Abstract
Predatory journals, publishing and conferences are becoming an increasingly widespread worldwide phenomenon. Reaching an agreed definition and finding criteria for the complex identification of a predatory journal, publisher or conference, are two of the main problems encountered in the analysis of this phenomenon. In recent times, a consensus definition was proposed at an international stakeholders meeting. Ethical concerns have been raised about the potential effects of this phenomenon on scientific competition between researchers and research projects; on academic careers; on the allocation of funds for research; more generally, on the advancement of scientific knowledge and with regard to the risk that erroneous, fabricated, falsified or plagiarized data may be published, thus compromising scientific literature and contributing to the dissemination of fake news. The international scientific community recognize that predatory publishing activities represent a crucial issue to be addressed in science and in the research integrity field; as a consequence, action is needed to mitigate and manage their implications as well as to guide authors, especially younger ones, in the process of academic publishing. International campaigns have been undertaken over the last few years with the aim of establishing a set of measures both to identify predatory journals or dubious editors and to discourage researchers from publishing in such journals. In this chapter, we present a series of practical recommendations aimed at preventing and controlling the risks to be prey of predatory journals and conferences. These recommendations are presented in the first Italian ethical toolkit on the issue, which have been published in 2019 by the Research Ethics and Integrity Committee of the National Research Council (CNR). A standard-setting process and the development of best practices can contribute to foster a culture of research integrity and to preserve the quality of scientific publishing.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Cf. CNR Research Ethics and Integrity Committee [1].
- 2.
- 3.
In fact, the term ‘predatory’ (from Latin ‘praedatorius’, ‘praedari’) refers to the attitude of those who obtain something through an act of violence. The etymology of the term refers to the idea of a helpless ‘prey’, ‘victim’ of the predator animal, which is not attributed any responsibility for what happened.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
A list of journals that appear to have been hijacked is available at: https://predatoryjournals.com/hijacked/.
References
CNR Research Ethics and Integrity Committee (2015) Guidelines for research integrity, updated 2019. https://www.cnr.it/en/doc-ethics
COMETS (2011) Relations entre chercheurs et maisons d’édition scientifique. https://comite-ethique.cnrs.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/AVIS-2011-24.pdf
COMETS (2012) Le libre accès aux publications scientifiques (“open access”). https://comite-ethique.cnrs.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/AVIS-2012-25.pdf
Beall J (2012) Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature 489(7415):179–179. https://doi.org/10.1038/489179a
Bagues M, Sylos-Labini M, Zinovyeva N (2019) A walk on the wild side: ‘predatory’ journals and information asymmetries in scientific evaluations. Res Policy 48(2):462–477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.04.013
Grudniewicz A, Moher D, Cobey KD, Bryson GL, Cukier S, Allen K, Ardern C, Balcom L, Barros T, Berger M, Ciro JB, Cugusi L, Donaldson MR, Egger M, Graham ID, Hodgkinson M, Khan KM, Mabizela M, Manca A et al (2019) Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature 576(7786):210–212. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03759-y
Strinzel M, Severin A, Milzow K, Egger M (2019) Blacklists and whitelists to tackle predatory publishing: a cross-sectional comparison and thematic analysis. mBio, 10(3):e00411–e00419. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00411-19
Olivarez J, Bales S, Sare L, vanDuinkerken W (2018) Format aside: applying Beall’s criteria to assess the predatory nature of both OA and non-OA library and information science journals. Coll Res Libr 79(1). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.1.52
Singh Chawla D (2021) Hundreds of ‘predatory’ journals indexed on leading scholarly database. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00239-0
Moher D, Shamseer L, Cobey KD, Lalu MM, Galipeau J, Avey MT, Ahmadzai N, Alabousi M, Barbeau P, Beck A, Daniel R, Frank R, Ghannad M, Hamel C, Hersi M, Hutton B, Isupov I, McGrath TA, McInnes MDF et al (2017) Stop this waste of people, animals and money. Nature 549(7670):23–25. https://doi.org/10.1038/549023a
Jimenez DF, Garza DN (2017) Predatory publishing and academic integrity. World Neurosurg 105:990–992. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2017.05.157
