How can some predatory scientific journals that are classified in Beall's List have an impact factor and are indexed within Scopus?
See these previous discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_are_seemingly_dubious_journals_indexed_in_Scopus
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Scopus_doing_a_good_job_in_identifying_and_dealing_with_predatory_journals
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_we_can_identify_the_predatory_publishings_on_Scopus
https://www.researchgate.net/post/List_of_Predatory_Journals_Journal_Indexed_by_Scopus_and_Scopus_Discontinued_April_2021
Dear Mohi-Adden Yahya Al-Qutop ,
This is as indicated by Wolfgang R. Dick discussed on numerous occasions. It remains a somewhat mysterious and certainly disturbing phenomenon. Roughly speaking it can be explained because:
-Some journals (and publishers) lie about the indexing (say they are Scopus indexed while this was, if ever, the case years ago) or use so-called misleading metrics (including fake impact factors) https://beallslist.net/misleading-metrics/
-Journals ‘behave’ for a couple of years to fulfil the criteria to be included in for example Scopus and after that show their predatory behaviour and publish suspiciously large number of papers. A notorious example can be found here https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are-these-journals-indexed-by-Scopus-IJEAT-IJRTE-and-IJITEE
-(Predatory) Journals manage to fulfil the criteria but most likely will be discontinued within the next 1-3 years. See Article When it comes to predatory journals, is Scopus doing a good ...
for example, where it was shown that roughly 2/3 of the journals listed in the Beall’s list were discontinued in Scopus a few years later-Last but not least they are included because they are/were wrongfully so included in the Beall’s list, most clear example are the Frontier journals. They are included because the publisher is included in the list of potentially predatory publishers but here the Beall’s list is clearly wrong
It is advisable to check the Beall’s list (https://beallslist.net/) for first indication and then check carefully by checking things like “Scopus content coverage” (do you see sudden increase in number of published papers? Warning sign), check SCImago comments for the particular journal of interest (often when there is something wrong you can find alarming comments. Warning sign), check location (do they mention a virtual office. Warning sign) etc. etc. Finally, of course check some of the papers (how do you estimate their quality).
Hope this answers your question somewhat.
Best regards.
(I don't think Bealls predatory list have anything to do with being indexed). It might be or not. Maybe say there is an evident connection...
Unsuspecting readers, access the articles because of the interest in the subject. And the more you access the higher the impact. And it's hard to believe it goes into scopus!!
Dear Rob Keller ,
I have to discuss with you the following criterium, you have posted:
"Journals ‘behave’ for a couple of years to fulfil the criteria to be included in for example Scopus and after that show their predatory behaviour and publish suspiciously large number of papers. A notorious example can be found here https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are-these-journals-indexed-by-Scopus-IJEAT-IJRTE-and-IJITEE"
So this would mean, that numbers in the table below fulfill this criterium and that journal behaves as predator, right?
Table Evolution of the number of published documents. All types of documents are considered, including citable and non citable documents.
Year Documents
1999 108
2000 133
2001 131
2002 136
2003 138
2004 380
2005 170
2006 155
2007 268
2008 356
2009 538
2010 351
2011 525
2012 1088
2013 1438
2014 2164
2015 2161
2016 2552
2017 2510
2018 3157
2019 3212
2020 3503
The increase of papers published from 2012 is obviously enormous and therefore this journal should be also marked as predatory journal in the Beall's list, right?
But these numbers (taken from scimagojr.com) are valid for Ceramics International journal which can surely not be marked as predatory.
So what is the right criterium? Because this one, you posted probably is not.
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