As much fun as it sounds, my weekly routine task includes deleting and marking predatory or bogus journal/ conference invitations as spams. These invitations started pouring in once I began publishing and presenting papers, and I believe exactly the same problem is experienced by many academics, ECRs, ECAs, and students. For me, the best defence is to be vigilant of these invitations. Some tell-tale signs of predatory/bad journals include:
- Spelling, grammatical, statistical, or methodological mistakes are littered on their website or in the papers they published. Poor use of language and serious flaw in contents indicate a low professional standard.
- Asking a submission fee (sometime an obscene amount) before the article is reviewed or accepted.
- Look at the timeline of the papers published in the journals. Typically, the duration of the peer review process takes on average 17 weeks, and may differ according to the journal. If a paper in a journal is received on September 2019 and published in October/ November 2019, this raises a red flag that the paper might not be subjected to a rigorous peer review, or the journal operates with a false-front or non-existent peer review process.
- Publishing papers already published in other venues.
- Publishing papers that contain plagiarism (of any form).
- The journal’s contact information looks dodgy, e.g., unrecognisable address or contact details; address state that their offices are in one country whereas the contact details are in another.
- The Editorial Board lacks legitimacy (e.g., appointed without knowledge, wrong skillset). If the names of the Editorial Board look fishy, then mostly likely the journal is a predatory.
- In the case of conference, be cautious if you found that there are too many being organised in a year by the same organiser. Please stick to those organised and supported by the corresponding scientific associations, universities, reputable NGOs, and professional associations in the national/international level only.
- ISI: http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/
- Elsevier: http://journalfinder.elsevier.com/
- Scopus: https://journalmetrics.scopus.com/
- ScimagoJR: http://www.scimagojr.com/
- Plos: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/
- Open access journals: oatd.org and https://doaj.org/
- Choosing a trusted journal to publish: Think. Check. Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
- Choosing a legitimate conference: Think. Check. Attend https://thinkcheckattend.org
-
Checking if the journals in which we wish to publish our research comply with funder's requirements: SHERPA/FACT http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/fact/index.php