Predatory Journals: Shedding Light on the Deceptive Publishing Industry

In her presentation, Anna Severin (Strategy Support Division at SNSF) introduced a negative side-effect of Open Access publishing, namely the phenomenon of so-called predatory journals. Predatory journals are outlets that publish articles in return for a fee, but do not offer services you would expect from serious scientific journals in return, such as rigorous peer review or editing. These journals prioritize their self-interest at the expense of scholarship and they are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.

Nevertheless, recent studies have shown that researchers from all different backgrounds, ages, and career stages publish in predatory journals due to different reasons including the pressure to publish. There are different reasons why it is not recommended to publish in predatory journals, such as a lack of rigorous peer review, a potential lack of quality, no indexing and long-time archiving, and possible reputational damage. Anna Severin further outlined how scholars can spot and avoid respective journals, e.g. by consulting white and blacklists, blogs, guidelines, and checking the quality of articles in the journal.

• Slides: Predatory OA journals →