After the hard work of research, collaboration and writing, it’s a relief for many academics and students to finally publish their journal article. However, not all publishers are good quality or legitimate – some of these are known as ‘predatory publishers’. Occasionally, academic staff have been caught out by a predatory publisher and are unable to retract their articles, or students inadvertently publish their research in a predatory journal – jeopardising their work.
While there is no singular definition of the term ‘predatory publisher’, there are several characteristics shared by many of these publishers:
- They actively, and sometimes aggressively, solicit articles from academics.
- They request payments from authors to facilitate the publication of the article.
- The peer review process is very quick, often only a matter of days, rather than the usual weeks or months.
- They provide a plethora of misleading quality indicators that are often fake or irrelevant.
The rise of the predatory publisher is an unintended consequence of an increase in electronic publishing, the movement towards open access publishing, and the pressure to continually publish work in order to have a successful academic career – to ‘publish or perish’.
Some predatory publishers engage in outright fraud such as:
- Hijacking journal titles using the same title, International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) and metadata, to make it become indistinguishable from the legitimate journal.
- Creating journal titles that are almost identical to well-known journal titles.
- Displaying a fake editorial board using the identities of respected academics.
- Buying up legitimate journals and incorporating them into their predatory offerings.
Publishing in a predatory journal can have far-reaching consequences for both the researcher and the institution to which they are attached. This includes:
- Damage to a researcher’s reputation.
- Damage to the university’s reputation.
- The researcher is unable to publish research output with a legitimate publisher.
- The quality of research output is compromised due to lack of a genuine review process.
So what can be done about predatory journals? The Library is actively working against these through our strategic publishing service, which answers questions on publishing hot topics, such as choosing quality journals and publishing open access. We take a systematic approach to help researchers publish in the most effective place and maximise success in their publishing endeavours. In the past year publishing related enquiries have doubled from 80 enquiries in 2022 to over 160 enquiries in 2023.
A prime example of our strategic publishing service is our bespoke yearly workshop series called ‘Publishing Power Hours’. The series aims to inform academic staff and research students on the publishing process. Each workshop deals with a different aspect of publishing such as choosing quality journals, open access publishing agreements, getting your article published and how to spot predatory publishers.
The number of predatory publishers continues to increase, and the ways in which they try to persuade researchers to publish with them grow more sophisticated; however the Library is up-to-date on predatory publishing trends and can suggest publishing alternatives.
For more information about predatory publishing and the Library’s research support, get in touch via LibraryResearchSupport@curtin.edu.au or book an appointment to chat with a team member.
Written by Kitty Delaney, Faculty Librarian
Enjoy reading Library news? Sign up to our newsletter!
