Nowadays experienced researchers are under constant pressure to publish their work in order to maintain their academic title whilst young researchers to advance in their academic careers[1]. As a result, there is a great demand for journals where articles can be published. Acting on the laws of the market economy –  where there is demand, there will be supply. The problem with scholarly journals is that the supply is so high that it becomes difficult to distinguish between journals that are worthy of attention and those which are better to avoid.

That is why this blog entry will specifically concentrate on the so-called predatory journals. It should be noted that so far there is no commonly accepted definition of predatory publishing[2].  However, to better understand what predatory journals are, one must first remember the different patterns of journal publishing.

Scientific journals can be divided into two main groups: subscription-based journals and open access models. Subscription-based journals are those in which the reader pays for the content. It is a traditional publishing model adopted by the academic society. Open Access journals, on the other hand, do not charge their readers. Costs associated with publishing are paid by the authors, through article processing charges.

Hybrid open access journals function on a model of regular subscription-based journals but can make some articles immediately available online, while the rest of the journal articles remain inaccessible. This type of method is becoming the most popular among publishers[3][4]. Another essential difference between subscription and open access magazines is copyright. Typically, open access journals retain copyrights to the authors, while subscription-based ones transfer them to the journal.

Jeffrey Beall, an American librarian, and library scientist, one of the best known predatory magazine experts and creator of Beall’s list provides the definition: “predatory open access refers to those journals that betray the genuine open access model by charging the authors publication fees without peer-review services and transparent editorial procedures”.[5] Iowa University submitted an attempt to classify predatory journals, and four different categories were proposed: phisher, hijacker, trojan horse, and unicorn.

Let us take a brief look at the picturesque names:

Phisher: such journals entice the author with promises of fast printing, but later charge high fees that were not mentioned either on the journal page or when the article was uploaded.

Hijacker: these are journals that try to look like well-known publishers, but there are additional words in their titles, such as “international”, “reviews,” and et cetera. Hijackers usually have web pages that are very similar in design and web address.

Trojan Horse: these are journals that have a well-ordered website, often an impressive list of journals and articles, but in reality, such articles either do not exist or worse they are either stolen or plagiarized.

Unicorn: these are publishers who may be legitimate businesses, but they do not follow any recommendations for publishers, which could lead to ethical violations, an imperfect quality peer-review process, or a lack of archiving policies (article may disappear at any time).[6]

The proliferation of predatory journals is of great concern to the academic community. We can see this from the sudden increase in the number of articles dealing with this topic. Whereas only eight articles could be found eight years ago, publications like these are followed by dozens per year currently[7]. Analyses show that predatory journals are more often published by younger authors as well as authors from developing countries[8][9].

Some authors state that more than a third of predatory magazines come from India. It should be noted that 25 percent of such magazines are from the United States. Such a large amount of predatory journals from the US can be explained by the fact that often these journals are registered within the US (legally), in order to lead to greater confidence in the authors[10].

The reader might wonder why such journals have appeared in the first place and why they are gaining popularity. Some academics believe that the launch of predatory journals was encouraged by the open-access initiative.  In a time of great globalization and the Internet, the need to have as much “free for reader” science as possible is very high, consequently “traditional” journals could no longer meet the growing demand.

There are strict space limit for new articles in major scientific journals, but such physical limitations do not restrict digital journals, also open access journals. In addition, usually being digital, require significantly fewer maintenance costs[11]. Maintenance is highly relevant, because despite considerable efforts, sometimes even good journals cannot withstand the competition. In this case, the magazines have two options: to declare bankruptcy or to become a predatory journal and publish all manuscripts submitted for article publishing charges. It is, therefore, essential to remember not to trust the journal’s past blindly, but to regularly and critically evaluate the journals in which the publication is planned to be published. [12] Besides, it is debated whether the possibility of open access increases the likelihood of the publication being cited[13].

Another very important point is that, in order to maintain quality, high ranking journals’ peer reviews often take months without any guarantee that the publication will eventually be published[14]. In such a context, it seems natural that researchers, especially younger ones, who are often generally unaware of the existence of predatory journals due to lack of authorship training and how to choose a journal for their designed work[15] are easily seduced by letters promising quick and cheap reviews and be unable to distinguish legitimate journals from predatory ones[16].

What is surprising, though, financial ability is not a significant obstacle for authors, as predatory journals also charge fees. The average publication fee in a predatory journal is ~499 USD per article[17]. Though existent, the fees of predatory journals are low enough to attract the attention of authors, especially since many of them are at least partially supported by institutions. The time declared by the predatory logs is equally important[18].

Unlike well-known publishers, predatory journals look for articles aggressively: spam emails promise a quick review, fast hosting, and affordable pricing. In reality, such articles have virtually no quality of control, or as mentioned in the Iowa University predatory journal categories, journals create pages whose email addresses and full design are almost identical to famous journals[19]. Predatory journals cause a variety of negative consequences. First and foremost- the authors themselves are the victims. Research institutions, or even more experienced colleagues, may look suspiciously at authors who print in such journals. This causes particular harm to young authors who get into the predatory journals through limited experience, and as a consequence get stuck in blacklisted magazines for the rest of their lives because their electronic affiliations will remain online indefinitely.

