Membership of the editorial boards of journals published by the predatory publisher OMICS: willing and unwilling participation

Introduction. OMICS is the largest and most successful predatory publisher, with numerous subsidiaries. In 2019 it was convicted of unethical publishing practices. Method. A numerical tally of OMICS's editorial listings was compiled across 131 nations. Names and affiliations were recorded for seven nations. A sample was surveyed to estimate the proportions of those aware and unaware of their listing, and of OMICS’s conviction. Analysis. Excel enabled compilation, absolute and proportional tallies and random selection. Results. OMICS has twenty subsidiaries and 26,772 editor (and editorial board) listings, 11,361 from just seven nations. Proportional to population, Greeks were most frequently represented on OMICS's editorial boards, followed by Americans, Singaporeans and Italians. In absolute terms, Americans were the most numerous. The survey found that more than half of the respondents were either unaware of their listing or were unwilling to be listed, and 26% were unaware of OMICS’s conviction. Conclusion. OMICS's editorial boards do not function as they do for respectable publishers, hence the information published in OMICS journals is unreliable. Academic alliances with OMICS are potentially damaging to academic careers and institutional reputations. Universities should develop policies dealing with predatory publishers in general and OMICS in particular.

Predatory Journals: How Far Can They Go? An In-Depth Look at the Outliers = Grabežljivi časopisi: koliko daleko mogu ići? Temeljita analiza vrijednosti

For over a decade, predatory publishers, journals and conferences have continuously menaced the research community, preying on its resources, and diminishing the general trust in science, becoming an important research topic. Previous studies have focused on identifying their characteristics, in order to increase the academic awareness and help researchers not becoming a prey. At the same time, predatory publishers diversified their strategies; the academic community developed disparate reactions, which determined more and diverse predatory strategies, aimed at luring and deceiving the scientists. While the process is still ongoing, the present research is aimed at exposing the most extreme predation strategies, in an effort to make the line separating honest and predatory journals more traceable. The analysis of relevant samples focuses on the language issue, based on the hypothesis according to which the predatory publishers are located in countries where English is rarely spoken. The findings, including inventing English names, advertisements making no sense for the Western world, lack of quality control and a poor graphic language, confirm the hypothesis, and are also able to stand at the core of possible guidelines for exposing predatory publishers based on specific features of their calls. = Više od deset godina, grabežljivi izdavači, časopisi i konferencije kontinuirano su ugrožavali istraživačku zajednicu, loveći njene resurse i umanjujući opće povjerenje u nauku, postajući važna istraživačka tema. Prethodne studije bile su usredotočene na identificiranje njihovih karakteristika, kako bi se povećala akademska svijest i pomoglo istraživačima da ne postanu plijen. Istodobno, grabežljivi izdavači diverzificirali su svoje strategije; akademska zajednica razvila je različite reakcije, koje su odredile više i raznovrsnije predatorske strategije, usmjerene na mamljenje i obmanjivanje naučnika. Iako je postupak još uvijek u toku, ovo je istraživanje usmjereno na izlaganje najekstremnijih strategija grabežljivosti, nastojeći da linija koja razdvaja poštene i grabežljive časopise postane sljedivija. Analiza relevantnih studija slučaja usredotočena je na jezičko pitanje, zasnovano na hipotezi prema kojoj se izdavači nalaze u zemljama u kojima se engleski jezik rijetko govori. Nalazi, uključujući izmišljanje engleskih imena, reklame koje nemaju smisla za zapadni svijet, nedostatak kontrole kvaliteta i loš grafički jezik, potvrđuju hipotezu i takođe mogu stajati u srži mogućih smjernica za izlaganje predatorskih izdavača na osnovu specifičnih karakteristika njihovih poziva.

B!SON – a tool to make OA journal selection easier

Researchers’ task of finding a suitable open access journal for their work is becoming more and more complex: they have to comply with funder's conditions; their institutions hold various agreements with publishers; the number of journals is constantly growing (DOAJ 2018: 11.250 journals, 2021: >16.000 journals); so-called Predatory Publishers cause uncertainty. In order to reduce this complexity, TIB and SLUB Dresden, two major German research libraries, are developing B!SON, a web-based recommender for finding suitable Open Access journals. The tool calculates the similarity between a user's manuscript (title, abstract, references) and already published articles. Based on this similarity measure, B!SON will suggest Open Access journals in which similar articles have appeared. Researchers can use this information as guidance for their decision in which Open Access journal to publish. In addition, librarians can use B!SON for their publication support services and an API will allow the integration into existing library services. The results can be adapted to local conditions (e.g. price caps for institutional funding, Open Access agreements). The tool will use machine-learning techniques combined with a technical implementation of bibliometric algorithms proven in library practice. For this purpose, we will rely on the DOAJ article-level metadata corpus and the OpenCitations Index. We will analyze which article components give most reliable results in textual similarity analysis. Due to the ever-changing corpus of underlying data, the training process will be repeated regularly in the final tool. The information about journals (keywords, license, fees, etc.) will be provided by the DOAJ as well. We have built a community of researchers and librarians that we regularly consult in terms of specifications for the tool as well as – later in the project – acceptance and quality of its results. We plan to provide a beta version of B!SON in spring 2022. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. We present our schedule, facts and figures of the B!SON project and focus particularly on technical concepts of the project.