Pujar SM (2017) Predatory open access journals publishing: what, why and how? In: Proceedings of the national conference on the role of LIS professionals in the changing academic paradigm, Bangalore, Feb. 17–18, pp 117–122
Shen C, Björk B-C (2015) ‘Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics. BMC Med 13(1):230. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2
COPE (2019) Discussion document: predatory publishing. https://publicationethics.org/files/cope_dd_a4_pred_publishing_nov19_screenaw.pdf
CNR Research Ethics and Integrity Committee (2019) Increasing risks of predatory publishing: recommendations for researchers. https://www.cnr.it/en/doc-ethics
Zagarella RM, Annoni M, Caporale C (2021) Preventing predatory publishing: the CNR’s Italian guidelines for researchers. In: Poster presentation at the ENRIO 2021 congress on research integrity practice, 27–29 Sept 2021. http://www.enrio.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Programme-for-the-website.pdf
Amaral OB (2018) All publishers are predatory—some are bigger than others. An Acad Bras Ciênc 90(2):1643–1647. https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765201820170959
Bauer P, Krause T, Kropshofer K, Langhans K, Wagner L (2018) Das Scheingeschäft: Angriff Auf Die Wissenschaft. Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, pp 11–24
Bohannon J (2013) Who’s afraid of peer review? Science 342(6154):60–65. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.2013.342.6154.342_60
Brainard J (2019) U.S. judge rules deceptive publisher should pay $50 million in damages. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax5720
CNR Research Ethics and Integrity Committee (2019) Increasing risks of predatory publishing: recommendations for researchers. https://www.cnr.it/en/doc-ethics
Cobey KD, Lalu MM, Skidmore B, Ahmadzai N, Grudniewicz A, Moher D (2018) What is a predatory journal? A scoping review. F1000Research 7:1001. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.15256.2
Duc N, Hiep D, Thong P, Zunic L, Zildzic M, Donev D, Jankovic S, Hozo I, Masic I (2020) Predatory open access journals are indexed in reputable databases: a revisiting issue or an unsolved problem. Med Arch 74(4):318. https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2020.74.318-322
Fanelli D, Larivière V (2016) Researchers’ individual publication rate has not increased in a century. PLoS ONE 11(3):e0149504. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149504
Frandsen TF (2017) Are predatory journals undermining the credibility of science? A bibliometric analysis of citers. Scientometrics 113(3):1513–1528. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2520-x
Laine C, Winker MA (2017a) Identifying predatory or pseudo-journals. Int J Occup Environ Med 8(2):117–124. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijoem.2017.1048
Laine C, Winker MA (2017b) Identifying predatory or pseudo-journals. Int J Occup Environ Med 8(2):117–124. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijoem.2017.1048
Pyne D (2017) The rewards of predatory publications at a small business school. J Sch Publ 48(3):137–160. https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.48.3.137
Rice DB, Skidmore B, Cobey KD (2021) Dealing with predatory journal articles captured in systematic reviews. Syst Rev 10(1):175. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01733-2
Richtig G, Berger M, Lange-Asschenfeldt B, Aberer W, Richtig E (2018) Problems and challenges of predatory journals. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol 32(9):1441–1449. https://doi.org/10.1111/jdv.15039
Swanberg SM, Thielen J, Bulgarelli N (2020) Faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory open access journals: a needs assessment study. J Med Libr Assoc 108(2). https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2020.849
Teixeira da Silva JA, Dobránszki J, Tsigaris P, Al-Khatib A (2019) Predatory and exploitative behaviour in academic publishing: an assessment. J Acad Libr 45(6):102071. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102071
Teixeira da Silva JA, Kimotho SG (2021) Signs of divisiveness, discrimination and stigmatization caused by Jeffrey Beall’s “predatory” open access publishing blacklists and philosophy. J Acad Libr 102418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2021.102418
Wallace FH, Perri TJ (2018) Economists behaving badly: publications in predatory journals. Scientometrics 115(2):749–766. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2690-1
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Caporale, C., Zagarella, R.M. (2023). Ethics and Integrity in Academic Publishing. In: Congiunti, L., Lo Piccolo, F., Russo, A., Serio, M. (eds) Ethics in Research. UNIPA Springer Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24060-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24060-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-24059-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-24060-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)