFICE
GIVEN BY PUBLISHER TO NLM

11. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVE PREDATORY
OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS FROM 2010-2014
Shen and
Bjork, BMC
Medicine
(2015) 13:230

12. LONGEVITY?

13. LONGEVITY OBSERVATIONS
(INFORMAL STUDIES BY KAREN ROSS, PROQUEST METADATA LIBRARIAN
IN THE U.S. ISSN CENTER)
• 77 journals from Beall’s list (from 22 publishers chosen at
random) were checked for continued existence (start
dates between 2007 – 2015)
• 50 were still in existence although some had changed titles
• Many of their earliest issues had fewer than 5 articles;
• Now most had 10 – 12 articles per issue
• Beall’s list of ca 900 titles was checked to determine if the
publisher URL was still in existence
• 145 had non-working URLs, with perhaps 15 of those
changed URLs
• Ca. 14% of the web sites could not be found
Informal conclusion: Far from disappearing as some
might have thought, questionable publishers and their
journals are largely persisting

14. SHOULD WE RETIRE THE
TERM?
RICK ANDERSON
Acting in
bad
faith?
Questionable
Publisher?

15. IT’S NOT SIMPLY “GOOD GUYS” VS. “BAD GUYS”

16. CONTINUUM
Clueless
Amateur
Deceptive Fraudulent

17. IT’S COMPLICATED!

18. ACTORS:
ENABLERS, BYSTANDERS, IMPROVERS?
Academic
s
Peer
reviewers
Traditional
publishers
Governments
ISSN
centers
Libraries &
librarians
Professiona
l
organization
s

19. ECONOMIC REALITIES
Ease of Internet publishing
Government mandates for open
access
Growing numbers of scholars
worldwide
Library support for open access
Requirement in developing countries
to publish in “international journals”
Selectivity by mainstream publishers

20. Growing numbers of authors +
pressure
to publish + ease of online publishing
=
marketing opportunity
publishing
opportunity

21. A moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among
a large number of people that some evil
threatens the well-being of society. A Dictionary
of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the
process of arousing social concern over an issue
– usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and
the mass media.
Wikipedia

22. JOHN DUPUIS
(CONFESSIONS OF A SCIENCE LIBRARIAN)
• Is the “moral panic” over “predatory
publishing” overshadowing the failings
of peer review and the subscription
model?
• Retraction Watch examples
• Should peer review be abolished?
• Should journals be abolished in favor of
something like physics preprints?

23. MIGHT THE BLANKET LABEL “PREDATORY:”
HARM THE CAUSE OF OPEN ACCESS?
INHIBIT PUBLISHING IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES?
DEPRIVE SCIENCE AND SCHOLARSHIP OF
DISCOVERIES AND INSIGHTS?

24. HOW CAN QUALITY OPEN
ACCESS PREVAIL?

27. SOME DOAJ BASIC REQUIREMENTS
URL must go straight to the journal home page
All content free without delays or embargos
“Business information pages” available at
journals’ URL, not a central page
Journal must have a dedicated web site
At least one ISSN
Home page must “demonstrate that care has been taken
to ensure high ethical and professional standards.”
(Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in
Scholarly Publishing)
Editor and editorial board with contact
information
Clear description of quality control system
(editorial or peer review)
All publishing charges clearly stated
Open access policy clearly stated

28. PRINCIPLES OF TRANSPARENCY AND BEST
PRACTICE IN SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING
• Based on DOAJ requirements with some additions:
• Responsibility to identify and prevent papers
giving evidence of research misconduct
• Journal name should be unique and not
misleading or easily confused with another
journals
• Solicitation of manuscripts should be
appropriate, well targeted and unobtrusive
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)

30. ROLE OF THE LIBRARIAN

31. A TALE OF TWO LIBRARIES: LC ISSN AND NLM

33. ISSN APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS FROM
ISSN.ORG
d) We reserve the right to refuse an ISSN assignment if it is considered that
misleading information has been provided by the requestor or
printed/displayed on the publication regarding, for instance: the place of
publication (publisher’s address), the members of the editorial board, the
referencing by indexing services or databases, the participation in digital
preservation programs or the authorship of the articles provided.
e) We also reserve the right to revoke an ISSN if it subsequently comes to light
that misleading information has been provided.

