Skip to main content
Log in

Is predatory publishing a real threat? Evidence from a large database study

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Using a database of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals, the objective of this research is to study the penetration of predatory publications in the Brazilian academic system and the profile of authors in a cross-section empirical study. Based on a massive amount of publications from Brazilian researchers of all disciplines during the 2000–2015 period, we were able to analyze the extent of predatory publications using an econometric modeling. Descriptive statistics indicate that predatory publications represent a small overall proportion, but grew exponentially in the last 5 years. Departing from prior studies, our analysis shows that experienced researchers with a high number of non-indexed publications and PhD obtained locally are more likely to publish in predatory journals. Further analysis shows that once a journal regarded as predatory is listed in the local ranking system, the Qualis, it starts to receive more publications than non-predatory ones.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See AJE research report for Brazilhere.

  2. https://doaj.org/.

  3. See http://scimagojr.com and http://jcr.incites.thomsonreuters.com.

  4. An ISSN is structured as XXXX-XXXY, where X is any number and Y is a number or a text.

  5. https://github.com/msperlin/predatory/tree/master/inst/extdata.

  6. http://lattes.cnpq.br/.

  7. The model is estimated using R package glmmML (Brostrm 2017).

  8. http://www.capes.gov.br/avaliacao/qualis.

  9. The results for all rankings are very comparable, with matching coefficient signs and significance. However, the absolute value decreases significantly.

References

  • Abbasi, K. (2012). The debate around open-access publishing. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 105, 185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Abramo, G., Cicero, T., & DAngelo, C. A. (2015). Should the research performance of scientists be distinguished by gender? Journal of Informetrics, 9(1), 25–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Khatib, A. (2016). Protecting authors from predatory journals and publishers. Publishing Research Quarterly, 32(4), 281–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beall, J. (2012). Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature, 489(7415), 179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beall, J. (2013). Medical publishing triage-chronicling predatory open access publishers. Annals of Medicine and Surgery, 2(2), 47–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beall, J. (2015a). Criteria for determining predatory open-access publishers. http://publica.upc.edu/sites/default/files/arxius_site/criteris_editorials_fraudulentes.pdf. Accessed 5 May 2017.

  • Beall, J. (2015b). Predatory journals and the breakdown of research cultures. Information Development, 31(5), 473–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beall, J. (2017). What i learned from predatory publishers. Biochemia Medica: Biochemia Medica, 27(2), 273–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M., & Cirasella, J. (2015). Beyond Beall’s list better understanding predatory publishers. College and Research Libraries News, 76(3), 132–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowman, J. D. (2014). Predatory publishing, questionable peer review, and fraudulent conferences. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 78(10), Article 176.

  • Brooks, C., Fenton, E. M., & Walker, J. T. (2014). Gender and the evaluation of research. Research Policy, 43(6), 990–1001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brostrm, G. (2017). glmmML: Generalized linear models with clustering. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=glmmML, r package version 1.0.2.

  • Butler, D. (2013). The dark side of publishing. Nature, 495(7442), 433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A. M., & Thompson, D. R. (2016). Five (bad) reasons to publish your research in predatory journals. Journal of Advanced Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13090.

    Google Scholar 

  • Djuric, D. (2015). Penetrating the omerta of predatory publishing: The Romanian connection. Science and Engineering Ethics, 21(1), 183–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frandsen, T. F. (2017). Are predatory journals undermining the credibility of science?A bibliometric analysis of citers. Scientometrics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2520-x.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gujarati, D. N. (2009). Basic econometrics. New York: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haug, C. (2013). The downside of open-access publishing. New England Journal of Medicine, 368(9), 791–793.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kulczycki, E. (2017). The rise of predatory journals: The case of Dr. Anna fraud. NAUKA, 1(3), 71–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laakso, M., Welling, P., Bukvova, H., Nyman, L., Björk, B. C., & Hedlund, T. (2011). The development of open access journal publishing from 1993 to 2009. PLoS ONE, 6(6), e20,961.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lukić, T., Blešić, I., Basarin, B., Ivanović, B. L., Milošević, D., & Sakulski, D. (2014). Predatory and fake scientific journals/publishers: A global outbreak with rising trend: A review. Geographica Pannonica, 18(3), 69–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manca, A., Martinez, G., Cugusi, L., Dragone, D., Dvir, Z., & Deriu, F. (2017a). The surge of predatory open-access in neurosciences and neurology. Neuroscience, 353, 166–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manca, A., Martinez, G., Cugusi, L., Dragone, D., Mercuro, G., & Deriu, F. (2017b). Predatory open access in rehabilitation. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 98(5), 1051–1056.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nwagwu, W. E. (2016). Open access in the developing regions: Situating the altercations about predatory publishing/l’accès libre dans les régions en voie de développement: Situation de la controverse concernant les pratiques d’édition déloyales. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 40(1), 58–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Omobowale, A. O., Akanle, O., Adeniran, A. I., & Adegboyega, K. (2014). Peripheral scholarship and the context of foreign paid publishing in nigeria. Current Sociology, 62(5), 666–684.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perlin, M. (2017). Predatory: Tools for detecting predatory publishers and journals. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=predatory, r package version 1.2.

  • Perlin, M. S., Santos, A. A., Imasato, T., Borenstein, D., & Da Silva, S. (2017). The Brazilian scientific output published in journals: A study based on a large cv database. Journal of Informetrics, 11(1), 18–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piro, F. N., Aksnes, D. W., & Rrstad, K. (2013). A macro analysis of productivity differences across fields: Challenges in the measurement of scientific publishing. JASIST, 64, 307–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pyne, D. (2017). The rewards of predatory publications at a small business school. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 48(3), 137–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rørstad, K., & Aksnes, D. W. (2015). Publication rate expressed by age, gender and academic position-a large-scale analysis of Norwegian academic staff. Journal of Informetrics, 9(2), 317–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen, C., & Björk, B. C. (2015). ’Predatory’ open access: A longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics. BMC Medicine, 13(1), 1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shuva, N. Z., & Taisir, R. (2016). Faculty members perceptions and use of open access journals: Bangladesh perspective. IFLA Journal, 42(1), 36–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sorokowski, P., Kulczycki, E., Sorokowska, A., & Pisanski, K. (2017). Predatory journals recruit fake editor. Nature, 543, 481–483.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strielkowski, W. (2017). Predatory publishing: What are the alternatives to beall’s list? The American Journal of Medicine. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002934317311968.

  • Van Noorden, R. (2013). Brazilian citation scheme outed. Nature, 500(7464), 510–1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, F. H., & Perri, T. J. (2018). Economists behaving badly: Publications in predatory journals. Scientometrics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2690-1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xia, J. (2015). Predatory journals and their article publishing charges. Learned Publishing, 28(1), 69–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xia, J., Harmon, J. L., Connolly, K. G., Donnelly, R. M., Anderson, M. R., & Howard, H. A. (2015). Who publishes in “predatory” journals? Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(7), 1406–1417. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcelo S. Perlin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Perlin, M.S., Imasato, T. & Borenstein, D. Is predatory publishing a real threat? Evidence from a large database study. Scientometrics 116, 255–273 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2750-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2750-6

Keywords

Mathematics Subject Classification

Navigation