Predatory Journals
Also known as pseudo journals, dark journals, illegitimate journals, poor quality journals, deceptive journals or journals that operate in bad faith.
The term “predatory journals” refers to publishers that prey on authors for financial profit/gain via article processing charges without meeting scholarly publishing standards.
Started due to rapid growth and non-transparency of journal pricing along with a desire for equity among researchers.
Main components of OA publishing: free access to published content, copyright that makes research free to build on via creative commons licenses.
OA publishing usually involves authors paying a fee to make their content openly available to anyone with internet access. The main drawback is that OA publishing can be costly.
DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals, check to see if the journal is a member (identifies legitimate open access journals)
Cope (Committee on Publication Ethics) is committed to educating and supporting editors, publishers and those involved in publication ethics with the aim of moving the culture of publishing towards one where ethical practices become a normal part of the publishing culture. Our approach is firmly in the direction of influencing through education, resources and support of our members, alongside the fostering of professional debate in the wider community.
Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research.
• Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
• Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
• Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?
• Do you recognize the editorial board?
• Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative (COPE; COAJ; OASPA)?
Scopus (JSL Website -> Quicklinks -> Databases -> S -> Scopus)
Largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature.
• 75+ million records
• 68 million post-1970 records, including references.
• 6.5+ million pre-1970 records going back as far as 1788
• 8.5+ million Open Access articles • 9+ million Conference papers 24,600+ active titles
• 23,500+ peer-reviewed journals, of which more than 4,000 are Gold Open Access
• 740+ book series
• 300+ trade publications
• Articles-in-press (i.e., articles that have been accepted for publication) from over 8,000 titles from international publishers, including Cambridge University Press, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 194,000+ books • Including monographs, edited volumes, major reference works and graduate level textbooks.
Scopus Criteria for Inclusion
Titles must meet the following eligibility criteria:
• Peer-reviewed content
• Published on a regular basis & have an ISSN
• Relevant and readable for international audience
• Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement
Scopus Journal Metrics:
• CiteScore - comprehensive, current, free metric for journal citation impact. Calculated by citation in a year to documents published in previous 3 years / # of documents in previous 3 year
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) - citations weighted depending on the source Average # of weighted citations received in a year / # of documents in previous 3 years
• Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) - citation will have a higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa Journal’s citation count per paper / Citation potential in its subject field
Scopus is an excellent place to:
• Analyze search results by source, recency, author and many other filters
• Discover where authors publish and the journals they cite
• Compare journals on 7 different metrics
• Link to journal information for the aims and scope of the journal