Predatory and Questionable Publishing Practices

There is a spectrum of publishing practices, ranging from trustworthy and high-quality to low-quality, fraudulent, and malicious. This guide distinguishes between predatory publishers and questionable practices when discussing these practices. The Risk Table below includes a table reflecting this spectrum and categorising publishing practices.

Predatory
Predatory publishing refers to publishers or journals that exploit the open-access publishing model for financial gain without providing the necessary editorial services or quality control.

Librarian Jeffrey Beall introduced predatory publishing in 2010 to describe a publisher that “unprofessionally abuses the author-pays publishing model for their profit”. This definition was related to the open access’ pay to publish’ journal model, which was still relatively new in the mid-2000s, and the fraudulent initiatives that arose with it. Since then, predatory publishing has been commonly used within the scholarly community. However, the debate on its use and a clear and comprehensive definition remains.

Building upon Beall’s short definition, a recent report found, “Predatory journals solicit articles from researchers through practices that exploit the pressure on researchers to publish. Features
of predatory journals, include rapid pay-to-publish models without rigorous peer review, fake editorial boards falsely listing respected scientists, fraudulent impact factors, journal titles that are deceptively similar to those of legitimate journals, paid review articles that promote fake science, and aggressive spam invitations to submit articles, including outside of a researcher’s expertise.”

Questionable
Questionable publishing encompasses practices that may not be inherently predatory but still raise concerns about the credibility and reliability of published research. This includes journals with low editorial standards, lack of peer review, or excessive publication fees.

Questionable practices can be defined as publishing practices of poor quality, breaching research integrity or ethics, and harming authors (financial, reputational) and the quality of their published work (scientific rigour, accuracy).

Questionable practices can be deliberate, with a significant imbalance between profit and services, or they can result from errors and ignorance on the part of the publisher (e.g., ignorance of standard practices, inexperience in the editorial and peer review teams of a journal, publishing staff errors, and more).
Whether intentional or not, publishers who engage in questionable practices can harm scholars, institutions, and the quality of their publications professionally.

Several factors can increase scholars’ vulnerability to predatory and questionable publishing activities. These factors include unfamiliarity with the publishing landscape, the ‘publish or perish’ pressure in scholarly career-making, research evaluation criteria based on quantity instead of quality, and requirements to comply with open-access policies from institutions and funders.

The term “predatory publisher” was created in 2010 to describe unethical publishing practices. However, the term has been criticized for suggesting that there are always “victims.”

Some organizations have shifted away from using “blacklists” to identify problematic journals. For example, Cabells now uses a “Predatory Reports” approach to avoid discriminatory implications.

The goal is to identify the spectrum of predatory publishing, recognizing that there may not be a clear distinction between “reputable” and “untrustworthy” journals. The evolution of terminology reflects ongoing efforts to address these issues more nuanced and inclusively.

How does the scholarly publishing community respond to predatory initiatives and questionable practices?

Four international organisations representing scholarly publishers have collaborated to identify principles of transparency and best practices in academic publishing. These journal content, practices, and organisation principles are set out in a joint statement on Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing. By following these principles, publishers can avoid questionable practices.

Best practices can also be translated into checklists for scholars. A journal that does not tick the boxes should lead to suspicion. The website Think. Check. Submit. is an initiative that helps to prevent scholars from submitting to predatory publishers.

University Librarian Jeffrey Beall was the first to systematically record journals and publishers that he found to be ‘predatory’ and established the Beall’s List. This initiative (active until 2017) aimed to catalogue and raise awareness about journals that were – based on Beall’s criteria – “potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open access journals”. Newer initiatives such as Predatory Reports and the paid subscription service Cabells also produce lists of potentially predatory journals to try and prevent scholars from submitting to them. Note that these lists should be used carefully. How and why journals are added to (and removed from) these lists is not always transparent. There is an ongoing debate in the scholarly community and publishing industry about the criteria used to mark journals as ‘predatory’ and the legitimacy of publishing these lists.

Finding the journal you want to submit to listed as potentially predatory means, you should (at the very least) proceed cautiously.  

Most internationally recognised and trusted indexation services are transparent about the criteria used to evaluate journals. For example, in 2023, Clarivate – the company behind the indexing site Web of Science – delisted 50+ journals from coverage in their citation index. After periodically re-evaluating the journals indexed in the database, these journals failed to meet their 28 quality criteria for inclusion.

In some cases, however, actions like a journal changing its title (for legitimate reasons not affecting the quality or content) can also affect its inclusion in or removal from indexing databases. This is why using multiple sources is essential when checking journal trustworthiness.

Despite all preventative measures, research support staff still regularly hear from authors who have accidentally submitted an article to a predatory journal or have encountered questionable publishing practices.

Submitting articles to predatory journals or using a publisher that delivers questionable editorial and peer review services can severely affect the academic credibility of the published record and you as a scholar.

Scholarly publications that do not undergo quality peer review risk being published with unreliable content. High-quality peer review assesses the validity of academic findings and improves the quality of a scholarly publication.

