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How to Publish and Disseminate Research: Predatory Publishing

A guide to publishing and disseminating your research.

What is Predatory Publishing?

Predatory publishing is a deceptive publishing tactic used to exploit academic researchers into paying fees for publication of their work without delivering sufficient editorial checks and controls, including a lack of appropriate peer-review.

Predatory publishing practices may look like:

  • Direct invitations to publish in a journal you may not be familiar with, multiple journals at once or journals outside of your discipline;
  • A publisher producing hundreds of journals with many of them 'brand new';
  • A journal publishing hundreds of articles per issue;
  • Promises of very short turnaround times between submission, acceptance and publication;
  • Very high acceptance rates or requests for articles due to the journal facing a shortage of articles for an upcoming issue;
  • Direct invitations to submit a paper to a conference you are not familiar with, or multiple conferences at once;
  • Invitations to co-author publications of existing articles.

Predatory publishing scams can be very sophisticated. HDR students are always encouraged to work with their supervisors and seek advice from Librarians to identify reliable publishers and journals.

Identifying predatory publishers

There are a number of tools which can be employed to identify potential predatory publishers.

Think. Check. Submit. 

This resource is supported by a coalition of scholarly communications organisations which provides tools and information for use by researchers and students to assist with the process of evaluating the quality and reliability of journals and publishers.

A brief summary of the Think. Check. Submit. process is provided in this video:

 

Cabell's Scholarly Analytics

Available via OneSearch, this resource includes a Predatory Reports database which provides a list of publishers and journals identified as engaging in various behavioural criteria which are indicative of deceptive, fraudulent and predatory practices. Publishers and journals listed in their database will be tagged with the violations identified by Cabells.

Behavioural criteria are identified as either Severe, Moderate and Minor based on the perceived severity of the practice. Papers published in journals listed in Cabells Predatory Reports with a Severe category are not eligible to be included in the UWA Profiles and Research Repository; affected authors will be contacted by the Library.

Criteria in Cabell's Predatory Reports are grouped based on the following categories: integrity, peer-review, publication practices, indexing and metrics, fees. A full list of criteria is available on their website which also provides a good overview of key elements to consider when evaluating a potentially predatory publisher.

 

Other Useful Tips

Suggested actions to follow up should you suspect a journal or publisher may be undertaking deceptive practices:

  • Are articles from the journal indexed in key databases relevant to your field, or in citation databases such as Scopus or Web of Science?
  • Who is on the editorial board? Are you familiar with them, or can you contact them to confirm their involvement with the journal/publisher?
  • Are articles published in the journal of a scholarly standard? Are they written in the scholarly style typical of the relevant field?
  • Does the publisher have a clear peer-review process and provide details about their peer-review panel?
  • Are the publisher's rejection rates comparable to other publisher's rates?
  • Do web searches involving the publisher name and keywords, like complaint, scam, predatory or fraud, retrieve results?
  • Is the journal listed in Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory or other directories such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (for open access publications)?
  • Were you approached directly via email and did the email read professionally and clearly with correct grammar and punctuation and specific reference to your research?
  • What does a Librarian think? If you are unsure about the status of a journal or publisher speak with our Librarians who can provide more guidance and advice. 

Example Emails received from predatory publishers

Dear Professor

We would like to ask you if you want to organize a Special Session in the following Conferences or a Special Issue in our Journals (indexed in ISI Web of Science, see the web sites)

We will offer some financial support - honorarium

The Organizer of the Special Issue or the Organizer of the Special Session will receive Honorarium, will be included in the Scientific committee as Associate Editor

We offer also discount in the accommodation in the Hotel where the conference will be held and a Certificate to the Special Sessions (or Special Issue) organizer

Contact me sending me a Short CV or your Web Page in your University or in Google Scholar

You are invited to participate in one of the following important conferences. The Proceedings will be published by [publisher] for all the conferences the authors can publish their papers in ISI, Scopus and EI Compendex Journals.

Dear Colleague,

You are invited to publish one paper free of charge in our new Journals of the list:

provided that you will upload your paper via this link (only) until March 31, 2023 .

So, upload your paper via this link until March 31, 2023 Note that we cannot give free-of-charge publication in other Journals or Conferences.

[Followed by a long list of conferences]

Co-authorship in Scopus, WoS research papers

Publication Support Services for Scientific, Academic Manuscripts and Papers

Co-authorship provides an possibility to become a co-author of an existing article that has been submitted for publishing in Web of Science (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI), Scopus indexing journal.

By conducting the whole process, we strive to save your effort and time using our decades of collaborating experience with leading peer reviewed journals. Constant attention to authors' needs helps us to perform all submitting support procedures at top level. 

You may find ready-made articles of large themes variety on our site: Building and Construction, Architecture, Computer and Information Sciences, Transport and Engineering Sciences, Biology, Agriculture, Medicine, Economics, Education, Sociology, Political science, Mathematics, and so on. Topics and new articles are updated every month.

Please make acquaintance with the order of services, fees, and conditions.

Entrust your publication activity and scientific reputation to the care of experts. 

Our team has been publishing articles in scientific journals since 2012. We have published over 12,650 articles. We are the market leader in the implementation of projects in co-authorship, proofreading, and article publishing. In 2021, we had 2315 completed contracts.

Dear Dr [Name],

I hope this email finds you well.

We are currently facing a shortage of articles for the upcoming release of Volume 8, Issue 5 of our [journal name] (ISSN). Without your valuable support, we will be unable to proceed with the successful publication of this issue.

We kindly ask your contribution of any magnificent articles you may have for publication in our journal. Your dedication and input are crucial to ensuring the success of our upcoming issue. 

To facilitate timely processing, we kindly ask for an acknowledgement of this email within 24 hours.

Thank you for your understanding and prompt response. 

[Name]

[Journal Name]

ISSN: [ISSN] Impact Factor: 

Contact for support

Email your questions to our friendly library staff.

Students

web.uwa.edu.au/askuwa

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hdrsupport-lib@uwa.edu.au

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staffsupport-lib@uwa.edu.au

More contact options are available on the Library Contact us page.

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