Why search else where, when you are already there....

As researchers we should be aware as to where our publications are worth to be available and visible. RG is "for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, influential and connecting scientists with their peers across the world"...

There are many gullible ones, predatory and parasitic. Let us not fall prey to these publications.

My answer is NO, because the names of freelance reviewers are just there without real commitment to the publishers!

No. It is just for designation. Agree with Kamal.

Why search else where, when you are already there....

As researchers we should be aware as to where our publications are worth to be available and visible. RG is "for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, influential and connecting scientists with their peers across the world"...

There are many gullible ones, predatory and parasitic. Let us not fall prey to these publications.

No, no, not at all! @Marwan questioned out their real commitment to the publishers! Especially those who work for the predatory journals!

predatory journals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishing

these journals are mostly business oriented and not service oriented. Thats the reason they don't have a good reviewers, and publishes fast for earning money with innocent academics. I usually recommends to publish any paper whose volume number is more than 10 (which mean the journal is running for 10 years or more). Because these fake journals cant survive even for 2 years and which journal survives more than ten years we can say they experienced in publication and the quality of the paper might be also good.

It is important to be able to identify as to what qualifies as faithful or predatory. Sometimes the distinction may not be very clear, especially in the case of start ups whose intentions may not be clearly identifiable or capable of validation. By the rule of thumb, those with purely commercial intentions will make themselves known through their poor editorial practices and money-mongering ways. But some may be harder to distinguish. The site 'Open Access at Manchester' that is supported by the University of Manchester Library, provides valuable advice on ways to identify journal credibility.

http://www.openaccess.manchester.ac.uk/checkjournal/predatoryjournals/#d.en.226782

Agree with you Monica.  I endorsed your answer. 

I agree with Venkata, initially nobody can know that any OA journal is predatory or not? Moreover papers published in these journals too are also from researchers or research community --- only matters that these are not peer-reviewing and so that is why are in most cased not having IF.

Without any much fault -  a researcher cannot be made culprit

Many young researchers, beginners and teachers do not really know in which journals their paper can go, and by email requests of such OA journals - they are trapped, a trapped person have no much fault and hence cannot be recommended for publication.

Pl let me know that are these OA journals publishing papers from non-researchers?

Better will be that some International authority must be there which can put a total ban on such journals by following some evaluation and minimum standards. 

I also say no - those who review are not linked with the practices of the publication. 

In answer to the second part of your question: 'Why can't legal action be used against those people who are convicted of collaboration with predators?'  -  how many cases can you cite where a) collaboration has been proved, & b) a conviction has been obtained?  If we look at the standard review process, it tends to be content-oriented.  Even those on the boards of 'predatory' journals cannot normally be directly linked to specific actions that constitute a significant 'legal' offence.  In case of repeat publication for example, the only action that can commonly be taken in such circumstances is for the original copyright holder of the material to a) demand a retraction/withdrawal of any dual publication, & b) if this is not forthcoming, take the dual publisher to court for infringement of copyright. I cannot see any prosecution service taking an editor or reviewer to court, simply because they keep unsavoury company.  Perhaps it may help if you outline the actions that predatory journals take & say how these contravene the existing code of law (give or take national difference).  That way we can see the offences such people commit & opine as to whether they can/should be punished for doing so.

We seem to have different opinions on 'legal' in academia.  For example: in regard to the definition of 'published', most legal systems have requirements of exposure, distribution & capacity to foster knowledge, yet we academics hold that things like blogs, conference presentations & posters etc, are not 'real' publications because they are not in listed peer-review publications (even though they may be satisfactorily exposed to thousands, if not millions of people worldwide). Thus, our perception of 'legal' may differ from established legal code, & we should therefore question the validity of our judgements.

For myself, I would like to see us close the gap between what we regard as ethically/professionally questionable & whether it actually meets/infringes established legal definitions and regulation.

So what illegal activity (as opposed to unethical) do these journals undertake?  In what way are they 'hijacked', how do we suffer by their deception & how do they profit illegally?

