Fresh graduates and budding researchers who dream of having a publication or two could easily be lured into publishing their thesis and other research papers with scamsters - but peer-reviewed quality publication isn't that easy, is it?
So my question is, how could new authors who are likely to be gullible be saved from falling in the trap? The internet today is full with tons of academic research papers that are published in poor quality and fake journals / publishers.
For example, Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany (https://www.lap-publishing.com/) - widely recognised as illegitimate spam scam and scum.
The list could be startling to many!
http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
http://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/
Edited [30/Apr/2014,16:42 IST]: It seems anybody can start a scientific journal and anybody could feature on their list of "editorial board" - what a fantastic "open-access" business model.
Im from the Caribbean and I'm doing some research into the open access movement in developing countries. Some preliminary findings are attached
It would be nice to get rid of these academic predators.
I think the reason nothing is done so far is that the right to publish is part of the academic freedom. If a group of researchers cannot find a journal that will publish their work they need to have the option to found a new journal.
We have started to sort the advertisements into spam email.
Thank you Dr. Andersen for your answer.
Yes unfortunately academic freedom has resulted awful lot of academicians and researchers get swamped under reviewing a lot of (good) papers published in poor quality and predator journals.
Eg, while considering a meta-analyses or systematic review: do we only look at studies indexed in pubmed and other standard databases or do we include results of papers published in journals lacking credibility? The original paper could have tremendous potential implication for research and development.
I reckon it would be very helpful if professors could guide their students.
Hi Gourav, I think the best defense against predatory publishers is education about poor practice. Discussing it openly on lists like ResearchGate helps to alert new researchers to the dangers they pose.
My advice would always be to talk to your University or Research Centre Librarian before submitting an article, if you are unsure of the status of a journal. They can easily check the journal and alert you to problems where they exist.
Best Wishes
Matt
Thank you Mr Holland for your insight as an experienced Librarian. That's a very practical solution, more so in developed countries like the UK. Wonder if Librarian and university staff in lesser developed resource limited nations are themselves aware or updated about such predator publishers.
Im from the Caribbean and I'm doing some research into the open access movement in developing countries. Some preliminary findings are attached
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