1.
To Catch a Predator:
How to Recognize Predatory Journals and Conferences
MONICA BERGER
A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R , L I B R A RY
NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF
TECHNOLOGY
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

2.
“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.

3.
HOW DO
LIBRARIANS FIT IN?

4.
Part 1:
Background, definitions, what
is new is old (sort of), Beall
and Bohannon

5.
Beall’s Definition
INTENT TO
DECEIVE

6.
What is new is old

7.
More about Beall
•NY Times article
•Lawsuits

8.
http://scholarlyoa.com

9.
APCs

10.
Part II
• Common practices of
predatory publishers
• Examples of other kinds
of predatory and/or low
quality scholarship

11.
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)

12.
OF PAPER MILLS
AND
PLAGIARISM

13.
Part III
HOW TO CATCH
A PREDATOR

14.
Identify …
Predators [Beall]
and
trustworthy
publishers …

15.
Trustworthy publishers
• OASPA http://oaspa.org/
• COPE http://publicationethics.org
• SPARC Europe Seal for OA
http://sparceurope.org/ourwork/sparc-europe-seal-for-openaccess-journals/
• SPARC http://sparc.arl.org/

16.
TRUST NOT …
ALWAYS VERIFY
• Business model? All
APCs?
• Crosscheck editors,
identify of
journal/publisher
• Read articles & judge!

17.
• 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

18.
• 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

19.
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-babelfish/judging-journals

20.
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-scientistsan-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html?smid=twnytimesscience&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).

21.
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-stingreveals-deception-missed-opportunities/ and
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/11/12/post-open-access-sting-an-interview-withjohn-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-thenatural-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.

22.
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-apurported-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/librarybabel-fish/judging-journals

23.
Thank you!
Monica Berger
mberger@citytech.cuny.edu