Open Access Publishing Predatory Journals What You Need
Open Access Publishing & Predatory Journals: What You Need to Know Cara Bradley, Research & Scholarship Librarian, University of Regina Gina Brander, Nursing Liaison Librarian, Saskatchewan Polytechnic Mary Chipanshi, Nursing Liaison Librarian, University of Regina
Today ◉ Open access (OA): ○ ○ The players Advantages and challenges of OA Going the OA route OA policies and requirements ◉ Predatory publishing: ○ ○ o o Unethical publishing practices Impact of predatory publishers Resources for assessing OA journals/publishers Strategies for identifying predators
Imagine that. . . CC BY-NC-ND: https: //www. flickr. com/photos/ifrc/4 279434176
Imagine that. . . CC BY-NC-ND: https: //www. flickr. com/photos/peigov/16588754091
Imagine that. . . CC BY-NC: https: //www. flickr. com/photos/matterphoto graphy/180361186
“Open access is the practice of providing free and unrestricted online access to research publications and data. ” “
The players ◉ researchers/scholars (producers) ◉ researchers/scholars (users) ◉ publishers ◉ libraries ◉ funders ◉ tax payers
Advantages ◉ Great cost certainty re: access ◉ Allows use and sharing with obstacle of copyright ◉ Equal access both inside and outside the academy ◉ Access for those in the developing world ◉ Increased access means increased impact
Challenges ◉ Author fees ◉ Discoverability ◉ Quality control ◉ Predatory journals (more on this later!)
Making my work open access ◉ Two different routes for making your work open access: ○ ○ Gold open access Green open access ◉ Another possibility. . . Hybrid journals
SHERPA/ROMEO ◉ Journal publisher info ◉ Fees ◉ Author rights ◉ Copyright policies ◉ SHERPA/JULIET: Research ◉ Archiving rights ◉ General conditions funders’ open access policies
Finding a journal/repository ◉ Gold Journals: ○ Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) ◉ Green Access: ○ ○ Your institutional repository Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)
Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications ◉ Guiding Principles: ○ ○ Advance knowledge Minimize research duplication Maximize research benefits Promote research accomplishments
What’s covered by the policy: ◉ SSHRC and NSERC grants received on or after May 1, 2015 ◉ CIHR grants received after January 1, 2008 ◉ Data (CIHR only) and Journal articles (SSHRC, NSERC, ◉ CIHR) Co-authored works, or works with funding from multiple sources including Tri-Agency
What the policy doesn’t cover ◉ Book chapters, monographs, conference proceedings, editorials ◉ Graduate scholarships and fellowships ◉ Training and salary awards
The requirements ◉ Work freely available within 12 months of publication ◉ Journals or online repositories (gold vs. green) ◉ Final, full-text, peer-reviewed manuscript (postprint) or published version (where allowed)
Getting details/help ◉ Publisher's web site ◉ Publishing contract (+ CARL/SPARC Canadian Author Addendum) ◉ Editorial staff ◉ Copyright officer/scholarly communications or liaison librarian
Meeting the requirements ◉ $0 $4000 ◉ Responsibility: ○ ○ Grant recipient is responsible for adhering to the policy Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research
Other funder OA policies ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉ National Institutes of Health (US) Gates Foundation National Endowment for the Humanities (US) National Science Foundation (US) Research Councils UK National Fund for Scientific Research Welcome Trust European Research Council
And now let’s circle back to predatory journals. . .
