Predatory Publishing
The market for scientific journals is constantly changing. In particular, the increasing number of journals makes it harder to keep an overview of all publication options.
Among the publishers who publish scientific journals, some pursue a business model that is exclusively profit-oriented and ignores the rules of good scientific practice. Such journals – commonly referred to as "predatory journals" – pretend to be scientific and serious journals, when, in fact, they lack quality assurance and control measures, in particular a peer review process. Publishing research results in such predatory journals is harmful in several ways: it prevents the published research results from being perceived or taken seriously by the respective research community; it damages the reputation of the authors involved; and it undermines the credibility of science in general.
Below, you will find detailed information about:
Predatory Publishing
Predatory Journals
Predatory Conferences
Checklist and Quality Criteria
Publication of Theses
together with criteria on how to recognize predatory practices and how to protect yourself from them.
The term refers not to a single journal but to an entire publishing house that charges money for services it does not provide or that it provides in rather poor quality. As advertising activities of predatory publishing include personal address and invitations to publish via mass mailings, such requests should be handled with care, if the journal or publisher is not known to be trusted.
are journals that charge money for services that they do not provide at all or in rather poor quality. Often, the term fake journals is used synonymously for predatory journals. In contrast to high-quality (open access) journals, which provide services such as editing, marketing, long-term archiving, and quality assurance and control, predatory journals offer no guarantee for long-term archiving, only inadequate quality control and often incorrect information on metrics (e.g. impact factor).
are conferences that have been designed to appear as legitimate scientific conferences, but are in fact exploitative as they charge high conference fees but do not provide adequate peer review of the submitted proposals. Subsequently, the presentations are often published as unedited proceedings. Promotional activities, such as mass mailings, can include claims of participation of prominent scientists who are actually uninvolved. The initiative think.check.attend helps with the selection of reputable conferences.
Checklist and Quality Criteria
We have compiled a checklist of quality criteria to help you determine the reliability of a journal.
If you have any questions about the checklist or are unsure about a journal or a publisher, please contact your colleagues at the University and Regional Library Tyrol: Lisa Hofer oder Erika Pörnbacher unter ulb-emedien@uibk.ac.at.
Some publishers – such as AV Akademikerverlag (formerly VDM Verlag), SVH Verlag, Scholar's Press or Lehrbuchverlag (all part of the OmniScriptum Publishing Group) as well as GRIN or Shaker Verlag – systematically contact graduates of master's, diploma and doctoral programmes and offer to publish their theses free of charge. Such requests should be treated with caution as the theses are printed unedited and without peer review process, while being distributed at high prices via print-on-demand.
Students, who are pursuing an academic career, are not advised to publish with such publishers, as they do not have an academic reputation due to their lack of quality criteria and are rarely purchased by university libraries or other academic institutions. Depending on the clauses of the publishing contract, the authors transfer their rights to use their work to the publisher and are excluded from using their work subsequently.
Further information on the publication of theses via the repository of the University of Innsbruck can be found here.
If you have any questions, please contact the University and Regional Library of Tyrol
Electronic Resources Department
Lisa Hofer, tel: +43 (0) 512-507-31038
Erika Pörnbacher, tel: +43 (0) 512-507-2405
Email: ulb-emedien@uibk.ac.at
Questions on theses | Digital Services Department
Barbara Laner, Tel.: +43 (0)512 507 - 25401
Email: ulb-digitale-Services@uibk.ac.at