Questionable journals

In recent years authors of scholarly publications face the risk of publishing their work with a bogus publisher or in an untrustworthy journal. In practice, the term “predatory” is widely used to denote these publishers. However, with regard to the fact that such publishers do not comply with the principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing, the use of terms such as untrustworthy, bogus, and suspicious is increasing. For that reason we use the terms untrustworthy journal and bogus publisher in this study material.

The main aim of bogus publishers and untrustworthy journals is easy financial gain. Therefore, they eschew the usual peer-review process before publishing a text, they create fictitious editorial boards, imitate the names of well-established, credible journals, etc. As a result of this behaviour, the academic community is deluged with a large amount of unverified and even distorted or false information. Now more than ever, there is an urgent need for institutions and researchers to be informed about the vital necessity of evaluating a publisher and journal before submitting their article. For example, already today the Committee for Evaluation of Research Organisations and Completed Programmes has information that in the past, even texts published by bogus publishers have been evaluated. For example, in March 2016, the Student Chamber of the Council of Higher Education Institutions informed the Council about such a case at a meeting with the members of the Council.

With regard to the above-mentioned facts, informing academics about how to detect untrustworthy journals is the most effective protection against publishing in such journals. Only then will awareness spread through academia about the risks of publishing in untrustworthy journals that were created merely for the purpose of financial gain.

The aim of this study material is to summarize the basic facts about where untrustworthy journals come from and possible ways for detecting them.