Why you should care about the rise of fake journals and the bad
Interesting contributions - thank you all, BUT:
One main thing was generally overseen, that is that asking for publication fees is not per se bad or "predatory". It is just an alternative way to support what I call "the publication machine". The current way is to pay the publishers for their journals (e.g. university subscriptions). This has lead to the fact that publishing is a business, but this happened already a long time ago and did not start with the "predatory" journals. Private publishers as Elsevier or Springer get rich by this, ask their shareholders. Others e.g. scientific societies as the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) have moderate subscription rates for their journal, but also they have to get money to pay their staff, rent, electricity ...
Dear Dr. Derek Pyne,
Thank you for taking the time to point out this. I am glad to have this answer from you.
Best regards
There's a need to make a distinction between predatory journals and open access journals.
All predatory journals simply exploit academics and will ultimately undermine public trust in academia. However, not all open access journals are predatory. Unfortunately, I've not found a good way of distinguishingredients between open access journals and predatory ones.
Thank for Dr Caryn S Feldman & Dr Leon Black for taking the time to point out this. I am glad to get these answers.
Dear Ali Al-Naji
Thank you so much
Your answer is useful to me
I see a good effort
Regards,
Just a note: while the original Beall's list web site (scholarly-oa.com) does not host the list anymore anyway, I have recently found a web site https://predatoryjournals.com/ which seems to build on and expand this list (see https://predatoryjournals.com/about/ )
See also the related question https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_new_site_listing_predatory_journals_What_do_you_think_of_it
Can anyone clearly state precisely what is a "predatory" journal or publisher? Are only OA journals and publishers "predatory"? "Predatory" based on whose criteria? What is bad, and what is good? Relative to what?
A “predatory journal” is a supposed academic journal that charges authors for publication (rather than using a peer review or editorial review process to select articles). There is no real career value in getting published in a predatory journal. There are organizations that track reputable journals and expose ones that are viewed as predatory.
I participate in another thread on this website discussing predatory journals. Use the search function and you will find many academics having the same discussion. I don't know how to connect all the threads or i would. :)
Interesting contributions - thank you all, BUT:
One main thing was generally overseen, that is that asking for publication fees is not per se bad or "predatory". It is just an alternative way to support what I call "the publication machine". The current way is to pay the publishers for their journals (e.g. university subscriptions). This has lead to the fact that publishing is a business, but this happened already a long time ago and did not start with the "predatory" journals. Private publishers as Elsevier or Springer get rich by this, ask their shareholders. Others e.g. scientific societies as the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) have moderate subscription rates for their journal, but also they have to get money to pay their staff, rent, electricity ...
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