In addition to the potential loss of reputation, authors also risk more tangible losses: data and finance. Some of these journals raise deception to a higher level by taking money, but not publishing the articles in general. Usually, extraordinary funds cannot be recovered. Another loss, which can be even more painful for authors, is loss of data. Predatory journals can print articles, but without peer review the publication can be of inferior quality. Furthermore, once an article gets published online, it will not disappear from there, and both data and copyright may be freely accessible to anyone without significant control.

There is also the opposite possibility: being digital-only, individual journals may not provide good enough data storage, and in case the log disappears, the data may be lost as well. However, it should be emphasized that this applies not only to predatory journals but also to legitimate digital journals who have gone bankrupt before ensuring long time lasting contracts with large databases[20]. In addition to harming the authors, articles in such journals are damaging to the academic community and the general population. Readers receive potentially mediocre, sometimes even fraudulent information.

When it turns out that some publications conflict with others, the general population might have reasonable doubts in scientific integrity. Sometimes such consequences can last for decades and have long-term consequences on a global scale. Besides, with no strict quality control guidelines for publishers and virtually no control for conflict of interest, predatory journals make an excellent tool for outsourcing articles. This can have a straightforward and painful effect on clinicians who rely on scientific publications in their work[21].

Unfortunately, currently there is no foolproof method that would allow authors to identify predatory journals. However, several methods to help authors avoid unwanted magazines exist. One of them is the so-called “blacklisting”. The most famous, as mentioned above, is Beall’s list. It was a one-person blog created in 2008 with the main task of reporting predatory journals. For nearly a decade, this list has been an easy way to keep safe from inappropriate journals.

Beall added magazines to its list based on five critical criteria: editor and staff, business management, integrity, poor journal standards, and others[22]. The Beall’s list received not only much praise but also many accusations. One of the most criticized aspects was that although the characteristic features of his inclusion of journals in his lists were known, the exact methodology remained a mystery[23]. Many authors also cursed Beall for adding new magazines to his list too quickly[24]. The newly emerging journals, inexperienced, quickly met several of its criteria and entered the “board of shame,” thus preventing them from improving because of damage to its proper name[25].

On January 15, 2017, Beall’s Scholarly Open Access website was removed. As later explained, the developer was forced to shut down the blog due to threats and politics[26].  Such legal threats were not without merit: despite Beall’s relatively high popularity, some scientists estimate that, due to not entirely clear inclusion criteria, he was correct in about 82 percent of journals. This means that almost every fifth magazine on his list had been falsely accused[27].

When evaluating Beall’s list, it should be borne in mind that the author himself named his list as “potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals”. From the terms chosen by him, it may be inferred that Beall did not claim that his list was definitive[28]. With the disappearance of Beall’s list, new campaigns like “Think. Check. Submit.” appeared. This initiative adopted a different methodology that is more focused on teaching authors how to make the right choice of the journal rather than blacklisting journals[29]. Another notable list of journals published by the Directory of Open Access Journals uses the opposite tactic than Beall – this list does not mark “bad” journals, but preferably good ones – creating “whitelist”[30].

Different tips can be found in the scientific literature on how to guard against predatory journals. Roughly speaking, three main points can be distinguished: 1) advertising tactics; 2) the image of the magazine; 3) evaluation of the article.

1) predatory magazines tend to advertise themselves very actively, sending large volumes of emails that promise speedy and smooth publication, at meager prices that are often not named initially. In such letters, the addressee is usually praised; 2) the magazine’s logo, website, address, and title often have similarities with well-known publishers. Editorial board members are nominated scholars who often have nothing to do with the journal. Journals declare themselves to belong to indexed databases. However, there are no such journals on the pages of the databases themselves; 3) peer-review system is minimal or non-existent, articles leave very gross errors, there is no anti-plagiarism system or ethical evaluation[31][32].

What can we do to prevent this?

Even though journal lists are useful tools, whether being a blacklist or a whitelist, these are not long-term solutions. One problem is that such lists usually rely on some external sources that can be influenced when evaluating journals. Another problem is that the lists are binary objects, in which journals are divided only into predatory and non-predatory, but the reality is more complicated[33].

Another suggestion often found in the literature is for universities to accept and evaluate not all scholarly articles, but only those published in highly rated journals[34]. Such recommendations already exist in many Western European universities, and are becoming more widespread in Eastern and Central Europe[35].

However, as noted by Marusic with colleagues, well assessing only high impact journals has the other side of the coin:  such evaluation systems severely affect small local magazines. When the authors analyzed journals printed in Croatia, they noted that the editors of local journals are usually not professional editors, but rather university employees who voluntarily share their time and experience in order to aid their local scientific community. Naturally, a non-international, voluntary-driven, often non-profit-making magazine cannot compete with the world’s largest publishers, which publish half of the world’s articles[36]. Therefore, when universities stop evaluating publications in such journals, they are doomed to failure, while not being predatory at all[37]. Unfortunately, this situation is currently being observed in much of Central and Eastern Europe[38].

The only way to solve this problem is for all authors, publishers, and universities to work together to improve the transparency and integrity of science. Universities should educate researchers, especially juniors, about the existence of predatory journals, the dangers they pose, and ways to avoid them. Furthermore,more experienced colleagues could help younger ones evaluate the journal chosen for publication.

Thanks to Margarita Poškutė and Eugenijus Gefenas for the comments and insights in the making of this article.

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