From what I can ascertain: 'Although the majority of new journals are legitimate, the credentials of some are questionable. Such journals and publishers are referred to as 'predatory'. They commonly send spam emails to potential authors, solicit submissions and request payment of article processing charges, but lack any discernible scholarship, academic rigour or credibility. Authors should not use such journals.' http://www.openaccess.manchester.ac.uk/checkjournal/predatoryjournals/

So, imitation (some journals may look like an existing journal, but rarely do they profess to be the existing journal) / spam (only occasionally does this become illegal) / solicited submissions (you are quite entitled to 'tout' for business, as long as your product is clearly explained & legal) / request payment (you do not have to use a service & most countries would apply a 'cooling off' period if high charges were revealed at a late stage) ... I would be interested if any of these activities can actually be determined as 'illegal'?

As for lacking 'any discernible scholarship, academic rigour or credibility', well when we slate students work for such 'crimes', we may penalise them marks, but I have yet to see one go to jail (however horrendous their work was).  Only rarely does a 'journal' misrepresent itself to the extent that it could be termed illegal.  This includes examples from http://scholarlyoa.com/ where the poor quality and copying of style may be 'criminal' but not necessarily 'illegal'  ;-)  I  am not sure whether this is simply an area where with an increasing range of products, we  have to be selective of where we choose to take our business.  Many universities & an increasing number of websites are drawing attention to this issue, but I cannot see many areas where such activity may be determined as illegal. 'Predatory' is perhaps an over-emotive term for such practices - you would not look to jail the sweat shop workers who knock out counterfeit clothes, so why look to penalise someone who offers their (perhaps 'lesser') services to a 'lesser quality' journal?  Surely our distain and superiority are enough .... 

Hi,

Some action had to be taken to protect scientist.

I would highlight the difficulty in defining "predatory" much less prosecuting the affiliated persons.

I think it is better to push for greater awareness of publication misconducts to be avoided among researcher rather then pushing for legal action.

Precisely Imam - I laid out the main points (as I see them) in a previous post. Unfortunately,  RG take up so much room with the popular answers, that us lesser folk quickly find ourselves on the back pages 😔

I think an international organization should be there to report such conduct

Yes, Abhishek, but the majority of posts here does not support deeper investigations into the matter, I'm afraid. It's a different matter with academic fraud, though - see the link below.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_scientific_fraud_be_handled_as_criminal_offense

It will be difficult to hold them legally responsible because many people do not even know their names are on some of the journals' list. I saw the name of a professor on the web of a predatory journal and had to write him to ask if he actually was part of the editorial team and his answer was negative. These journals do whatever they like. Again, the address they show on their web may not be their real location. A recent event showed that an OA journal with a USA- based address is actually based in Bangladesh. A  colleague sent a paper that was accepted without peer-reviewing. When it was time to pay, they gave her a bank account and address in Bangladesh. In this case, how do you trace them?  

Yes, Emeka, as I said in the original question: 'Many of the names appearing on Web pages as linked below may not even know they are reviewers because the names are just put on the list without real connection to the publishing company.' 

In the case you mentioned only Bangladeshi legal officials can track the fraudulent parties.

I think that as papers on the internet are so hard to trace that we as professionals need to always investigate the sources and insure to the best of our satisfaction that we are dealing with real papers and real people. 

One of the things we can do is to always contact the author personally when downloading or purchasing a paper.  Sometimes this is hard but we need to be self policing when it comes to what we do as professionals even if we can not stop the on slot of garbage that can get into the science.  At least we can insure that what we do is checked out.

This does not mean that every paper has to be peer reviewed but what we use in our papers needs to be well checked.  We must remember that if even someone like Albert Einstein were to have been peer reviewed in his 1905 papers he would not have been published at all.  If it had not been that Max Planck was the Editor of the Physics Journal in those years and realized the implications of the work, we would still be dealing with Newtonian physics today.  And yes we still deal with it today but we also realize that the more accurate way to deal with gravity is the field equations of General Relativity.

What I am trying to say is that when we are doing work in speculative areas peer reviews are great but will not hold up if the science behind the review is faulty or even incomplete.  This is why it is hard to tell what is real and what is just a scam.  This is also why it is important as a scientific community to know who is putting out the papers and what is its intent.  We should always indicate when we are using work that is not proven or is speculative and this will insure that we find ways to prove the unproven.

Are the so called predatory journals publishing fake papers?? Researchers are submitting their papers, paying money and getting publishing their papers. Do researchers publishing in these papers on behalf of their massive advertisements and then being prayed are the culprits? What is the real side of predatory journals.