Field Guide to Predatory Publishers

Posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2014 by Betsy Like

Signs a journal or publisher might be "predatory" or that it might not be a good fit.

  1. The journal is not listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
  2. The journal is not listed in Ulrichs (Tufts login required).  It is not widely available on major databases.
  3. The publisher is not a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).
  4. The publisher is listed on Beall's List of Predatory Publishers 2014.

Visit the website for the journal.  You might have concerns if...

  1. You don't regularly read this journal.
  2. You don't recognize previously published authors.  You don't recognize the members of the editorial board.
  3. It does not appear to be affiliated with a university or scholarly organization you are familiar with.
  4. You cannot easily identify if they have author processing fees and/or how much they cost.
  5. The journal does not appear professional - look for an impact factor, an ISSN, DOIs for individual articles, easy to find contact information.

For more information about predatory publishers, check out the complete Field Guide to Predatory Publishers Research Guide created by the Hirsh Health Sciences librarians.