When Dr. Anna O. Szust emailed all of these academic journals to join their editorial boards, she did not anticipate that so many of them would approve her application within hours. In fact, she did not think anything at all, as she did not exist.
“Szust” is the Polish word for “fraud,” and Dr. Szust was a fabrication concocted for the purpose of a sting operation in 2015. Her scientific degrees were fake and her profile fell far short of what she needed to be an editor for an academic journal, tasked with judging the merits of a manuscript and overseeing its peer review. Nonetheless, many journals welcomed her into their editorial family, with four of them stunningly appointing her editor-in-chief!
What went wrong?
You may have heard the name “predatory journal” before. Academic journals publish the findings and opinions of academics. Scientific journals, in particular, release the results of scientific studies in the form of papers which, we are told, are reviewed prior to publication by peers—fellow scientists in the field who are supposed to scrutinize the manuscript and ensure that bad science doesn’t get a pass. A predatory journal only pretends to do so. It exists solely to make money. It’s like a parasite on the back of the scientific endeavour. What it publishes, then, is of questionable quality.
The public discourse on predatory journals often errs on the side of simplicity. There are good journals, like Nature and Science, and there are predatory journals, I hear. The bad journals often come from developing nations. And the way to avoid sending a manuscript to a predatory journal, or to believe the findings of a paper that has been published in a predatory publication, is to check Beall’s list.
The truth of the matter is that disentangling good journals from bad ones is a lot more complicated. As with the distinction between science and pseudoscience, there is no clear line. There is a grey zone and red flags to look out for.
The problems with Beall’s list
We often don’t think of academic publishing as an industry, but it is. I have seen it described in the literature as a “highly profitable oligopoly,” with a few major publishers, like Elsevier and Thomson Reuters, owning a large number of journals. Traditionally, academic journals would sustain themselves financially mainly by running ads and charging libraries subscription fees. If you wanted to read a paper they had published, you would either have to go through a library that subscribed to the journal or you would pay the publisher a fee (generally 30-60$) to access this one paper. Knowledge was stuck behind a paywall. Understandably, many were not happy about that, especially since so much of knowledge production is paid for with public money.
Over the past few decades, a new movement gained devotees: open access. The idea was that open access publications should be free to be read by anyone, and these journals should make money in some other way, often by charging the scientists themselves a fee for publishing, not for reading.
Predatory journals predate the rise of open access, but they benefitted from the acceptability of charging authors money for publication. Predation was also facilitated by the Internet. To set up a predatory journal, you no longer had to print a magazine and ship it; you could simply set up a website. And given the recent surge in academics from countries in the Global South, more and more scientists need to publish than ever before. The demand is massive. Predatory journals are happy to lend a hand.
An important step in solving a problem is to properly define it, and there is unfortunately no agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a predatory journal. It has often borrowed from Justice Potter Stewart’s take on hardcore pornography: “I know it when I see it.” It hinges on motives, which are hard to prove. The people behind these predatory publications don’t want to publish good science; they just want to make money. They are thus exploiting the system by charging fees to scientists without providing them with the kinds of services these scientists expect: diligent peer review and the promise that their paper, once accepted, will be searchable and accessible online for a long time. It’s the equivalent of choosing a construction crew that ignores building codes. The codes themselves may not be perfect, and you may get lucky, but it invites sloppiness and electrical hazards.
It’s a common misconception that having to pay to get published is a sign that the journal is predatory. It’s not. Open access journals commonly charge publication fees and many of them are legitimate publications. Moreover, traditional journals can charge fees to their authors—for the number of pages the paper has, for the printing of colour figures, and for printed copies of the paper to be shared around—though these fees are much less common than they used to be. Some traditional journals have also become hybrid publications, where their papers sit behind a paywall unless their authors choose to pay a fee to make them open access. A payment for publication is thus not the smoking gun for catching a predator.
So, what is? People habitually point to Beall’s list. This online list of potential predatory journals and publishers was curated by Jeffrey Beall, a now-retired librarian and associate professor who used to work at the University of Colorado Denver. Beall himself is credited with coining the term “predatory journal,” and his criteria for deciding if a publication fit the profile changed over time. In January 2017, the list disappeared, the reason being, he said, intense pressure from his employer (a story disputed by the university and his supervisor). An archived version of it, maintained by an anonymous post-doctoral fellow, can be accessed here for now.
There were problems with Beall and his list, however. No publication deserves to be blacklisted by a single individual, who acts as judge, jury, and executioner. When science journalist John Bohannon famously submitted 304 versions of a terrible fake paper to open access journals to see who would publish it, 18% of the ones Bohannon had selected and that happened to be featured on Beall’s list actually rejected it. A truly predatory journal would publish anything for money. As was pointed out at the time, Beall had falsely accused many journals of being potentially predatory on appearances alone.
