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.

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.

• Checklist for journals
• Checklist for books and chapters
• More on predatory publishing from Think. Check. Submit.

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?
• 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.