Between May 7th and June 7th, I received 24 invitations to submit papers to 21 journals that represent 14 publishers. One was from a well-established and highly regarded organization in archaeology…

A recent hoax is the latest among many tests of peer review. What should we learn from it?

Predatory journals – which charge high fees and often offer little-to-no vetting of research quality – are a problem, and lately an easy target for authors eager to spoof the problems of the publis…

Lays it out there: predatory journals are a smart move for many academics.

They try getting indexed on DOAJ and other websites to give websites an air of authenticity

For many years, Jeffrey Beall single-handedly fought his own (often controversial) battle against ‘predatory’ publishers, mostly via his ‘Scholarly Open Access’ blog (AKA Beall’s List) – a battle he ultimately seemed to have lost when the blog was taken offline in mysterious circumstances in January.

For years, spurious journals have proliferated online, promising academic credibility in exchange for cash.

Background The Internet has transformed scholarly publishing, most notably, by the introduction of open access publishing. Recently, there has been a rise of online journals characterized as ‘predatory’, which actively solicit manuscripts and charge publications fees without providing robust peer review and editorial services. We carried out a cross-sectional comparison of characteristics of potential predatory, legitimate open access, and legitimate subscription-based biomedical journals. Methods On July 10, 2014, scholarly journals from each of the following groups were identified – potential predatory journals (source: Beall’s List), presumed legitimate, fully open access journals (source: PubMed Central), and presumed legitimate subscription-based (including hybrid) journals (source: Abridged Index Medicus). MEDLINE journal inclusion criteria were used to screen and identify biomedical journals from within the potential predatory journals group. One hundred journals from each group were randomly selected. Journal characteristics (e.g., website integrity, look and feel, editors and staff, editorial/peer review process, instructions to authors, publication model, copyright and licensing, journal location, and contact) were collected by one assessor and verified by a second. Summary statistics were calculated. Results Ninety-three predatory journals, 99 open access, and 100 subscription-based journals were analyzed; exclusions were due to website unavailability. Many more predatory journals’ homepages contained spelling errors (61/93, 66%) and distorted or potentially unauthorized images (59/93, 63%) compared to open access journals (6/99, 6% and 5/99, 5%, respectively) and subscription-based journals (3/100, 3% and 1/100, 1%, respectively). Thirty-one (33%) predatory journals promoted a bogus impact metric – the Index Copernicus Value – versus three (3%) open access journals and no subscription-based journals. Nearly three quarters (n = 66, 73%) of predatory journals had editors or editorial board members whose affiliation with the journal was unverified versus two (2%) open access journals and one (1%) subscription-based journal in which this was the case. Predatory journals charge a considerably smaller publication fee (median $100 USD, IQR $63–$150) than open access journals ($1865 USD, IQR $800–$2205) and subscription-based hybrid journals ($3000 USD, IQR $2500–$3000). Conclusions We identified 13 evidence-based characteristics by which predatory journals may potentially be distinguished from presumed legitimate journals. These may be useful for authors who are assessing journals for possible submission or for others, such as universities evaluating candidates’ publications as part of the hiring process.

The tongue-in-cheek editorial we wrote for a science journal has been removed after the publisher realized it had posted an editorial sharply criticizing its…

This summer, Ottawa Citizen reporter Tom Spears was sitting by a lake on vacation when he opened a spam email from a publisher. Amused to see the sender was a journal focused on bioethics, he got a…

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All but one member of the editorial advisory committee for Australia's top medical journal have resigned following the sacking of its eminent editor who raised concerns about a decision to outsource its production to controversial global publisher, Elsevier.

ALLi's Watchdog points out the hidden pitfalls of 12 services commonly marketed to indie authors.

OMICS Group buying up reputable journals, quite possibly in order to trash them. Not unlike accreditation-washing by for-profits.

For years, thousands were tricked into buying low-quality ebooks.