Avoiding deceptive and vanity journals/conferences
Stephanie Jacobs; Catherine Radbourne; and Ginny Barbour
Researchers need to make careful decisions on where to publish their research. As the number of journals have increased, so too has the difficulty of selecting the right journal. However, there are some common-sense tips that can help researchers to avoid making a bad decision. Advice on selecting specific journals, including scope and audience, is provided in the Which journal or book publisher to publish with chapter.
Getting Started
What are Deceptive or vanity journals?
Unsolicited emails offering to publish a journal article, book chapter or thesis are a very frequent part of every published academics’ inbox. Academics need to be aware that most of these emails are not from reputable publishers and need to be able to decide which are from vanity, low quality or deceptive/predatory publishers (though deciding this can be hard, as this study showed). All of these practices are problematic, though to varying degrees.
A vanity publisher refers to a publisher (usually for books) who intends to make money from providing an author with publishing services, often low quality, without any intention of proper dissemination. Unlike self-publishing (which may also be problematic) , the author often does not retain the rights to their work or receive the bulk of their proceeds.
A deceptive or predatory publisher is one that publishes journals which charge publication fees but do not provide valid peer-review or copyediting services. This means academic standards are not met when publishing, as evidenced by several accepted parody articles. More seriously, it has been shown that deceptive publishing is a global problem.
Conferences are another important way to disseminate a researcher’s work and it is also common for researchers to receive invitations to present at conferences (either in the real or online world) via email. Researchers should choose conferences that fit well with their specific area of research and where the audience is relevant to them. However, as with journals, it is important for researchers to ensure any conference they are planning to present at or attend is reputable, whether physical or virtual.
Learn More
How to avoid low quality OR DECEPTIVE journals and conferences
Think Check Submit has developed several checklists for researchers to use when checking journals and conferences. These checklists have been adapted below.
The key questions for researchers when considering a journal are:
- Do they or their colleagues know the journal/publisher?
- Can they easily identify and contact the editor and publisher?
- Is the journal/publisher clear about the type of peer review it uses?
- Are articles in the journal indexed in services that they use?
- Is it clear what fees will be charged?
- Do they recognise the editorial board?
- Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative?
The key questions for researchers when considering a conference are:
- Are you or your colleagues aware of the society or the association organizing the conference?
- Can you easily identify the venue of the conference?
- Is it clear what fees will be charged (conference fee, registration fees, etc.) and would these be waived if you are accepted as a speaker?
- Have you read any papers from this conference proceedings before?
- Is the Editorial Committee listed on the website? Have you heard of the Editorial Committee members before?
- Would you attend this conference if you were not presenting at it?
Challenge me
Using the Predatory publishing discussion document from the Committee on Publication Ethics, test your knowledge with the following crossword.
Attribution
- Think. Check. Submit. checklists, distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
- About predatory publishing, Think, Check, Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/journals/about-predatory-publishing/
- What is vanity publishing? Writers Victoria. https://writersvictoria.org.au/what-vanity-publishing
- Committee on Publication Ethics (2019), Predatory publishing discussion document, https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.6 (used for the crossword)
All information correct at the time of publication 28 May 2021.
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