Project description:OBJECTIVES:To develop effective interventions to prevent publishing in presumed predatory journals (ie, journals that display deceptive characteristics, markers or data that cannot be verified), it is helpful to understand the motivations and experiences of those who have published in these journals. DESIGN:An online survey delivered to two sets of corresponding authors containing demographic information, and questions about researchers' perceptions of publishing in the presumed predatory journal, type of article processing fees paid and the quality of peer review received. The survey also asked six open-ended items about researchers' motivations and experiences. PARTICIPANTS:Using Beall's lists, we identified two groups of individuals who had published empirical articles in biomedical journals that were presumed to be predatory. RESULTS:Eighty-two authors partially responded (~14%?response rate (11.4%[44/386] from the initial sample, 19.3%[38/197] from second sample) to our survey. The top three countries represented were India (n=21, 25.9%), USA (n=17, 21.0%) and Ethiopia (n=5, 6.2%). Three participants (3.9%) thought the journal they published in was predatory at the time of article submission. The majority of participants first encountered the journal via an email invitation to submit an article (n=32, 41.0%), or through an online search to find a journal with relevant scope (n=22, 28.2%). Most participants indicated their study received peer review (n=65, 83.3%) and that this was helpful and substantive (n=51, 79.7%). More than a third (n=32, 45.1%) indicated they did not pay fees to publish. CONCLUSIONS:This work provides some evidence to inform policy to prevent future research from being published in predatory journals. Our research suggests that common views about predatory journals (eg, no peer review) may not always be true, and that a grey zone between legitimate and presumed predatory journals exists. These results are based on self-reports and may be biased thus limiting their interpretation.

Project description:We aimed to develop an in-depth understanding of quality criteria for scholarly journals by analyzing journals and publishers indexed in blacklists of predatory journals and whitelists of legitimate journals and the lists' inclusion criteria. To quantify content overlaps between blacklists and whitelists, we employed the Jaro-Winkler string metric. To identify topics addressed by the lists' inclusion criteria and to derive their concepts, we conducted qualitative coding. We included two blacklists (Beall's and Cabells Scholarly Analytics') and two whitelists (the Directory of Open Access Journals' and Cabells Scholarly Analytics'). The number of journals per list ranged from 1,404 to 12,357, and the number of publishers ranged from 473 to 5,638. Seventy-two journals and 42 publishers were included in both a blacklist and a whitelist. Seven themes were identified in the inclusion criteria: (i) peer review; (ii) editorial services; (iii) policy; (iv) business practices; (v) publishing, archiving, and access; (vi) website; and (vii) indexing and metrics. Business practices accounted for almost half of the blacklists' criteria, whereas whitelists gave more emphasis to criteria related to policy. Criteria could be allocated to four concepts: (i) transparency, (ii) ethics, (iii) professional standards, and (iv) peer review and other services. Whitelists gave most weight to transparency. Blacklists focused on ethics and professional standards. Whitelist criteria were easier to verify than those used in blacklists. Both types gave little emphasis to quality of peer review. Overall, the results show that there is overlap of journals and publishers between blacklists and whitelists. Lists differ in their criteria for quality and the weight given to different dimensions of quality. Aspects that are central but difficult to verify receive little attention.IMPORTANCE Predatory journals are spurious scientific outlets that charge fees for editorial and publishing services that they do not provide. Their lack of quality assurance of published articles increases the risk that unreliable research is published and thus jeopardizes the integrity and credibility of research as a whole. There is increasing awareness of the risks associated with predatory publishing, but efforts to address this situation are hampered by the lack of a clear definition of predatory outlets. Blacklists of predatory journals and whitelists of legitimate journals have been developed but not comprehensively examined. By systematically analyzing these lists, this study provides insights into their utility and delineates the different notions of quality and legitimacy in scholarly publishing used. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relevant concepts and provides a starting point for the development of a robust definition of predatory journals.

Project description:BackgroundManuscript preparation and the (re)submission of articles can create a significant workload in academic jobs. In this exploratory analysis, we estimate the time and costs needed to meet the diverse formatting requirements for manuscript submissions in biomedical publishing.MethodsWe reviewed 302 leading biomedical journals' submission guidelines and extracted information on the components that tend to vary the most among submission guidelines (the length of the title, the running title, the abstract, and the manuscript; the structure of the abstract and the manuscript, number of items and references allowed, whether the journal has a template). We estimated annual research funding lost due to manuscript formatting by calculating hourly academic salaries, the time lost to reformatting articles, and quantifying the total number of resubmissions per year. We interviewed several researchers and senior journal editors and editors-in-chief to contextualize our findings and develop guidelines that could help both biomedical journals and researchers work more efficiently.ResultsAmong the analyzed journals, we found a huge diversity in submission requirements. By calculating average researcher salaries in the European Union and the USA, and the time spent on reformatting articles, we estimated that ~ 230 million USD were lost in 2021 alone due to reformatting articles. Should the current practice remain unchanged within this decade, we estimate ~ 2.5 billion USD could be lost between 2022 and 2030-solely due to reformatting articles after a first editorial desk rejection. In our interviews, we found alignment between researchers and editors; researchers would like the submission process alignment between researchers and editors; researchers would like the submission process to be as straightforward and simple as possible, and editors want to easily identify strong, suitable articles and not waste researchers' time.ConclusionsBased on the findings from our quantitative analysis and contextualized by the qualitative interviews, we conclude that free-format submission guidelines would benefit both researchers and editors. However, a minimum set of requirements is necessary to avoid manuscript submissions that lack structure. We developed our guidelines to improve the status quo, and we urge the publishers and the editorial-advisory boards of biomedical journals to adopt them. This may also require support from publishers and major international organizations that govern the work of editors.

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Money down the drain: predatory publishing in the COVID-19 era.

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