Prospective Observational Evaluation of Predatory Journals in Critical Care Pharmacy Practice: Defining Characteristics Associated With Receiving Unsolicited Invitations to Publish

Open-access publishing promotes accessibility to scholarly research at no cost to the reader. The emergence of predatory publishers, which exploit the author-pay model by charging substantial publication fees for publication in journals with questionable publishing processes, is on the rise. Authors are solicited through aggressive marketing tactics, though who is targeted is not well described. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics associated with critical care pharmacists that make them targets of unsolicited invitations to publish. A prospective, observational study of critical care pharmacists was performed. Participants archived emails received by their professional email that were unsolicited invitations to submit their original work for publication in a journal (unsolicited journals). Variables were evaluated to determine which were associated with unsolicited invitations; these were compared to legitimate journals, defined as all PubMed-indexed journals in which the participants were previously published. Twenty-three pharmacist participants were included, all of whom were residency and/or fellowship trained and practicing in an academic medical center. Participants had a median of 7 years of experience since their post-graduate training, 6 years since their last change in professional email address, and 2 years since their first PubMed-indexed publication. From these participants, 136 unsolicited and 59 legitimate journals were included. The average number of invitations increased 1.04 (95% CI, 1.02–1.05) times for every additional PubMed-indexed publication ( P < .001). Most unsolicited journals were considered predatory. Legitimate and unsolicited journals differed significantly. The number of previous PubMed-indexed publications strongly correlates with the likelihood of critical care pharmacists receiving unsolicited publication invitations, often from predatory journal.

Contamination by citations: references to predatory journals in the peer-reviewed marketing literature

PurposePredatory publishing is a growing and global issue infecting all scientific domains. Predatory publishers create counterfeit, not (properly) peer-reviewed journals to exploit the open access (OA) model in which the author pays. The plethora of predatory marketing journals along with the sophisticated deceptive practices of their publishers may create total confusion. One of the many highly likely risks of that bewilderment is when peer-reviewed, prestigious marketing journals cite these pseudo-marketing journals. This phenomenon is called citation contamination. This study aims to investigate the extent of citation contamination in the peer-reviewed marketing literature.Design/methodology/approachUsing Google Scholar as a citation gathering tool, this study investigates references to four predatory marketing journals in 68 peer-reviewed marketing journals listed in the 2018 version of the Academic Journal Guide by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABSs).FindingsResults indicate that 59 of the 68 CABS-ranked peer-reviewed marketing journals were, up to late January 2021, contaminated by at least one of the four sampled predatory journals. Together, these four pseudo-journals received (at least) 605 citations. Findings from nonparametric statistical procedures show that citation contamination occurred irrespective of the age of a journal or its 2019 Journal Impact Factor (JIF). They also point out that citation contamination happened independently from the fact that a journal is recognized by Clarivate Analytics or not.Research limitations/implicationsThis study investigated citations to only four predatory marketing journals in only 68 CABS-listed peer-reviewed marketing journals.Practical implicationsThese findings should sound an alarm to the entire marketing community (including academics and practitioners). To counteract citation contamination, recommendations are provided for researchers, practitioners, journal editors and academic and professional associations.Originality/valueThis study is the first to offer a systematic assessment of references to predatory journals in the peer-reviewed marketing literature.

On Research Integrity in Arboriculture and (Urban) Forestry: a qualitative systematic review

According to Nature, irresponsible research practices (IRP) in science seem to have become a major concern. And also Science has reported retractions of corona virus (COVID-19) papers due to research misconduct. Hence, scientific integrity is becoming widely scrutinised in many fields, but open and public debate on this subject has not started yet in the field of arboriculture and (urban) forestry. IRP can cause long-lasting damage, as they can generate flawed methodologies. This qualitative, systematic review addresses the question whether IRP and Fabrication, Falsification and Plagiarism (FFP) could have pervaded arboriculture and (urban) forestry. More than 600 publications were reviewed for potential inclusion. Relevant examples of IRP/FFP, were taken from literature that offered innovative concepts and new ideas, allegedly scientific and solid results or have made a great impact in the research field and beyond. More than one hundred publications were finally included to support the arguments. Many claims currently seem to have the quality of unsupported suggestions, against which contrary evidence can easily be found. Also IRP/FFP could widely be found regarding commercial tools and methods, predatory publishers and obscure editorial and citational practices, among others. Moreover, voices have been raised in favour of criminalising research misconduct and the observations made herein may thus be of interest to a wider public.

The Difficult Way to Publish a Research Paper

BACKGROUND: The authors aim to publish the results of their studies in peer-reviewed targeted international journals with a high impact-factor as possible, but they are also exposing to “predatory” publishers. AIM: The aim of the study was to offer some advices for authors to help to identify relevant medical journals, avoid “predatory” journals and publishers, use intermediary services, know a journal policy, and expectations of good journal editor(s). RECOMMENDATIONS: During the publication process authors should find suitable journals, assume a risk to encounter “predatory” or “hijacked” journals, know the advantages and disadvantages of using intermediary publishing services, understand expectations of editor(s), and make payment for article processing. CONCLUSIONS: The advices can help many researchers to publish their papers in relevant journals with cited indexes, and avoid many problems within the publication process.