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.  Nature

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), predatory publishing is generally defined as “for-profit open access journal publication of scholarly articles without the benefit of peer review by experts in the field or the usual editorial oversight of the journals in question.”

Online digital publishing has allowed new publishers that use questionable practices to thrive. These so-called predatory publishers solicit articles from faculty through avenues like spam email. Like many scams, their goal is fiscal in nature and is an attempt to exploit faculty seeking to publish in legitimate publications.  Immediate red flags to note include: a promise of swift publication, an exorbitant article processing fee (APC) and signing an agreement with terms that include an attempt to seize copyright.

Additional Characteristics of Predatory Journals include:

• Online presence showing webpages for bogus journals. Often articles are plagiarized, fake, or employ unsound reasoning or discredited theories not approved in mainstream journals.
• Falsified impact factors

• Editors, governing boards, or contact information is not provided (or in some cases falsified!)

• Do not follow accepted scholarly publishing best practices such as offering an expedited or waived peer-review process
• Special theme issues to recruit more colleagues
• False claims about services offered (e.g., peer review, editorial services, preservation)
• Offer the chance to publish research that has already been published in legitimate publications
• Unethical business practices, such as spamming researchers to submit papers
• Publish everything that is submitted
• Pay little to no attention to serious ethical violations, such as fabrication of data and plagiarism

This guide was produced for CARL by Christie Hurrell, Jessica Lange, Dominique Lapierre, Elizabeth Yates and Lise Brin.

The guide below can also be accessed as a downloadable PDF.