Predatory journals are journals that use aggressive advertising to encourage researchers to publish articles in return for payment of a publication fee, but offer no or completely inadequate quality assurance measures. Predatory publishers go to great lengths to make their journals appear reputable. On professional-looking websites, well-known scientists are listed as editors without their knowledge. Titles of established journals are used or only slightly altered to simulate quality. The submitted articles are published very quickly, but without peer review or editing appropriate to the discipline.
Publications in these dubious journals can cause considerable damage to the reputation of scientists.
How can you protect yourself against “predatory publishing”?
The following criteria can be checked for an first assessment of whether a journal is serious:
The website of the initiative “Think. Check. Submit”, which is supported by publishing and library associations, provides researchers a checklist that can be used to verify the trustworthiness and reliability of a scientific journal. Similarly, “Think. Check. Attend” lists questions to check the reliability of a conference.
The “Compass to Publish” of the University of Liège is also helpful: various quality criteria for evaluating a journal are queried via a web form. The result is a brief summary and assessment of the journal.
