Predatory journals

The term "Predatory Journals" was first introduced by Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado.

Basic characteristics of predatory journals and their publishers

  • They use titles similar to prestigious journals;
  • They offer a short process for publishing an article;
  • The peer review process does not follow the usual rules and is suspiciously short, often within a few days or not at all;
  • They entice authors to publish in journals via email;
  • Their goal is to profit from publishing fees.

They often provide false information on their websites about:

  • review procedure, when we verify its process we find that it does not occur;
  • impact Factor (IF) value, where the IF value is either incorrectly stated (deliberately overstated), is invalid or the journal does not have an Impact Factor (according to the Journal Citation Reports database);
  • indexing of the journal in selected databases.

Some other features of predatory journals:

  • They do not provide information on the review process;
  • They list misleading metrics (Global Impact factor, General Impact factor, CiteScore, etc.) that have nothing to do with the true Impact Factor metric;
  • They don't have an archive of articles on the site, articles or full texts are unavailable, links to DOIs of articles don't work;
  • The editor-in-chief of the journal is not listed, some members of the editorial board cannot be traced, the data are not updated or the affiliations of these persons are missing;
  • They do not provide information about anti-plagiarism software;
  • Identity-stealing journals can easily be confused with genuine journals because the predator uses the same name and ISSN of the journal but uses a different website (example: Sylwan, Wulfenia, etc.).

Information about predatory journals

Initiative STOP PREDATORY PRACTICE provides educational materials on predators for Mgr. and PhD students.

Journal screening

Please send requests for journal screening service to: predatorske-casopisy[at]mendelu.cz
In addition to the title of the journal, please include the publisher and website in your request.

You can use the list of Cabell´s Predatory Reports - which MENDELU has prepaid and is available to students and employees of MENDELU from the IP address of MENDELU or based on the e-mail address @mendelu.cz. Cabell's does not replace a full journal screening. There is a risk that the journal is not listed in Cabell's and still is predatory. In case of confusion or uncertainty as to whether the journal is correct, please contact us.

Think, check, submit helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research.

How to select an unknown journal for publication

  1. Check carefully the details of the publisher and the journal itself. Find out about the peer review process, the journal's editor-in-chief, including affiliations and contact information. Find out about the Article Processing Charge (APC).
  2. Check the journal's Impact Factor in the database Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
  3. If it is an Open Access journal, check if the journal is listed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals). If a journal is listed in DOAJ, it has been evaluated and meets the requirements of the database. However, not all open journals are indexed here.
  4. Check the archive of the journal for articles that have already appeared in the journal,
  5. Ask the Library/Open Science Centre:

Predatory conferences

Predatory conferences and publication in conference collections of these suspicious conferences are also emerging. It may happen that collections from unknown conferences are not indexed in the Web of Science or Scopus databases, although the indexing is announced in the conference information. Sometimes it happens that collections are not peer-reviewed.

Learn how to identify predatory conferences..

Think Check Attend - webpage how to choose right conference to attend.

Beware the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET) conferences!

 

Information about MDPI publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Switzerland

Resume of MENDELU Library screening of the MDPI publisher

Publication in economic journals and special issues should be proceeded with caution.
Journals that have been published for a longer period of time are indexed in the Scopus or Web of Science (WoS) databases and have therefore been evaluated by the database providers, Elsevier - Scopus, Clarivate Analytics - Web of Science. Articles in these journals have citations, and if they have not been removed from the databases, there is no reason why it would be a problem to publish with MDPI. Before publishing, it is important to check whether the journal is indexed in the WoS database or the Scopus database and the journal´s metrics, so that the result can be evaluated within the M17+ methodology. The university is aware of the negative attitudes towards the MDPI publisher, and therefore articles from MDPI publisher have not been supported from the Open Access Fund since 2023.

Useful links

Campbell, Brian. 2023. P9 Signs a conference is fake. In: Ex Ordo [online]. [cit. 2024-05-030]. Available from: https://www.exordo.com/blog/9-signs-this-is-a-fake-conference/

Mackenzie, Ruairi J. 2019. Inside a “Fake” Conference: A Journey Into Predatory Science In: technologynetworks.com [online]. [cit. 2024-05-30]. Available from: https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/articles/inside-a-fake-conference-a-journey-into-predatory-science-321619

ŠÍMOVÁ, Tereza; PAULOVÁ, Kristýna; ZYCHOVÁ, Kristýna. 2022. The Stop Predatory Practices teaching module. In: https://www.stoppredatorypractice.com/ [online]. [cit. 2023-01-02]. Available from:https://www.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GK7RH

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