35. WHY ASSIGN ISSN AT ALL?
• ISSN is first and foremost an identifier—these
publications need to be identified and
distinguished from same or similar titles
• ISSN does not indicate quality or legitimacy any
more than your social security number
indicates that you are a good citizen
• ISSN helps to track these publications and see
patterns, such as what has been presented
about longevity and ubiquity

38. U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
EXCERPTS FROM COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT STATEMENT
A journal should demonstrate:
quality of editorial work
the publisher and/or sponsoring organization’s history
and corporate structure
longevity
record of performance regarding such issues as:
 quality of publications,
 experience in scholarly publishing,
 involvement with the scientific community;
 disclosure of an adherence to print and online publication
standards,
promotion of editorial integrity and independence.

39. NLM STRIVES FOR
“GEOGRAPHIC HETEROGENEITY”
other periodicals—those that are not sources of
original research—must be primarily biomedical
in content to be considered for selection. The
Library may make exceptions [for] geographic
heterogeneity. For example, NLM may select
basic science or social science journals from
developing countries which often have little or
no medical publishing per se.

40. ROLES ACADEMIA CAN PLAY?
Raise awareness of predatory
practices and low quality journals
Assess publish or perish
requirements
Assess value of open access
journals
Evaluate journal quality vs.
prestige
Scrutinize journal service as
editors or on editorial boards

41. Online publishing is also redefining
traditional notions of academic
prestige….
What this article describes as
predatory journals may well in the
future be seen as simply a natural part
of the market. … A new era of due
diligence is dawning for academics…
Keith McNaught, Journal of Electronic
Publishing
Vol. 18, issue 3

43. IS PREDATORY PUBLISHING A
NATURAL CONSEQUENCE OF OPEN
ACCESS?
IS SCI-HUB A CONSEQUENCE OF
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY ACCESS?
WHERE DOES THE FUTURE OF
SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION LIE?

44. …the problems caused by predatory journals are rather limited and regional and
believe that the publishing volumes in such journals will cease growing in the
near future. Open access publishing is rapidly gaining momentum… this should
create better opportunities for researchers from countries where predatory
publishing is currently popular, to get published in journals of higher quality, in
particular since most journals have a policy to waive APC’s for authors from
developing countries.
Shen and Bjork

46. TEMPORARY INCONVENIENCE;
PERMANENT IMPROVEMENT?

47. Thank
you!
rrey@loc.gov

48. ARTICLES CITED
Rick Anderson, “Should we Retire the Term, “Predatory
Publishing?” The Scholarly Kitchen, May 11, 2015
J. Beall, “Predatory Publishing,” The Scientist, August 1,
2012
John Dupuis, “Some perspecitve on ‘predatory’ open access
journals, Confessions of a Science Librarian, March 31,
2015
Keith McNaught, “The Changing Publication Practices in
Academia: Inherent Users and Issues in Open Access
and online Publishing and the Rise of Fraudulent
Publications,” Journal of Electronic Publishing, Vol. 18,
Issue 3: on Access, Summer 2015
Cenyu Shen and Bo-Christer Bjork, “Predatory” open
access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and
market characteristics,” BMC Medicine (2015) 13:230

49. RESOURCES
Beall’s list : https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
DOAJ: https://doaj.org/
ISSN International Centre: www.issn.org
NL M: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/
Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association:
http://oaspa.org/
Principles of Transparency:
http://publicationethics.org/news/principles-
transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing-
revised-and-updated
ROAD: http://road.issn.org
Think Check Submit: http://thinkchecksubmit.org/