Jeffrey Beall of the University of Colorado at Denver, maintained the list from 2008 until just recently. It was a wonderful resource, but it was shut down due to "threats and politics."
Now what do we do?
How can researchers, scholars and authors judge which journals are authentic and which do not perform true peer-review?
Will this make it much harder to sort out quality, reputable journals from junk publishers?
What are your thoughts?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/18/librarians-list-predatory-journals-reportedly-removed-due-threats-and-politics
Indeed it is not always self evident what is a good journal, and what is not. Rather, one has to look at a lot of sources of information. Very good is the DOAJ site, which maintains a very authoritative and will curated list of reliable journals. You can also look at the editorial board, and make sure that reputable scientists are on that board… You can even write to them and ask them what they know about the journal. Finally, look at the papers themselves, and download them and read them, and make sure that they are genuine contributions to the field. Beall's list was very useful, and will be very much missed, but even with that, there were unlisted journals that were nonetheless disreputable, so this process of checking out journals that you don't know has always had a place in the process.
It is self-evident which journals are already reputable. But there are other ranking systems too, remember, such as SJR for biological sciences :-)
Indeed it is not always self evident what is a good journal, and what is not. Rather, one has to look at a lot of sources of information. Very good is the DOAJ site, which maintains a very authoritative and will curated list of reliable journals. You can also look at the editorial board, and make sure that reputable scientists are on that board… You can even write to them and ask them what they know about the journal. Finally, look at the papers themselves, and download them and read them, and make sure that they are genuine contributions to the field. Beall's list was very useful, and will be very much missed, but even with that, there were unlisted journals that were nonetheless disreputable, so this process of checking out journals that you don't know has always had a place in the process.
I agree Town, but sometimes it is hard to determine if a journal is not maintained by predatory owners. For example, time ago I received an invitation to publish in a journal. Commoly (1-10 times per week) I delete this kind of mails from by inbox. However, the invitation was signed by a very know scientist but... the subject of the journal was not in his field and the web site did not show his e-mail. Thus, I search his e-mail and decided to write him to confirm the invitation. He never answer. How can I do understand it? I did not know, so I decided not to send a contribution to the journal.
People interested in an update on predatory journals, following the cessation of Beall's List updates and it's removal, might like to refer to an article in today's Times Higher Education (6 April 2017, pp. 42 & 43), reporting work by Larissa Shamseer and David Moher (link below but access may be restricted to subscribers).
Their study resulted in a list of 13 warning signs:
1. The scope of interest includes non-biomedical subjects alongside biomedical topics, or multiple, wide-ranging and unrelated fields of study are combined
2. The website contains spelling and grammar errors
3, Images are distorted/fuzzy, intended to look like something they are not, or are unauthorised
4.The home page language targets authors rather than readers
5, The Index Copernicus Value is promoted on the website
6. Description of the manuscript handling process is lacking
7. Manuscripts are requested to be submitted via email
8. Rapid publication is promised
9. There is no retraction policy
10. Information on whether and how journal content will be digitally preserved Is absent
11. The article processing/publication charge is very low (eg,
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- Academic Journals