Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian at ANU and AOASG’s
Deputy Chair, provides practical advice to researchers on how to prevent
exploitation through being published in a journal, or participating in a
conference, that could be considered “predatory” or “vanity”.
With the evolution of open access, enterprises have emerged that run
conferences and journals with low or no peer review or other quality
mechanisms. They approach academics, particularly early career
academics, soliciting contributions for reputable sounding journals and
conferences.
On 2 August, the ABC’s Background briefing highlighted the operation of this industry,
Predatory publishers criticised for ‘unethical, unprincipled’ tactics” focusing
in particular on one organisation, OMICS. There is little doubt that
the industry has burgeoned. The standard of review in such unethical
journals can best be described by the example of the article written by
David Mazières and Eddie Kohler which contains basically the words of
the title repeated over and over. The article was accepted by the
International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology and the review process included a peer review report that described it as “excellent”. You can see the documentation
here. Not only will these publishers take your publications, they will charge you for the pleasure (or lack of).
Jeffrey Beall, librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado,
Denver, coined the term “predatory publisher” after noticing a large
number of emails requesting he submit articles to or join editorial
boards of journals he had not heard of. His research has resulted in
lists –
“Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers” and
“Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals”.
While Beall’s lists have been the
subject of some debate,
acknowledging publishers that are low quality is important to assist
researchers. The debate on predatory publishing does not mean that open
access publishing is poor per se. There are many high quality open
access publishers, including well established university presses at the
University of Adelaide, the
Australian National University and
University of Technology, Sydney.
Ensuring the quality of the journals you submit to and conference you
propose papers for is important to assist you in developing your
research profile and building your career.
And don’t forget, traditional publishers can also have problems of quality. For example, in early 2014 Springer and IEEE
removed more than 120 papers after
Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France,
discovered computer-generated papers published in their journals.
How can you prevent this happening to you?
Three major tips are:
- If you haven’t heard of the journal or conference check Beall’s list or ask your local librarian
- Don’t believe the web site – ask your colleagues
and look at indicators of journal impact. A library’s guide to
Increasing your research impact with information on Journal measures and tools can help you
- Don’t respond to unsolicited emails – choose the journals you wish to submit to.
If in doubt contact your local Library or Research Office.
The Australasian Open Access Support Group is committed to supporting
quality open access publishing and will continue to provide information
through this web site and in our
twitter,
newsletters and
discussion list.
Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian (Chief Scholarly Information Services), The Australian National University, Canberra.
