---
title: "Predatory publishing"
chunk: 7/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

More transparent peer review, such as open peer review and post-publication peer review, has been advocated to combat predatory journals. Others have argued instead that the discussion on predatory journals should not be turned "into a debate over the shortcomings of peer review—it is nothing of the sort. It is about fraud, deception, and irresponsibility..."
In an effort to "set apart legitimate journals and publishers from non-legitimate ones", principles of transparency and best practice have been identified and issued collectively by the Committee on Publication Ethics, the DOAJ, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, and the World Association of Medical Editors. Various journal review websites (crowd-sourced or expert-run) have been started, some focusing on the quality of the peer review process and extending to non-OA publications. A group of libraries and publishers launched an awareness campaign.
A number of measures have been suggested to further combat predatory journals. Others have called on research institutions to improve the publication literacy notably among junior researchers in developing countries. Some organisations have also developed criteria in which predatory publishers could be spotted through providing tips.
As Beall has ascribed predatory publishing to a consequence of gold open access (particularly its author-pays variant), one researcher has argued for platinum open access, where the absence of article processing charges removes the publisher's conflict of interest in accepting article submissions. More objective discriminating metrics have been proposed, such as a "predatory score" and positive and negative journal quality indicators. The International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE) have encouraged authors to consult subject-area expert-reviewed journal listings, such as the Directory of Nursing Journals, vetted by their organisation, and to make use of Jeffrey Beall's open-access list of predatory journals.
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan has warned that predatory publishing, fabricated data, and academic plagiarism erodes public confidence in the medical profession, devalues legitimate science, and undermines public support for evidence-based policy.
In 2015, Rick Anderson, associate dean in the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, challenged the term itself: "what do we mean when we say 'predatory,' and is that term even still useful?... This question has become relevant because of that common refrain heard among Beall's critics: that he only examines one kind of predation—the kind that naturally crops up in the context of author-pays OA." Anderson suggests that the term "predatory" be retired in the context of scholarly publishing. "It's a nice, attention-grabbing word, but I'm not sure it's helpfully descriptive... it generates more heat than light." A 2017 article in The New York Times suggests that a significant number of academics are "eager" to publish their work in these journals, making the relationship more a "new and ugly symbiosis" than a case of scholars being exploited by "predators".
Similarly, a study published in January 2018 found that "Scholars in the developing world felt that reputable Western journals might be prejudiced against them and sometimes felt more comfortable publishing in journals from the developing world. Other scholars were unaware of the reputation of the journals in which they published and would not have selected them had they known. However, some scholars said they would still have published in the same journals if their institution recognised them. The pressure to 'publish or perish' was another factor influencing many scholars' decisions to publish in these fast-turnaround journals. In some cases, researchers did not have adequate guidance and felt they lacked the knowledge of research to submit to a more reputable journal."
In May 2018, the University Grants Commission in India removed 4,305 dubious journals from a list of publications used for evaluating academic performance.
To further define and distinguish predatory journals, Leonhard Dobusch and Maximilian Heimstädt in 2019 proposed a tripartite classification of Open Access journals with below-average peer review quality. Based on their procedures, there would be 1) "aspirant" 2) "junk" and 3) "fake" journals. While aspirant journals are science-oriented despite their below-average peer review (e.g. student-run journals), junk and fake journals are predominantly or exclusively profit-oriented. Junk and fake Open Access journals have superficial or no peer review procedures, despite their claims of being peer-reviewed.
In April 2019, 43 participants from 10 countries met in Ottawa, Canada to formulate a consensus definition: "Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices." Adequacy of peer review was not included in the definition because this factor was deemed too subjective to evaluate. Critics of this definition argued that excluding the quality of peer review from the definition "could strengthen rather than weaken" predatory journals.
In March 2022, the InterAcademy Partnership published a report, Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences, with a series of recommendations. This study emphasized, that predatory publishing practices is not a binary (good or bad) phenomenon, but rather a spectrum. They proposed the following classification: 

a) hijacked journals, which mimic existing reputable journals;
b) journals which re-publish papers from legitimate journals (see OMICS);
c) journals which deceive their potential authors by "giving false or misleading information about their publishing charges, the services they provide (like indexing, peer-review, or having an impact factor), where the publisher is based, or the identity of the owner, editor or members of the editorial board."
d) low-quality journals, which are characterised by poor cumulative criteria (such as disregarding negative reviews of manuscripts and publishing articles outside the declared journal's scope), without an apparent deceitful intent (see MDPI and Frontiers Media).
Some journals can be simultaneously classified into two or more categories.

== See also ==
List of scholarly publishing stings
Author mill
Conflicts of interest in academic publishing (covers publishers' COIs)
Content farm
Diploma mill
Elsevier § Fake journals
Essay mill
Hijacked journal
Journalology
Mega journal
Open-access journal
Peer review failures
Predatory conference
Pseudo-scholarship
Research Integrity Risk Index
Center for Promoting Ideas

== Explanatory notes ==

== References ==

== Further reading ==
Spears, Tom (14 June 2017). "Critic of 'predatory' publishing returns with scathing article". Ottawa Citizen. p. A3. Retrieved 26 December 2019 – via Newspapers.com. Jeffrey Beall is back after he went silent and website disappeared around January
Discussion document: Predatory Publishing (Report). Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 1 November 2019. doi:10.24318/cope.2019.3.6.
InterAcademy Partnership (2022). Combatting predatory academic journals and conferences: report. [Washington, DC]. ISBN 978-1-7330379-3-8. OCLC 1304485975.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

== External links ==

Think. Check. Submit.
"Predatory journals: No definition, No defence. (2019). Nature. "Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed [on] a definition of predatory publishing that can protect scholarship."
AMWA – EMWA – ISMPP Joint Position statement