One of the most interesting and important topics of common interest to all researchers.

The question is:

How to avoid being victims of these journals?

How to be differentiated from authenticated journals?

Wishing all researchers nice times and good luck in their works to be seen light in the authenticated journals.

Take a look at this website: https://beallslist.weebly.com/ - hope it helps.

Predatory journals are everywhere.

Beall's list of purported predatory journals is questionable and problematic.

He has been taken to court (and lost !) when he included large open access publishers in the list.

Journals are added and retracted from the list, but lower quality journals seem to persist..

I am asking for the definition of predatory magazines and their harmfulness.

Best wishes

Derek: Like you, I also follow the news on predatory journals closely.

I stated unequivocally: "Predatory journals are everywhere."

Statement of fact.

To state the obvious, I am relieved when questionable journals are taken to task after evidentiary proof that they are, in fact, predatory.

I also stated: "Beall's list of purported predatory journals is questionable and problematic."

Statement of fact.

Inclusion on his list is arbitrary, and publishers can be incorrectly and unprofessionally classified as a "'potential, possible, or probable predatory publisher" without documentary evidence.

How difficult is it to find circumstances of "potential, possible, or probable" predatory behaviour"?

Being blacklisted without evidence lacks due process.

Beall has been legally threatened by two of the largest Open Access publishers, MDPI and Frontiers, and been taken off the list.

MDPI was included on Beall's list in February 2014,[6] and removed in October 2015 following a successful appeal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI

Both COPE and OASPA have retained Frontiers as members, even after inclusion in Beall's list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontiers_Media

Both of these publishers, and several other large Open Access publishers, have a number of their journals included in SCIE, SSCI, ESCI, and Scopus, among others, so there are double checks on numerous Open Access publishers and journals.

You might be interested in the counter-criticism, website removal, and legal threats, at the following website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Beall

I am saddened that Beall's list seems to no longer be operational as it had the potential to be a useful check on "potentially" questionable publishers:

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20170920150122306

As academics everywhere know full well, being critical can be risky.

Thanks all for your valuable contributions :) :) Derek Pyne

Nour Shakir

Dariusz Prokopowicz

What I can understand, the main issues related to predatory journals are

1. Quality control (as I can feel, there is no such mechanism for reviewing manuscripts. They accept all and publish all)

2. Inconsistency (cannot publish regularly)

3. Indexing (not certified by the world scientific communities)

4. Main target is getting money, not a good piece of research work

The main risk is, even I publish a good quality research in such journal, none will recognize it. It will be dumped in the garbage with others

He lost to MDPI and Frontiers after threats of legal action, and his employer conducted a case that did not support him.

He has lost big time.

@

Those are very dangerous for killing the actual research and authors. Simply its a business. On the other hand, this types journals are keeping busy some young researchers and keeping their inspiration up whereas the high standard journals are sometimes only for the quality researchers. I think for the learning in the primary stage, predatory journals have the role of primary teachers. Not That much?

Following

Following the answers

It is wastage of time, money and collected data.

it's indeed a dangerous trend, as they can easily fool the untrained eye and lay audiences might not be able to differentiate between quality publications and such scams!

It is necessary to refer to the publications indexed Scopus or Hceres

Check if it was indexed in any known indexing trusted agencies

• Google scholar
• Scopus
• PubMed
• EBSCO
• EMBASE
• DOAJ
• ISI Indexing
• SCIE
• SCIMAGOJR
• OAJI
• IJIFACTOR
• Index Copernicus
• Open J Gate
• Ulrich’s International Periodical Directory
• BASE

There are many indexing bodies but these are some of the most trusted and popular Journal indexing agencies

Following answers

I agree with Derek that Google scholar is only an indexing tool without quality assurance process. I want to add one more remark, predatory is not a scientific term instead I would use fake journals. Still we need to define a fake journals according to some criteria:

1- Should it be refereed journal

2- Is it indexed in one of previously mentioned agencies except Google scholar?

3-Should it have an impact factor or SCImago rank?

4- is number of cited articles give credibility to the journal?

5- Would the names and positions of editorial board and technical committee members give credibility to the journal?

There should be many issues which can help authors to identify fake journals from genuine ones.

Following the answers!

Thanks Fernando Seara

Interesting

I think it's the responsibility of thesis supervisors to tell PhD students about the truth of predatory journals from early on and raise their awareness.... I often have PhD students forwarding me emails like "Dear XXX, we got aware of your conference publication xyz and want to publish it in our journal ABC." Then we typically have long discussions abou the different types of journals... If they hadn't asked me, they would have probably fallen into the trap - it's so easy.

Very interesting! This seems to happen with book chapters as well. I have rec invitations to contribute chapters to books via emails that reference articles I have written. Anyone else have experience with this?

In response to Blake:

There are many predatory publishers of journals and books.

The ways in which such publishers approach an academic is usually indicative of their entirely commercial nature, with little regard for quality of the manuscript.

Caveat emptor.

This is a related thread to the interesting Question

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_this_a_predatory_journal2

Incidentally, not everyone takes seriously Beall's list of "Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers."

Potential, possible, or probable?

Really?

Please check both the journals and publisher before you submit. The list can be obtained at https://predatoryjournals.com. There are thousands of them. Check and be alert. Published Predatory Journals are not recognised for graduation nor promotion. Any journals that needs payment and promises a super turnaround time. Check! … Read more

Hi

I'm agree.

One of the predatory journals is "International Journal of Business and Social Science" with ISSN number "2219-1933 (Print), 2219-6021 (Online)".

Have a good research

The attached uninvited email message (in full) to me is an example of an unscrupulous, unprofessional and predatory publisher (my emphasis in bold):

from:Isabella Sanchez

to:[email protected] date:Jul 3, 2019, 2:23 AMsubject:Publicación de un artículo científico en la Web of Science, Scopus u otra revista

Good day!

My name is Anna, I am a sales representative Publisher International LLC.

About our services.

We will publish your article in a good magazine Web of Science, Scopus or any other magazine.

Or add your name to an article that has already been written and you will be the co-author of an article. It can also buy the three places of coauthors and would be the sole author of this article!

Are you interested in publishing an article this year?

Sincerely,

Publisher International LLC

Anna Garcia

WhatsApp +380935776121

One of the most interesting and important topics of common interest to all researchers.

The question is:

How to avoid being victims of these journals?

How to be differentiated from authenticated journals?

Wishing all researchers nice times and good luck in their works to be seen light in the authenticated journals.

have a look on a video i made on predatory journal

https://youtu.be/VhaI-CoEHwE

Read my below article. It may give you some clarification about predatory publishing.

Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted