Vetting Open Access Journals
There are several ways that you can check the quality of an open access journal for publishing your research:
- The journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. DOAJ is a reputable list of peer reviewed open access journals.
- The publisher is a member of a reputable industry organization such as the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
- The journal adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, jointly issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the DOAJ, the OASPA, and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
- The journal is widely indexed and discoverable in databases like PubMed Central, MEDLINE, and Scopus.
- The journal's website for such information as:
- An ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)
- A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for each article
- The journal's scope, affiliation with a university or professional organization, and editorial board credentials.
- Publishing fees and copyright policies, which should be clearly indicated. (For more information about your rights as an author, see the Copyright and Authors Rights page.)
- The National Institutes of Health provide guidance on how to detect predatory and poor quality journals. These include:
- misleading pricing (e.g., lack of transparency about article processing charges);
- failure to disclose information to authors;
- aggressive tactics to solicit article submissions;
- inaccurate statements about editorial board membership; and
- misleading or suspicious peer-review processes.
Research on Predatory Publishers and Conferences
- Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Publishers (2022)"Led by an independent working group of international experts nominated by academies around the world, this IAP study set out to improve the understanding of what constitutes predatory practices, gauge their prevalence and impact, identify their root causes, and review efforts to address them. A key part of the study has been a voluntary survey of the global research community to gauge the awareness, extent and impact of predatory journals and conferences across different geographies, disciplines and career stages."
- Predatory publishing from a global south perspective (2018)Writing as a Fellow of the LPC from the global south, I feel a sense of obligation to follow the call that African academics and intellectuals (not that I am either), on the continent and in the diaspora, play a role in countering the prejudice and misinformation about Africa. Be that as it may, I think there are significant lessons for both the global south and north by interrogating the concept of predatory publishing.
- How predatory journals leak into PubMed (2018)Recent reports that PubMed, one of the world’s leading biomedical databases, includes predatory journals and their publications is cause for concern. [...] We analyze why this is happening and identify some possible solutions to stop the penetration of predatory journals and publishers into biomedical databases.
- Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison (2017)We identified 13 evidence-based characteristics by which predatory journals may potentially be distinguished from presumed legitimate journals. These may be useful for authors who are assessing journals for possible submission or for others, such as universities evaluating candidates’ publications as part of the hiring process.
