To publish or not to publish, that is the question
How are predatory journals being overcome in the scholarly publishing world?
In 2018, Gary Lewis (a senior lecturer in psychology) managed to publish an entirely hoaxed article which was a stream of fabricated research about how politicians complete their daily “business”. Shockingly, despite having no legitimate findings, Lewis’ research was published, without a fee, and no second thought.
This issue of ‘fake’ research is all too familiar. Bagues (2019), discovered that ‘around 5% of Italian researchers have published in journals classified […] as ‘predatory’.’ Consequently, Lewis (2018) states that ‘predatory journals are contaminating the scientific literature’, leaving research that has not been validated to flood into the world of factual. Therefore, what is the scholarly platform doing to tackle these harmful predatory journals?
Think. Check. Submit
In 2016, representatives from a series of scholarly publishers created a campaign to help emerging researchers tackle deceiving predatory journals that ‘impersonate existing periodicals.’ (Grzybowski, 2017). They created the succinct mantra of ‘Think. Check. Submit’. This campaign ‘aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications.’ It encourages individual’s to accurately check and search for publications in their own accord and do so regularly.
Darbyshire (2017) explains ‘that novice researchers, unwary higher degree students and over-eager new academics may be easily duped by the predators and their slick operations and are thus less blame-worthy.’ Therefore, the campaign proves useful in helping newcomers in the industry correctly publish their articles and simultaneously provide easy to follow information at the click of a button.
You know best
However, with campaigns and red-flags appearing around certain publications it is still only truly down to the individual themselves before clicking ‘submit’. Grudniewicz (2019) reiterates that, ‘many researchers have been duped into submitting to predatory journals, in which their work can be overlooked’, therefore, lack of understanding and awareness can be a possible downfall.
Similarly, with the prized ideal of money being an outcome, ‘authors are motivated to pay to have their work published for the sake of career progression or research evaluation’ (Machasek, 2021), rather than considering their own integrity. If this is the case, then maybe campaigns and help sites can only do so much? Perhaps the ultimate issue with predatory journals is researchers themselves?
However, in a world of digitalisation, identity is never wholly definite behind a screen, ‘sometimes you don’t need a PhD (or even any expertise at all) to get yourself a first-author “publication”’ (Lewis, 2018). Truth cannot be an ultimatum in a world full of secrecy. Thus, rather than becoming shocked by the notion of ‘fakery’, we should rather expect it and learn to identify it.
Bibliography —
Bagues (2019) ‘A walk on the wild side: ‘Predatory’ journals and information asymmetries in scientific evalutations’ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733318300945?via%3Dihub [Online] Accessed Feb 15 2021
Darbyshire (2017) ‘Fake news. Fake journals. Fake conferences. What we can do’ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jocn.14214 [Online] Accessed Feb 15 2021
Grudniewicz (2019) ‘Predatory journals: no definition, no defence’ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03759-y [Online] Accessed Feb 15 2021
Grzybowski, 2017 ‘Predatory journals and dishonesty in science’ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X17301190 [Online] Accessed Feb 15 2021
Lewis (2018) ‘I got a hoax academic paper about how UK politicians wipe their bums published’ https://theconversation.com/i-got-a-hoax-academic-paper-about-how-uk-politicians-wipe-their-bums-published-99417 [Online]Accessed Feb 15 2021
Machasek (2021) ‘Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences’ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-020-03852-4 [Online] Accessed Feb 15 2021
Think. Check. Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/about-2/ [Online] Accessed Feb 15 2021