The dissemination of scholarly publications with poor or fake peer review or completely lacking peer review can allow misinformation to enter the published scholarly record and undermine the validity of academic research. Note that you have a responsibility, too, if you act as a peer reviewer, to be honest and ethical and refrain from working for journals that do not apply the required quality standards to their publications.

How can submitting to and publishing with a predatory or questionable publisher affect you?

A significant risk of submitting an article to a predatory or highly questionable publisher is the loss of control over your work. There is little stopping a predatory publisher from posting (publishing) your work online, even without your permission. Also, known predatory and questionable journals and their contents are actively excluded from most internationally recognised (citation) indexes. This means that colleagues won’t find your article, and you may need help counting a publication in professional evaluations or listing it in grant proposals. This is especially troubling for early career researchers for whom an individual article can form a significant portion of their published output. In addition, predatory publishers commonly demand payment despite your request to withdraw your article.

On top of the potential reputation and financial damages, dealing with a predatory publisher can be very stressful personally.

Trustworthy publishers may refuse to consider work already published online, even in a predatory journal, and withdrawing your article from a predatory journal can be very difficult.

The journal’s scope is essential in determining whether editors or reviewers possess the necessary expertise to correctly evaluate an author’s article.

If this scope is narrower, the journal may aim to publish as many articles as possible and potentially care less about quality. Journal publishing articles that fall outside of its scope indicate questionable publishing practices.

For authors, special issues can be attractive as the scope is often narrowly defined and explicitly targets an audience of researchers working on the same subject.

Some journals produce excessive special issues annually, possibly even encompassing most articles. They also offer a higher likelihood of acceptance and a speedy publication process, which comes at the expense of quality.

Each issue needs (guest) editors and many reviewers; the pool of reviewers per discipline is manageable. This leads to rising concerns about maintaining proper peer review standards.

Some predatory journals try to lure authors by pretending to be another journal, usually one well-known within a particular discipline.

Before submitting, carefully check the journal title, contents, and website.

If a title is notably similar to another authoritative journal within your field but looks odd or shows unexpected changes (e.g. a different publisher), you may be dealing with a predatory publisher.   

A predatory publisher’s website can look professional. Some larger predatory publishers devote considerable time and effort to making their websites attractive. It is difficult to rely on website appearances alone to identify predatory journals.

However, there are specific website characteristics that are particularly suspicious:

• The website is heavily focused on the author and not on the reader. Article access requires a lot of navigation, and while carefully selected articles are highlighted, the bulk of articles are much more hidden behind layers of menus.
• The website contains (an unusual amount of) grammar/spelling errors, chaotic layout, flashing elements, etc.
• More information is needed about essential aspects of the journal, such as charges, the editorial process, copyright, and publishing licences.
• References to ‘author perks’—such as rapid review, super quick publication times, relatively low open access fees, and easy article acceptance—are prominently featured.
• The publishing company address or telephone number does not exist, cannot be reached, or is shared by other companies. Journal email address domains are non-professional (e.g. Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail)

Article Solicitation

Both legitimate and questionable journals solicit researchers to submit manuscripts.

Be critical of unexpected invitations, especially from journals you have never published in.

Author solicitation becomes suspicious when it is overly aggressive (e.g., many emails), there are very few barriers to starting a special issue (e.g., any topic welcome, offering free publication for editors and authors), or you are invited to contribute to a topic that doesn’t correspond to your area of expertise.

Predatory publishers often refer to many ‘author perks’, like short publication times, low open access fees, and easy acceptance. 

Predatory journals often charge low APCs but may need to be more transparent about the total costs.

Check the list of editors and the editorial board for experts in your field.

Editorial boards of predatory journals often list fake names or researchers who are not editors.

Occasionally, experts know about their participation but must be aware of the journal’s questionable nature.

If in doubt, contact one or two editors/board members and ask about their experience with the journal. Editors and board members of good quality journals usually respond promptly and professionally to author enquiries.

Being registered in esteemed databases or acknowledged by renowned organisations indicates a journal’s trustworthiness. Various organisations perform some level of quality check before including journals or publishers in their listings.

• The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a database that indexes full open-access journals. Before including journals in its database, the DOAJ conducts a quality check.
• Major databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, PsycINFO, or commonly used databases in your field use inclusion criteria for their indexes and periodically remove suspicious articles and journals from their register.
• The Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE) provides leadership and guidelines on publication ethics and practical resources, including flowcharts on handling publication ethics issues. Publishers need to comply with quality criteria to become a member of COPE.
• The Open Access Scholarly Publication Association (OASPA) is a community of organisations that encourages and enables open access as the predominant communication model for scholarly output. Publishers must comply with quality criteria to become members.

It is important to note that inclusion in such databases or registries is not a foolproof quality indicator. In the past, some suspected and proven predatory journals have been found indexed in major databases.

In addition, it may take several years for new but trustworthy journals to be included in these databases. Check the organisation’s website for its most current and accurate listings.

Metrics

Be careful when considering a citation metric list journal’s website.