We all have biases, and Beall’s own biases were documented by other librarians. He was quick to condemn journals emerging from developing countries and made comments that were construed by some as bigoted. His vilification of predatory journals often bled into a criticism of the open access principle as a whole, with his supervisor accusing him of “dangerous nostalgia” for the days when traditional publications reigned supreme. Beall in fact accused the open access movement of being “anti-corporatist” and called the authors of open access declarations “hero-wannabes” and “zealots.”
The days of relying on a single person to bless or condemn an entire journal are hopefully over. A better solution has emerged from the limited literature on the problem: we need to point out the red flags of predatory publishers so that authors and readers alike can judge for themselves.
Catering to authors, not readers
None of the following red flags on its own is sufficient to castigate a journal, but if you end up with a whole collection of them, you’re probably looking at a predatory outlet.
One of the key peculiarities of a predatory journal is that it caters to authors much more than readers. The website itself is made to court potential authors and to highlight how easy the manuscript submission process is. It promises rapid review and publication. Instead of using a dedicated online submission portal for papers, it will often ask for authors to simply attach their paper to an email. And since potential authors are unlikely to visit their website, they will send out many email invitations to publish or even to serve on their editorial board. These invitations are often full of compliments, such as in this email received by an orthodontist: “Based on your eminent expertise and immense contributions in the field, we warmly solicit your participation in the upcoming issue.”
A predatory journal tends to have too large of a scope, accepting papers on topics as diverse as nuclear physics, geography, and nursing. Its name may include the name of a country, but its street address shows it is located elsewhere, if a street address and comprehensive contact information are even provided. It may use logos associated with prestige but use low-resolution versions with fuzzy borders or come up with a knock-off version, like it wants you to think you really are buying a Louis Vuitton bag. Its contact email is commonly not an institutional address, but a Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo email, and many of its listed editors, when they are real, may not even realize their names are being used in this way.
Counterintuitively, the fees it charges to get published are often at least 18-fold lower than non-predatory journals. In a study reporting on the red flags of predatory journals, the non-predatory open access journals charged between 800 and 2,205$ to publish a paper, while the predatory publications were asking for 63 to 150$. A predatory publisher could thus make 10,000$ a year publishing 100 papers in a single journal. If it controls, let’s say, a total of 50 predatory journals, that’s half a million dollars in its pockets annually.
As for the link between predatory journals and countries in the Global South, the situation is complex. In the above study of predatory journals and how they compare to their legitimate open access counterparts, 75% of the former were based in low- to middle-income countries, compared to 20% of the latter, which can explain the grammatical mistakes often made in emails sent by predatory journals. One of the countries often flagged as producing many predatory publications is India. In 2013, its university grants commission mandated that graduate students had to publish two research papers to get their Ph.D. With over 1,100 universities on Indian soil, this edict created a massive demand that predatory publishers were all too happy to answer. And before we are quick to condemn people from the Global South for publishing in these fake journals, a survey of people who published in them revealed that 40% of them came from high-income countries. Some didn’t know the journal was fake. Others saw a shortcut to publication glory.
The bottom line is that predatory publishing is not a black-and-white problem. If we care about the quality of the science being published, traditional journals publish poor research all the time, and peer review is not sufficient to prevent sloppiness and outright fraud from getting out there. Predatory journals can also publish good science. If we care about profits, the money predatory journals make is overshadowed by the income of the traditional academic publishing industry. If we care about the poisoning of the scientific well, it is unclear at this point just how much impact predatory journals have. A small study looked at 250 papers they published and noted that nearly two-thirds of them had never been cited anywhere, a far cry from Jeffrey Beall’s estimation that the threat they pose hasn’t been seen “since the Inquisition.” More robust evaluations are needed, clearly, but we would be wrong to simply equate bad science with predatory journals.
In fact, predatory publishers are a symptom of a systemic problem: the publish-or-perish mentality in academia. Papers are a currency in universities. They are seen as gauges of productivity, fame, and success. With more countries training scientists and adopting this publish-or-perish mentality, predatory publishers are bound to make a killing.
Take-home message:
– A predatory journal looks like a genuine academic journal, but it will publish any paper with little to no peer review in exchange for the paper’s authors paying a fee
– Paying to get a paper published is not, however, a sign that a journal is predatory, as this is common practice among legitimate open access journals, whose content is free to be read by anyone
– Some of the signs that a journal is predatory is that its website caters more to authors than to readers, it often sends out invitation emails with flowery language, and its scope is much broader than would be expected, publishing papers on nuclear physics, geography and nursing, for example
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
