E-text

Module-4, Unit -21

Software Tools to Identify Predatory Publications Developed By
SPPU
Dr Barnali Roy Choudhury
Assistant Professor, DLIS
Netaji Subhas Open University

“Openwashing, having an appearance of open-source and open-licensing

for marketing purposes, while continuing proprietary practices.”

………….. Audrey Watters (tweets)

The concept of open washing actually fits the model of a predatory journal. The
predatory journal is a malpractice of open access philosophy. These journals are below
the average quality and charge money at the time of submission as article processing
fees. Publishes research articles without going through the peer-review process. And
publish any kind of research paper.

The label ‘predatory journal’ was conceived by Jeffrey Beall (who systematically
analysed a growing number of exploitative academic journals charging author fees
without proper quality-check (via peer review) of the submitted and published papers).”
https://beallslist.net/

Predatory Journals

Predatory journals are useless journals meant to make money and contradict the open
access model of publishing. The main motto is to make monetary benefit, Publishers of
these journals are publishing the articles without any peer review. They also publish
articles in terms of publication fees as Article Processing Charges. Prior to peer review
if any of the publishers are asking for publication fees that is actually a sign of predatory
journals.

Predatory journals and publishers are endangering the academic integrity of published
research. Lots of literature says that the emerging rates of predatory journals in the
academic field which is also a scar for this field. One good article entitled “Predatory'
open access: A longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics” among
many published in BMC (Shen & Björk, 2015) in the year of 2015 tracked increasing rate
of predatory journals from 2010 to 2014. The paper shows its exponential growth with
a graph (shown below).

This paper also reflected that more than 30000 academic journals are publishing
scholarly communications of the researchers. And the number of predatory journals is
increasing rapidly. In this point, the academicians can take the appropriate checkpoints
to choose right journals to publish to avoid the market of predatory journals. The
findings of the research work estimated that in 2014, there were about 8,000 active
predatory journals. In 2010, these journals published about 53,000 articles. That was
up to 420,000 articles published in these predatory journals in 2014. These are probably
all or most of poor or garbage quality. Authors paid an average article processing charge
of US$178 per article, so it's a money-making scam. That same paper, they also share
that this affects all scientific disciplines. You can see in this graph here that no scientific
discipline was safe from this practice. There are several databases to find potentially
predatory journals. Anyone can found a currebt list of predatory journals from the
following links as follows:

https://beallslist.net/standalone-journals/ or http://blacklist.research.ac.ir

but these lists are not covering all the predatory journals. To learn how to identify
predatory journals, this site can help to judge journals:
https://tressacademic.com/identify-predatory-journals/ . whether this site or from any
other websites, some related checkpoints only ensure researcher whether that journal
belongs to predatory model or not?

What are the check points of a predatory journal

Website should look professional,
Provide the full contact information, including address, of the publisher,
A list of the editorial board members along with their affiliations.
If the website includes a clear description of the peer review process
and information about the fees. Additionally, may have some of the
previous issues of the journal to see if the quality of articles published is good.
Is the journal is recognised by the COPE, DOAJ, OASPA?

Predatory journals are becoming a big trouble for all the academicians. In India, higher
education institutions are led by the University Grants Commission (UGC and Medical
Council of India (MCI) have also initiated steps to curtail such unacademic practices.
Two key factors from national level have triggered the expansion of predatory/dubious
and sub-standard publications.

1.The UGC guidelines of 2010 introduced the academic performance indicator (API)
(‘publish or perish’ model) for evaluation of teachers

2. The UGC regulations, as modified in 2013, directed publication of at least two papers
prior to submission of a doctoral thesis. And As a consequence of these regulations,
publication in journals has become a required ‘compliance’ criterion in the university
system.

None the less, from international level, study found that most authors from developing
countries specially from India, Nigeria, some South African countries and Middle East
countries is publishing their research article in such bogus journals.

To address such issue of sub-standard publications, Savitri Bhai Phule Pune University
(SPPU) constituted a committee on March, 2015 which was again re-expanded on April,
2015 to look after the issue of the predatory journals. a study entitled “A critical
analysis of the ugc approved list of journals” done by the six researchers under
the leadership in association with the human resource development ministry under the
leadership of Bhushan Patwardhan, they analysed 1336 academic periodicals randomly
selected from our list of 5699 journals in the so-called university source component.
Researchers found 88.9% of the non-indexed journals from the ‘university source’
category of the UGC list did not satisfy the minimal requirements.

As a result UGC CARE was introduced in India, that maintains a list of qualitative
journals. “Quality Mandate” of the UGC, emphasizing the importance of promoting
high-quality research and the creation of new knowledge by faculty members, the
Commission in its 536th meeting held on November 14, 2018, dissolved the Standing
Committee for “UGC-approved list of Journals” and approved the constitution of the
Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (CARE) for the preparation of a new list
of credible quality journals for disciplines such as, Social Science, Humanities
Languages, Arts, Culture, and Indian Knowledge System.

Homepage of UGC-CARE
To maintain academic integrity and research quality a book has been published to
elaborate the objectives behind the initiatives taken by UGC.
Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (CARE)

To promote the quality research by the faculty members and creating credible
research.
To promote academic and research integrity as well as publication ethics.
To promote high quality publications in reputed journals that would help in
achieving higher global ranks and overall improvement of the quality of
research and education.
To develop an approach and methodology for the identification of good
quality journals.
To prevent publications in dubious/sub-standard journals, which reflect
adversely and tarnish the image of research work and thus lead to long-term
academic damage.
To create and maintain a “CARE Reference List of Quality Journals” for
various academic evaluations.
We can avoid predatory journals by using mentioned check points and a
system can be changed as per the recommendations given by the research
study as follows:
“Research is for pleasure of discovery, search for

new knowledge and a service to humanity. It

should not be reduced to a compulsory

mechanical process to be undertaken primarily

for the sake of getting a degree, social prestige,

employment or other individual benefits. The

increasing culture of publish or perish, and undue

emphasis on quantity over quality are major

concerns. Implementation of international

recommendations such as the San Francisco

Declaration on Research Assessment and the

Leiden Manifesto14 may be useful to improve the

present API approach and academic assessment

system.”

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