Predatory journals

Story of Bhaskar

Bhaskar had spent years meticulously conducting research in the field of pharmaceutical sciences. His dedication had paid off when he finally made pioneering research on a new formulation. Excited to share his findings with the research community, he set out to publish his research in a reputed journal.

As he was preparing his manuscript, Bhaskar received an email from a journal he had never heard of before. The email began with flattering words, praising his expertise and the significance of his research. It claimed that the journal was rapidly growing with a strong commitment to publishing work of researchers like him. The scope of the journal was in line with what Bhaskar was looking for.

Bhaskar felt a sense of urgency to publish his research quickly to ensure that he would be recognized as the inventor of this formulation. The journal mentioned that it included some big industrial researchers as reviewers. Bhaskar was excited that with this exposure, he will get offers for collaboration from industry for commercializing his work. The email from the journal mentioned their "fast-track" publication process and assured him that his work would be disseminated to a global audience within weeks.

Eager to share his findings and under pressure to publish, Bhaskar decided to submit his manuscript to the journal. He thought he had made the right choice, especially given the rapid publication promise. He even managed to get funding from his project to cover the premium publication processing fees. He had seen premium journals charging premium fees, so he had no objection in paying that amount.

Within days, Bhaskar received an acceptance letter from the journal, along with an invoice for the publication fees. It all happened so quickly that he barely had time to review the journal's website or scrutinize the review process. Weeks later, Bhaskar's research was published in the journal, as promised. He shared the link with colleagues and proudly included it in his CV.

However, soon Bhaskar began to notice some red flags. His work was not indexed in any reputable databases like PubMed or Web of Science. Some of his fellow researchers mentioned that they had never heard of the journal and couldn't find much information about the journal online. As time passed, Bhaskar realized that his research was not gaining the attention he had hoped for. In fact, some of the researchers raised doubts about the quality of the journal and the legitimacy of the publication. Bhaskar decided to investigate further and found that the journal had a minimal online presence, there was no editorial board, and the journal had a history of accepting poorly researched papers.

Bhaskar felt cheated and anguished for choosing this journal. He had fallen prey to a predatory journal, and his groundbreaking research had been discredited in the eyes of the scientific community. He was not only embarrassed but also concerned about the long-term impact on his career. Determined to rectify the situation, Bhaskar retracted his paper from the journal and submitted it to a reputable journal. However, the damage had been done.

Story of Rajat

Rajat was doing his PhD from a reputed institute. Along with his guide, Prof. Bose, he had planned his work and worked meticulously to bring it towards a successful completion. As a requirement by the institute, he was required to have some publications in SCOPUS or Word of Science registered journal with a decent impact factor. Rajat and his guide were too much engrossed in work and somehow, they missed planning the publications in advance. They did publish some other research publications from their lab; however, they were yet to publish the research outcomes from Rajat’s work.

Prof. Bose was always in demand and more students were in queue to enroll under him once Rajat completes defending his thesis. Rajat was under pressure to submit his work to some journal and get a rapid publication so that he could submit his thesis and complete his research. It was going to open up new opportunities in industry/academia for him. He discussed this challenge with his friend Ajit. His colleague Ajit was in a similar situation some time back but somehow he had managed to get his paper published in quick time. Ajit had no hesitations and shared all the details of the journal with Rajat. Our friend Rajat quickly searched the journal, read some articles published in the journal, and along with Ajit prepared the manuscript as per the journal requirements.

Initially Rajat felt everything was in place and he was ready to submit the manuscript to this journal. However, while looking at some key aspects of the journal, Rajat sensed that something was not right. The journal was listed in SCOPUS but had no ratings, there was a list of reviewers but he had not heard about them or read about their work previously, the journal was charging a premium fee for rapid publication and gave special discounts for group publications. Rajat had sensed something inappropriate, however the sense of urgency in getting his research published took over.

Within few days, Rajat got acceptance notification. It felt like the reviewers had no comments and the manuscript was going to be published in the format it was submitted. Rajat was happy; however, this happiness came at a cost. The journal informed him that his manuscript would require editing and formatting and he had to pay an additional cost for it. As this manuscript was going to be a rapid publication, they also asked him to pay additional fees for the same. Rajat desperately wanted to get his research published and that too rapidly, he ended up paying the fees. Rajat had heard of predatory journals and now he had fallen prey to one of them.

We went through a couple of stories about the predatory journals. In this concluding part we try to understand what are these journals and how can one identify them.