Predetory publishing refers to the unethical practice of “publishing journals that exploit the emerging acceptance of open-access academic journals to undermine peer-review processes” (Bowman, 2014). “ CCommons 4. 0 BY-NC: http: //pngimg. com/download/29749
Unethical practices ◉ Deception o o Mimicry of legitimate publishers Misrepresenting headquarters Falsely claiming indexing by prestigious services False editorial boards
Unethical practices ◉ Negligence/ non-adherence to standards ○ ○ Harvesting email addresses from legitimate publishers Poor or no editorial process
Unethical practices ◉ Lack of transparency o o Little or no information about peer review process Pay model not clearly defined
Why is this a problem? ◉ Trust in validity of peer review and publication standards undermined. ◉ Increase in poor/derivative publications = harder to ◉ keep abreast of the literature Articles published in predatory journals that are of value may be dismissed (Beall, 2013). CC BY-NC 2. 0: https: //www. flickr. com/photos/intersectionconsulting/7537238368
Self-Regulation & Standards ◉ Beall’s List of Predatory Journals and Publishers and Beall’s Criteria ◉ Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) ◉ Publisher’s membership of the Committee on Publication ◉ ◉ Ethics (COPE) Ulrichsweb Stop Predatory Journals
Predatory publishers… really want to publish your paper.
It’s a mine field out there! Su per vis or Publication record Post Grad Adapted from cartoon by Petar Pismestrovic, Kleine Zeitung, Austria. https: //www. caglecartoons. com/viewimage. asp? ID={0 F 61 E 4 DB-31 C 1 -4 E 31 -A 47 F-F 935 D 11 B 794 A}
Think, Check, Submit ◉ https: //thinkchecksubmit. org/
Red flags: Email invitation to publish Uses flattery; no specific topic; short timeline
Red flags: Email invitation to publish High Impact Factor Titles of the journal don’t match E-ISSN Promise of fast track publication Low publication fees
Using the flowchart for the Journal International Educational Applied Scientific Research Journal (IEASRJ) Adapted by unknown author from Laine C, Winker MA. Identifying Predatory or Pseudo-Journals. World Association of Medical Editors. February 15, 2017. http: //www. wame. org.
Red Flags: Journal websites ◉ Use of multiple colors and big header images ◉ Large editorial board whose members are untraceable. ◉ ◉ Scrolling items. ◉ ◉ Poor contact information ◉ ◉ Website traffic counter ◉ Contact information is nonprofessional and not journalaffiliated ◉ Etc. Pointers flashing “New” or “Latest News”. Advertisements Links that lead nowhere Scope of interest too broad Grammatical and spelling errors
Taking a closer look at the journal website
Predatory Conferences ◉ Organized by commercial entities purely for profit ◉ Poorly organized ◉ Might not exist ◉ Low merit, standards ◉ THINK! CHECK! …. SUBMIT.
Conclusion ◉ Not all open access journals are predatory! ◉ Open access represents the future of academic ◉ publishing. Must work to protect OA by doing our due diligence: ○ Be aware of the publication landscape in your subject area, and the most reputable journals. Consult the journal and publisher checkers mentioned. If something looks (and feels) bad, it probably is. ◉ ○ ○ When in doubt, ask your supervisor or a librarian!
Thanks! Any questions? Cara Bradley U of R Library Cara. Bradley@uregina. ca Mary Chipanshi U of R Library mary. chipanshi@uregina. ca Gina Brander Sask Polytechnic Library gina. brander@saskpolytech. ca
References Beall, J. (2013). Predatory publishing is just one of the consequences of golden open access. Learned Publishing, 26(2), 79 -84. doi: 10. 1087/20130203 Bowman, J. D. (2014). Predatory Publishing, Questionable Peer Review, and Fraudulent Conferences. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 78(10), 176. http: //doi. org/10. 5688/ajpe 7810176 Clark, A. M. , & Thompson, D. R. (2017). Five (bad) reasons to publish your research in predatory journals. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 73(11), 2499 -2501. doi: 10. 1111/jan. 13090 Mccann, T. V. , & Polacsek, M. (2018). False gold: Safely navigating open access publishing to avoid predatory publishers and journals. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 74(4), 809 -817. doi: 10. 1111/jan. 13483 Shahriari, N. , Grant-Kels, J. , & Payette, M. J. (2016). Predatory journals: How to recognize and avoid the threat of involvement with these unethical "publishers" doi: 10. 1016/j. jaad. 2016. 04. 056
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