Navigating the Publishing Environment Guide

Evaluating Journals: Avoiding Predatory Journals:

When searching for relevant journals to submit your article to, you have to be aware of unethical or predatory journals.

Predatory journals practice deceptive publishing practices without providing standard editorial and publishing services that are practiced by legitimate scholarly journals. They usually charge exorbitant fees to authors without providing quality (if any) peer-review.

Because they identify themselves as open access journals, it can be difficult for new and inexperienced authors to identify them; however, many predatory journals share similar characteristics.

Predatory vs. Legitimate Journals: Can You Tell the Difference?

Below is a brief video that provides some helpful tips for identifying a predatory journal.  (For best results watch on YouTube)

Source:Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Shamseer, L., Moher, D., Maduekwe, O., Turner, L., Barbour, V., Burch, R., Clark, J., Galipeau, J., Roberts, J., & Shea, B. J. (2017). Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC Medicine, 15, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0785-9

Badke, W. (2023). Predators in Our Midst. Computers in Libraries, 43(8), 43–44.

Here are comparisons of Real and Predatory Journals:

Real Journal: The Journal of Infectious Diseases – Published by Oxford

Predatory Journal: Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medicine – Published by OMICS, redirects to Hilaris website which appears to be a shell/subsidiary of OMICS and also identified as a questionable publisher

• The FTC won an injunction against the CEO of OMICS for deceptive business practices, which included misleading researchers about peer review, transparency, fake impact factors, etc.
• Has 7 violations in Cabell’s – including journal is associated with conference that has been identified as predatory.

Real Journal: Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery – Published by the American Orthopaedic Association since 1889.

Predatory Journal: Annals of Bone and Joint Surgery – Remedy Publications

• Has 9 violations in Cabell’s – including journal’s website lists editorial board members without their knowledge or permission and options for researchers to “prepay” APCs for future articles.
• Publisher’s Limited Corporation Number is linked to a gmail account
• Publisher’s U.S address 820 El Camino Real, Belmont, CA 94002 is a single family home (Zillow, Trulia) with pictures. https://bit.ly/3ZIQLHA

Real Journal: BMC Cell Biology – Published by BioMed Central

Predatory Journal: Cell Biology – Science Publishing Group (Science PG)

• Known to prey on newer researchers by harvesting data from local and regional conferences to email to invite to convert their presentation for publication in their journal
• 7 violations on Cabell’s - including poor grammar/spelling on the journal, and rapid publication with quick peer review

Used with permission from:

Michelle Kraft, MLS, AHIP, FMLA

Director, Cleveland Clinic Libraries

Predatory Conferences:  

As an author, you might also want to submit your work to a conference. Just as in publishing, you need to be aware of predatory conferences. Predatory conferences follow the same practices as predatory publishers and can usually be identified using the same criteria:

• Send out flattering emails to unqualified participants to be guest speakers
• Require large sums for registration (with no discount for being a speaker)
• Provide no peer-review or rigorous screening of the quality of submissions

Go to Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library guide for more tips on how to identify predatory conferences.

Impact Factor:

The impact factor is a metric that calculates the average that an article within a journal is cited within a specific time frame out of all citable articles published during that time.

There are multiple types of impact factors:

• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)
• Google Scholar
• Eigenfactor Journal Ranking
• Journal Citation Reports

There is some controversy about the usefulness of impact factor.  Read the article about the uses and misuses of impact factor:

Greenwood, D. C. (2007). Reliability of journal impact factor rankings. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 7, 48. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-7-48