Predatory journals are publications that exploit the academic publishing model for profit, often at the expense of scholarly rigor and integrity. These journals engage in unethical practices that undermine the credibility of scientific research. Although it is not so easy to differentiate between legitimate journals and predatory journals, one can observe some common characteristics of the predatory journals.

Some of the common characteristics of predatory journals:

Not really peer reviewed: Predatory journals typically claim to conduct peer review; however, the process is often superficial or non-existent. Legitimate peer-reviewed journals have a rigorous review process to ensure the quality and validity of published research. The predatory journals will provide a fast response and obviously, it will be positive. The comments from reviewers of legitimate journals could sometime be very harsh and challenge your thought process or the research itself. However, the comments by reviewers in predatory journals, if any, will be cursory and they are okay even if you don’t address them with some straightforward responses.

Questionable publication standards: Predatory journals are primarily work for making profit and are least concerned about maintaining standards, its quantity versus quality. They often accept articles regardless of the quality of content or quality of research. One can find poorly researched or even pseudoscientific content in these journals. The standard legitimate journals on the other hand are concerned for the quality of the work that is going to be published; if the quality does not meet their requirements, they do reject the manuscripts based on quality of research. Although, the predatory journals will state an acceptance rate on their portal, it’s hard to see rejections (unless you deny paying them money).

Exorbitant publications fees: Predatory journals often charge authors a premium for publishing their work. They may charge you for editorial services or dissemination of the research. However, you may find that none of these promises are fulfilled. Legitimate journals are transparent and provide details of how and why they charge a particular amount. On the other hand, predatory journals do not disclose all charges, they may initially just describe open access fees or publication processing fees but once submitted, they may have more hidden charges. They may even charge you for recalling/retracting your paper.

What’s in the names: Names can be misleading and it’s not uncommon to find journal names that seem very similar to each other. Predatory journals adopt names that are very similar to the well-established journals, which can confuse researchers. To make it look like the original journal, their websites may mimic the colors and features. As the predatory journals benefit by misleading potential authors, they may use tool to promote their websites on search engines.

That flowery e-mail: If you have published your work, you should have received an e-mail from of these journals flattering you with the flowery content praising you and your contribution to the field. Predatory journals often send e-mails and unsolicited invitations to solicit articles from researchers, particularly those early in their careers. These invitations have exaggerations about the journal's prestige and trap you into considering it as a preferred journal. Well, we all like to be flattered and called experts in our field, if not for contributing, you could be targeted initially for reviews and or guest editor requests.

Need for speed: The unique selling proposition for the predatory journals is the promise of rapid publication. They have quick acceptance, quick reviews, quick publication. Sometimes the responses are so rapid that the entire publication process completes within days or weeks of submission. Quite contrary to this, the standard journal tends to take several months or even years to complete the same process. Speed of reviews and publication is one of the caveats of the system that opens up avenues for these predatory journals.

God lies in details: Predatory journals may not provide complete information about their editorial board, peer review process, or affiliations. Legitimate journals typically have transparent policies and affiliations. Another trap that these predatory journals have is to lure some researchers as editorial board members. Sometimes just by reviewing one manuscript or giving consent to be added for a while, people get added to the editorial board page. And of course, being an editorial board member of any journal is matter of pride and adds more weightage to CV. So, check if you have heard of these members before or if you have read about their research before. Another check, please make sure the names are correct and exist in reality.

Archived and Indexed: Predatory journals are often not indexed in reputable databases like PubMed or Web of Science. This can make it difficult for researchers to find and cite articles published in these journals. Moreover, being indexed does not guarantee that a journal is authentic and won’t be predatory. There have been instances where indexed journals have showed up in the list of predatory journals.

We all have heard of the story of wolf in sheep's skin. These predatory journals are that wolf wearing cover similar to an authentic, legitimate, standard journal. The predatory journals take advantage of various loopholes or caveats in the system. The rise of predatory journals raises serious concerns as they undermine the credibility of scientific research and can have real-world consequences, such as disseminating inaccurate or misleading information. We will have to be more vigilant and use established criteria to identify and avoid predatory journals when publishing our work.

Please be informed that there are controversies over the list of journals included in some of the resources. Moreover, none of the journals will accept that they are predatory. Of course, some of the aspects of predatory journals are also applicable to standard journals. It is left to your discretion to verify the validity of the lists before you select a journal based on them.

Disclaimer: The blog content was published as a series on LinkedIn by the author.

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