Ratio Scientiae
RATIO SCIENTIAE BLOG
  • Home
  • Meet the Author
  • Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Random Science
  • Writing & News
  • Nonfiction Books
    • Science Can Be Right Because It Can Be Wrong
    • The Gift of Science
    • Random Science
  • Fiction Books
    • The Sun Zebra
    • Spirit Women
  • Science Cat (Mascot)
  • Contact

7/14/2018

Predatory Journals: The Problem is Much Worse than You Think

0 Comments

Read Now
 
I recently published an article in a scientific journal. Within a few days of publication of the article, the invitations started coming. Scientists I had never heard of before wrote to tell me about how they read my article, thought it was very good, and wanted me to publish in the journals for which they serve as editors. One of these persons who claimed to be an “assitant editor” stated he was “impressed deeply by the novelty, advance, and potential extensive use” of my research and was “deeply honored” to also extend me an invitation to join their team as an editor or a reviewer. I did not recognize the names of any of these journals, and when I checked the links, I found they were all exclusively open access (online) journals. What had just happened to me is something that most scientists who publish nowadays face. I had been targeted by predatory journals.
​

Picture
Predatory journals are journals that masquerade as legitimate scientific journals but charge authors for publication without providing any editorial and publishing services. One of the cornerstones of scientific publishing is peer-review. This means that articles containing research results are submitted to scientific journals where other scientists with comparable knowledge of the field (a peer) review them. These reviewers make recommendations to the authors and/or the journal’s editor regarding revisions or publication of the research. A so called “predatory journal” makes a mockery of the peer review system by indiscriminately publishing any submission it receives with minimal review.
​


In addition, unlike mainstream journals, predatory journals often hide their publishing fees. The editors of predatory journals target scientist by sending flattery-laden invitations to publish with them without spelling out that there will be a fee involved. The scientist goes through all the work of putting together an article and sending it for review. Once the article has been accepted, an e-mail is sent to the scientist informing them that there is a publication fee involved and the scientist is not allowed to withdraw their article until the fee is payed.
 
Predatory journals have been made possible by the advent of the internet. Most predatory journals are open access journals (online journals) that have no print version. There are legitimate open access journals such as PlosOne that have a rigorous editorial review process, and their editorial team includes scientists of renown. Predatory journals, on the other hand, have editorial teams either made up of low caliber scientists that often review articles outside their area of expertise, or bona fide scientists that the journal has duped into joining as editors, or even scientists that have been included as editors without their consent! Many predatory journals sport names and websites that are similar to those of mainstream journals, and they report fraudulent metrics with regards to how often the articles published in the journal are cited to make that journal look good.
 
To illustrate the problem that predatory publishing can cause, consider the sting operation carried out by the mainstream scientific journal Science. Several members of its team put together a spoof article with glaring scientific errors that would be picked by an average competent reviewer, and they sent them to a few hundred open access journals that had been identified as predatory. They found that 62% of the journals accepted the spoof article for publication. Of those journals that conducted any discernible kind of review of the article (most often limited to details not involving the science), 70% accepted it. Here consider not only that the acceptance rate for legitimate articles sent to bona fide scientific journals is between 20 and 30%, but that this particular spoof article described research designed to be easily identifiable as bad science. What this indicates is that predatory journals are highly likely to contain shoddy science that can mislead scientists searching for clues to solve their research problems, leading to wasted time and resources.
 
By 2014, about 400,000 scientific articles had been published in 8,000 journals regarded by some metrics as predatory. Today the number of such journals has increased to more than 10,000. If predatory journals were readily identifiable, this would not be as much of a problem, but for the average researcher with limited time on their hands, the process of weeding out the good journals from the bad can prove daunting. The scientist Jeffrey Beal elaborated and maintained a public list of predatory journals for a few years, but due to harassment from the publishers of the journals he was forced to take his list down.
 
Many people believe that scientists that publish in predatory journals are usually inexperienced young scientists who are deceived into publishing in these journals. After all, what possible value can be obtained from accumulating publications in unknown, low-quality journals? One would expect that at the time the researcher’s credentials are evaluated, this would be considered a big negative, right? As it turns out, the problem is much worse than previously thought. I have published a post about several ways by which scientists game the system to advance their career. Well, add publishing in predatory journals to the list! In what is turning out to be not quite predation but a twisted interdependence, many scientists from developing countries, and from institutions with few resources where the metric for academic promotion relies more on the total number of publications, are flocking to predatory journals to beef up their publication numbers.
 
