Why do researchers decide to publish in questionable journals? A review of the literature

@article{Frandsen2019WhyDR,
  title={Why do researchers decide to publish in questionable journals? A review of the literature},
  author={Tove Faber Frandsen},
  journal={Learned Publishing},
  year={2019},
  volume={32}
}
  • T. Frandsen
  • Published 1 January 2019
  • Psychology
  • Learned Publishing
Peer review is a cornerstone of scientific publication, and consequently, predatory journals are feared to be a threat to the credibility of science as they perform no or low‐quality peer review. The question of why researchers decide to publish in a questionable journal remains relatively unexplored. This paper provides an overview of the existing literature on why researchers decide to publish papers in questionable journals, specifically whether or not they search for a low‐barrier way to… 
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32 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
3
Background Citations
18
Methods Citations
1

32 Citations

Disturbance of questionable publishing to academia

How Frequently are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited

It is concluded that articles published in predatory journals have little scientific impact.

Citation patterns between impact-factor and questionable journals

The main aim of the study is to reveal the contribution of the journals accepted as legitimate by the authorities to the visibility of questionable journals and show that neither the impact factor of citing journals nor the size of cited journals is a good predictor of the number of citations to the questionable journals.

Disturbance of greedy publishing to academia

The analysis reveals that questionable publications embellished their citation scores by attributing publisher-level self-citations to their journals while also controlling the journal-level journals to circumvent the evaluation of journal-indexing services, and proposes journalpublisher-hybrid metric that help detect malpractice.

Predatory journals and conferences: why fake counts.

This review discusses key elements of predatory journals and conferences, their deceptive practices have negative implications for scientists and clinicians, both educational and ethical, and proposes countermeasures to tackle the problem.

Medical articles in questionable journals are less impactful than those in non-questionable journals but still extensively cited

This study investigates the profile and impact of research in questionable journals by authors in Germany by matching journals with articles by authors at German institutions from Dimensions to Cabell’s Predatory Reports and finds authors from non-university medical facilities were over-represented in articles in questionable Journals.

Who reviews for predatory journals? A study on reviewer characteristics

The characteristics of scholars who review for potentially predatory journals resemble those of authors who publish their work in these outlets, and stakeholders will need to adopt a holistic approach that takes into account the entire research workflow.

“Where to Publish?” Avoiding Mediocrity for Academic Staff Promotion at the University of Dar es Salaam

Does “where to publish” affect academic staff promotion outcome? Using rational choice theory and the University of Dar es Salaam as case study, this article analyses the law and practice…

Where predatory and mainstream journals differ: A study of language and linguistics journals

This study examined editorial differences between potential predatory and mainstream journals in the discipline of language and linguistics. A keyword search of the relevant journals on Beall's…

Readers beware! Predatory journals are infiltrating citation databases

C Citation databases are contaminated with publications of questionable quality originating from so-called predatory journals, and the integrity and usefulness of citation databases, on which the authors rely as sources of trustworthy research, are now being called in question.

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 57 REFERENCES

Why do authors publish in predatory journals?

The pressure to ‘publish or perish’ was another factor influencing many scholars’ decisions to publish in these fast‐turnaround journals, and researchers did not have adequate guidance and felt they lacked the knowledge of research to submit to a more reputable journal.

Increased Publication in Predatory Journals by Developing Countries' Institutions: What It Entails? And What Can Be Done?

ABSTRACT Recently, there has been an alarming increase in the number of “academic” papers published in vanity journals and publishers. Such journals, dubbed predatory because their main objective is…

The decision to submit to a journal: Another example of a valence‐consistent Shift?

The results show that a positive framing effect might be present when authors decide on submitting a high quality article and no evidence of a framing effect is found when authors consider a standard quality article.

Ethical issues in publishing in predatory journals

Ethical issues around predatory journals and publishing in them are discussed and it is important that the scholarly community, including authors, institutions, editors, and publishers, support the legitimate scholarly research enterprise.

You are invited to submit…

Strategies researchers and institutions can consider to reduce the number of invitations received and strategies to handle those invitations that make it to the recipients’ inbox are discussed, thus helping to maintain the credibility and reputation ofResearchers and institutions.

Are predatory journals undermining the credibility of science? A bibliometric analysis of citers

This paper is an analysis of potential predatory journals as well as potential poor scientific standards journals and shows that the characteristics of the citing author indeed resemble those of the publishing author.

Author publication preferences and journal competition

  • J. Hsieh
  • Medicine
    J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol.
  • 2017
The author quantifies the publishing choices of a set of scholars to confirm a strong focus on a small number of journals from an ecological perspective and provides useful information for editorial boards interested in managing their submissions according to author profiles.

Predatory Journals Spamming for Publications: What Should Researchers Do?

The strategies used by predatory journals to convince researchers to publish with them are highlighted, their article processing charges are reported, and their presence in Jeffrey Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers is noted.

Where Should we Submit our Manuscript? An Analysis of Journal Submission Strategies

This paper analyzes the problem faced by impatient researchers attempting to balance the considerations of journal quality, submission lags, and acceptance probabilities in choosing appropriate outlets for their work and considers the problem of journals facing a large number of submissions, limited space, and limited resources to review papers.

Who publishes in “predatory” journals?

It is believed that economic and sociocultural conditions in these developing countries have contributed to the differences found in authorship between “predatory” and “nonpredatory" journals.
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