There are Journals require payment for meeting the costs of publication process. Are all of them fake Journals? How do you evaluate?
Shah - many open access journals are not 'fake'. The main difference between predatory 'fake' open access journals and legitimate ones is the nature of payment. Predatory journals will usually ask for payment early on and the full cost - sometimes even before 'review'. Those journals will not actually send your article for review - or pretend to. The payment will often be to an individual's account or a bank/society that you do not recognise and will often not match the contact details on the main website. There will be no secure payment features. The first main warning sign to be wary of is that the journals 'randomly' email you directly to submit a manuscript. They will often state that they have 'noticed' your work and praise it as a lure to submit to them.
With legitimate open access journals i.e. SAGE, BMC Central etc the payment comes after rigorous reviews. The companies are well established and 'everything' about their sites is professional i.e. site layout, manuscript submission processes, secure payment systems, clear English instructions etc. Just check carefully. It is usually quite easy to spot predatory journals and if you are not sure - don't make a payment!!
Shah - many open access journals are not 'fake'. The main difference between predatory 'fake' open access journals and legitimate ones is the nature of payment. Predatory journals will usually ask for payment early on and the full cost - sometimes even before 'review'. Those journals will not actually send your article for review - or pretend to. The payment will often be to an individual's account or a bank/society that you do not recognise and will often not match the contact details on the main website. There will be no secure payment features. The first main warning sign to be wary of is that the journals 'randomly' email you directly to submit a manuscript. They will often state that they have 'noticed' your work and praise it as a lure to submit to them.
With legitimate open access journals i.e. SAGE, BMC Central etc the payment comes after rigorous reviews. The companies are well established and 'everything' about their sites is professional i.e. site layout, manuscript submission processes, secure payment systems, clear English instructions etc. Just check carefully. It is usually quite easy to spot predatory journals and if you are not sure - don't make a payment!!
Check journal rating first. Scopus, Claricative, not the journal scores in their website.
I like to check Scimago Journal Rankings to see if a journal is reputable. Not all journals are indexed here, however, especially newer journals.
There was previously a list of known or suspected predatory journals and predatory publishers (see https://beallslist.weebly.com/ ) however Jeffrey Beale is no longer updating this.
The main things to look out for, in addition to Dean's comments above re: payment requests, is the unsolicited request for an article. These are often (but not always) poorly spelled or contain grammatical errors. I keep getting ones to Dr Schmidt DD. That's a giveaway.
In my view, such journals should be evaluated based on the quality of their blind peer review of the articles as well as ensuring adherence to best practices in research.
I agree mostly with Dean Whitehead , but some other publishers that unfairly assessed as "predatory" are actually good and scientifically sound. Not sure why the predatory publisher website has included them.
The main assessor, in my opinion, is "the author". You can tell from the quality of research published in the journal that the journal is actually good even if you see it on the predatory journal list. One day even MDPI was listed as predatory, but there is no doubt about MDPI's scientific processes and good reputation (MDPI charges money for publication).
Paid journals are not necessarily be fake but in fact many well-known journals (IEEE Access, Plos 1, Hindawi journals etc. and many more) charge a substantial amount. There are two perspectives.
1- They charge high fees but review process is quick and fair. Because the reviewers are also paid for the each review. In this way, authors need not to wait for long (a case of many unpaid journals)
2- Some journals (not all), they may accept a poor paper and charge you for publication without a fair review.
In my opinion, there is no harm for publication charges in case 1. But for case 2, it is totally immoral.
Atta ur Rahman - what journals pay their reviewers? I review for about 15 journals, many are high prestige, but none of them pay me. I would be very interested in reviewing for paying journals!
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