So what is there to be done? The issues concerning predatory journals as they relate to the criteria for faculty promotions will have to be addressed at the institutional level. The practices of predatory journals of misrepresenting themselves to scientists can be addressed at the judicial level. However, at the individual level there are several guidelines that researchers can follow to avoid not only publishing in predatory journals, but also taking seriously the science contained in them. I myself, for example, view with suspicion anything published in a journal not included in reputable bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE. And, of course, if you get a message in your e-mail describing what a wonderful first class researcher you are and inviting you to publish in a journal you’ve never heard of before and to join its editorial board, leave your ego aside and ignore it!

 
Inage by Sarahmirk is used under an Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Share

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Details

    Categories

    All
    911
    Absence Of Evidence
    Adrenaline
    Adrenochrome
    Advances In War Medicine
    Affidavits
    Airplane On Conveyor Belt
    Alder's Razor
    Alfred Wegener
    Alzheimer's Disease
    Amyloid Theory
    Ancient Astronauts
    Animal Rights
    Animals
    Anthony Fauci
    Anthropomorphism
    Antibodies
    Anti Vaccination
    Astronauts
    Authority Figure
    Autumn
    Bambi
    Believers
    Bias
    Big Bang Theory Sitcom
    Bigfoot
    Bill Ney
    Black Death
    Black Holes
    Blind Experimental Design
    Brain
    Brains
    Building 7
    Buoyancy
    Cancer
    Cannonballs
    Carnivores
    Catoctin Mountains
    Cell Culture
    Center Of Mass
    Challenger
    Chance
    Chemical Names
    Chemical Reactions
    Chemtrails
    Chesapeake Bay
    Child Abuse
    Child Testimonies
    Chimborazo
    Citations
    Citogenesis
    Civil War
    Climate Change
    Climategate
    Climate Skeptics
    Clinical Trial
    Coelacanth
    Coincidence
    Cold-Stress
    Communicating Science
    Completeness Of Scientific Theories
    Consciousness
    Conspiracy
    Contrails
    Controls
    Coquina Rock
    Coronavirus
    Counterintuitive Facts
    COVID19
    COVID 19 Vaccine
    COVID-19 Vaccine
    Creationism
    Cross-Sectional Method
    Cryptozoology
    Dan Shechtman
    Demonic Possession
    Density
    Devotion To Science
    Dihydrogen Monoxide
    Dinosaurs
    Discrimination
    Disgust
    Dishonesty In Science
    Diversity In Methodologies
    Diversity In Scientists
    DNA
    Doctors
    Dog Experiments
    Donald Trump
    Double Slit Experiment
    Do Your Own Research
    Dreams
    Dr. Gloom's Crypt Of Curiosities
    Drugs
    Dust Bunnies
    Eclipse
    Efrain Racker
    Einstein
    Elections 2020
    End Of The World
    Erosion
    Established Science
    Everest
    Evidence
    Evolution
    Exorcism
    Experimenter Bias
    Experiments You Can Do In Your Home
    Experts
    Extinction
    Face Masks
    Facts
    Faith
    Faith Healing
    Fall
    Falsifiability
    Fantastical Claims
    Fauna
    Fear
    Feynman
    Finger Snapping
    Fosbury Flop
    Francis Crick
    Frankenstein
    Fraud
    Frederick's Municipal Forest
    Free Will
    Friction
    Fruit Fly
    Funerals
    Funny
    Galaxies
    Genes
    Genius
    Geology
    Ghost
    Global Warming
    Global Warming Denial
    God
    Gravitational Lens
    Gravitational Waves
    Gravity
    Gun Violence
    Hanlon’s Razor
    Hearing
    Hearing Aids
    Hearing Loss
    HeLa Cells
    Henrietta Lacks
    Heroic Science
    Hitchens's Razor
    Hoax
