1. Predatory publishing: pitfalls for the unwary!
Simon Huggard
Digital Infrastructure Manager
Sharon Karasmanis
Faculty Librarian and Team Leader (Health Sciences)
latrobe.edu.au
Library Research Forum, 25 October 2013
CRICOS Provider 00115M
2. Predatory Publishers:
• Gold Open Access Model has created opportunities
for corrupt publishers to flourish
• Open Access mandates have spawned more of these
recently, with a huge increase in reports of
questionable email requests
• Only exist to extract author processing fees (often only
charging when the manuscript accepted)
• Take advantage of authors who want to publish in
Open Access journals, note: new PhD graduates
targeted!
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3. Predatory publishers – some characteristics:
• Use similar names to well known publications (e.g.
IJCEE: International Journal of Civil & Environemental
Engineering vs International Journal of Environmental
Engineering)
• Websites littered with grammatical errors
• No peer-review process or bogus reviewer details
• Spam researchers, soliciting manuscripts but failing to
mention required author fee. After the paper is
published, authors are invoiced typically US$1,800
• List bogus contact details (tricky to spot!)
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4. How can you check?
• Look for publishers verifiable contact details,
be cautious if only a web form is provided!
• Does the editorial board list recognised experts with
affiliations
• Check that author fees are prominently displayed
• Be wary of email invitations
• Read previous papers and assess the quality
• Check peer-review process is clearly described, try to
confirm if the displayed impact factor is correct!
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5. More on checking:
• Check Beall’s list of Predatory Publishers
•
scholarlyoa.com/2012/12/06/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2013/
•
Further reading:
•
LibGuide on Predatory Publishing in:
latrobe.libguides.com/journalimpact
•
Butler, D. (2013). Investigating journals: the dark side of publishing,
Nature, 495(7442), 433-435. (Describes the emergence of predatory publishing
and provides an alternate view of the Beall’s list)
•
Bohannon, J. (2013). Who’s afraid of peer-review? Science, 342.
(Spoof paper concocted by Science reveals little scrutiny by some predatory journals)
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6. Consider Green Open Access!
• Upload a submitted manuscript or postprint of your
article to Research Online (LTU research repository)
• Article will be available freely online
• No article processing fees
• Contact repository@latrobe.edu.au
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10. Where to Publish:
evaluating journals
• What are the main issues?
• Publishing in high impact scholarly journals
• Selecting journals relevant to your discipline
• Where are other experts in your discipline
publishing?
• Identifying a journal in consideration of ERA, FoR
codes and impact factors
• Ensuring your research is reaching relevant
audiences
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11. What quality factors should I look for?
• Use a range of criteria and compare with other journals
in the same category
• Quantitative and qualitative assessments such as:
• Journal impact factors
• Indexing and abstracting services
• Relevance to your discipline
• Ranking within your discipline
• Peer review process
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12. A range of Library resources are available:
(under Databases Tab)
• Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
• Eigenfactor calculation
• Scopus Journal Analyzer (SJR)
• SCImago (uses SJR data)
• InCites
• Further guidance available:
• latrobe.libguides.com/journalimpact
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13. • Contact your Faculty Librarian
• latrobe.edu.au/library/contact-us
• Research Education and Development (RED)
• latrobe.edu.au/research/red
• Research Services
• latrobe.edu.au/research-services
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