Metrics can be verified using the databases that produce them. For example, Impact Factors can be verified using the Web of Science, and CiteScore can be verified using Scopus.

It is very easy for predatory publishers to post fake or meaningless metrics on their websites, such as Index Copernicus Value.

A high-quality open-access journal ensures that the rights for use and reuse of content at the article level are clearly stated with a licence on each article.

Most journals use the Creative Commons licence for this purpose, although sometimes other licences may be used.

These rights must be adequately indicated, both on the website and during the submission process.

Persistent identifiers, like the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), are essential for articles to be findable and accessible.

Nowadays, almost every digital journal uses such identifiers to ensure their content is easily found.

Check if published articles have such an identifier assigned to them in the journal.

A robust, high-quality peer review process is essential for accurate and scientifically sound publishing. The type of peer review used by the journal should be clearly stated on the journal’s website and adhered to in the editorial process.

The peer review process can vary in quality and thoroughness, even with journals that are not intentionally deceiving authors but are still of questionable quality. Some questionable journals have very high acceptance rates or put pressure on reviewers or even editors to accept a manuscript despite flaws.

Authors can find the quality of the review process challenging to assess, but it provides essential information on a journal’s trustworthiness.

• Make use of your professional network. Do your colleagues know the journal? Are they optimistic about it and about the thoroughness of their peer review process?
• Have you or your colleagues ever conducted a peer review for this journal?
• Check the journal’s correction and retraction history on Retraction Watch.
• Information about journal policies regarding the peer review process can be found in the Transpose database.

The length of the review process can vary between disciplines, but it can’t take a mere couple of days.

You should expect the process to take several weeks. In most cases, this is (much) longer.

If a journal actively promotes rapid review times, it is highly likely that this speed comes at the expense of quality or that this is a predatory journal offering fake peer reviews.

You can check the peer review speed on SciRev, Journal Guide, or the publisher’s website.

Aside from the length of the review process, if you have unwittingly submitted your paper to a predatory journal, you can often recognise questionable review practices by the nature of the reviews themselves.

Overly short reviews or those that contain only comments on grammar and formatting should be treated with caution.

Predatory conferences are organized primarily for profit, with little to no legitimate peer review or academic oversight. They often have misleading names, use flattering language to solicit speakers, and charge high registration fees without providing meaningful academic value.

• Lack of peer review:
  Predatory conferences typically need a more rigorous review process for submitted abstracts or papers. Instead, they allow anyone who pays the registration fee to become a speaker, regardless of the quality of their work.
  
• Misuse of speaker names:
  Predatory conference organizers may list prominent researchers as keynote speakers or on the editorial board without their knowledge or consent.
  
• Questionable publication of proceedings:
  Some predatory conferences claim to publish the proceedings in journals, but these may be low-quality or predatory publications owned by the conference organizers.
  
• Aggressive marketing tactics:
  Predatory conference organizers often use spam emails and other aggressive tactics to solicit participation, targeting early-career researchers and those unfamiliar with the landscape of academic conferences.
  
• Lack of transparency:
  Predatory conferences typically provide little to no information about the organizers, peer review process, or other vital details that would allow participants to assess the event’s legitimacy.
  

In summary, the predatory practices seen in scholarly publishing can also extend to the conference and proceedings domain, undermining the integrity of academic discourse and potentially damaging the careers of researchers who unknowingly participate in these events. Awareness and vigilance are crucial to avoid falling victim to these exploitative practices.

• Alert your support network at your institute about what has happened. This way, your institute can support you if you need advice on interacting with the publisher.
• Communicate politely but firmly with the publisher that you wish to withdraw your article and do not permit them to publish it. You do not need to state that the journal may be predatory. There should be no fee for withdrawing your article, and no payment should be made to the publisher.
• If the publisher does not comply with your request, speak with your institute’s librarian or legal team to determine the appropriate next steps.

• Similar to the steps above, start with informing your support network.
• If the work is already published under copyright (or with any other type of licence with restrictions, e.g. CC BY NC) elsewhere, contact the original publisher to determine what steps can be taken to take the copied article offline.
  • Remember, if your original article was published under an open licence (e.g. CC BY), it may be reused as long as the original is appropriately cited and attributed. If the citation is not included, request that the new publisher add this.
  • If the new publisher does not comply with your request to add the correct citation, speak with your institute’s librarian or legal team to determine the appropriate next steps.

The options for resolving this are limited.

You can try to retract the article.

Alternatively, you can leave it and decide whether or not to include the publication on your CV (e.g., with a note that it has not been thoroughly peer-reviewed).

It is important to note that your article may not be submitted as a new article to another journal without risking self-plagiarism.

Speak to your support network for advice.

• Alert your support network about what has happened. This way, your institute can support you if you need advice on interacting with the publisher.
• Communicate politely but firmly with the publisher that your name (and any other identifiers) must be removed from the publisher’s website.
• If the publisher does not comply with your request, speak with your institute’s legal team to determine the appropriate next steps.