    Homosexuality
    HPV Vaccine
    Human Experimentation
    Human Folly
    Hunting
    Hurricane
    Hydroxychloroquine
    Hypothesis
    Ignaz Semmelweis
    Ignorance As Evidence
    Immunotherapy
    Infamy Or Glory
    Influenza
    Insults
    Intelligence
    Intelligence Tests
    Intelligent Design
    Intersex
    Iraq War
    Irish Washerwoman
    Isaac Asimov
    James T. Kirk
    James Watson
    Katherine Hayhoe
    Language
    Lazarus Effect
    Left Fork Rocks
    Level Of Detail
    Libet Experiment
    Lightning
    Limericks
    Limitations Of Science
    Loch Ness Monster
    Lord Howe Island Stick Insect
    Loud Music
    Luck
    Mad Scientist
    Magnus Effect
    Malaria Vaccine
    Max Planck
    Medical Risks
    Medical Terms
    Mediums
    Men
    Mental Illness
    Mice
    Microbiome
    Milgram Experiment
    Mind
    Mind In The Gutter
    Misuse Of Science
    MMR Vaccine
    Mnemonic Devices
    Moments Of Discovery
    Monty Hall Puzzle
    Moon
    Movies
    NASA
    Natural
    Nature
    Nature Of Science
    Negative Evidence
    Nerds
    Newton
    Nobel Prize
    NOMA
    N-Rays
    Obesity
    Occam's Razor
    Open Mind
    Ouija Board
    Outreau
    Oxbow Lakes
    Para-Dimethylaminobenzaldehyde
    Paranormal
    Pasteur Louis
    Peak Of Illusion
    Peers
    Perception
    Philosophy
    Phobias
    Phrenology
    Physics
    Pink Lady's Slippers
    Plague
    Politicization Of Science
    Polywater
    Popper’s Falsifiability Principle
    Possible/Impossible
    Power To The People!
    Predatory Journals
    Pregnancy
    Premonitions
    Probability
    Propaganda
    Prophesy
    Pseudoscience
    Psychic
    Publication
    Puerperal Fever
    QAnon
    Quack
    Quackery
    Quantum Mechanics
    Quartzite
    Racism
    Radical New Ideas
    Radioactivity
    Radium
    Randomness
    Ratio Sapientiae
    Ratio Scientiae
    Reality
    Reason
    Religion
    Rock Climbing
    Rosalyn Franklin
    RSV Vaccine
    Sagan's Standard
    Salem Witch Trials
    Sample Size
    Science Fiction
    Science Jokes
    Science Pranks
    Scientific Consensus
    Scientific Establishment
    Scientific Guidelines
    Scientific Journals
    Scientific Method
    Scientific Names
    Scientific Question
    Scientific Terms
    Scientific Theories
    Seashells
    Self-Experimentation
    Shape Of The Earth
    Skepticism
    Skeptics
    Skin Color
    Slavery
    Snake Oil
    Soccer
    Sonic Hedgehog
    Space
    Spanish Flu
    Spontaneous Generation
    Stanley Prusiner
    Stars
    Star Trek
    Statistical Significance
    Statistics
    Sublime/Ridiculous
    Suicide
    Sun
    Superstition
    Surface To Volume Ratio
    Swanson Conversion
    Swine Flu
    Tangier Island
    Taxonomy
    Technical Details
    The Support Of God
    Thomas Young
    Timeline Method
    Tooth Worm
    Transposable Elements
    Trusted Messenger
    Trust In Scientists
    Truth
    Tyranny Of Fantasy
    Understanding
    Universe
    Vaccine Hesitancy
    Vaccines
    Vacuum
    VAERS
    Valley Of Despair
    Values
    Video Games
    West Side Story
    West Virginia Penitentiary
    Wikipedia
    William Shatner
    Wolf Rock
    Women
    World Trade Center
    Xenophobia
    Y Chromosome
    Zinc
    Zombies

    Archives

    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Meet the Author
  • Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Random Science
  • Writing & News
  • Nonfiction Books
    • Science Can Be Right Because It Can Be Wrong
    • The Gift of Science
    • Random Science
  • Fiction Books
    • The Sun Zebra
    • Spirit Women
  • Science Cat (Mascot)
  • Contact