Southern Illinois University Carbondale
At some point in your career you may be solicited in a flattering email from a predatory publisher to send them your work. They claim to be a prestigious journal or conference and will promise quick turnaround time; they might even include false or inflated impact factor numbers. Many of these so-called publishers are shady Open Access (OA) operations that are only interested in obtaining your copyrighted material and then charging you an Author Processing Charge (APC) to publish your work. Publishing with these presses or presenting at these conferences can damage your reputation and weaken your portfolio for tenure and promotion.
Not all OA journals and publications are bad; most are, in fact, legitimate and/or academic resources (even those that charge APCs). Below are a few easy questions you can ask before agreeing to present at a conference, publish in a journal, or to be on the editorial board. By using the information and resources on this guide, you will be able to effectively evaluate possible predatory publishers, including all types of OA titles.
Adapted from the University of South Florida Libraries
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Adapted from University of Missouri Libraries
A predatory or vanity conference could have the following characteristics:
1. Event is organized by a for-profit entity, rather than a credible scholarly or scientific society or association.
2. Conferences that combine a number of fields topics or disciplines into a single conference. Be particularly wary of alleged conferences that combine multiple, unrelated topics into a single event.
3. The conference uses a free e-mail address, such as a Gmail address.
4. The organizers spam prospective attendees to submit proposals and register. Often, these spam e-mails contain hyperbolic language about how prestigious the conference is.
5. Information about who is organizing the conference is either unclear or nonexistent; or the organizer is not well known or reputable.
6. Acceptances are promised with a very short turnaround time (often less than four weeks).
7. The conference is marketed as a holiday in a desirable location. The event is held at a resort or a popular tourist destination and marketed as a holiday, rather than an academic or scientific event.
8. The conference name bears a striking resemblance to that of a credible or highly prestigious conference, but has subtle minor differences in its name.
9. Organizers guarantee your contribution will be published as an article in the journal associated with the conference. Like the conference, the journal is also predatory and the organizers may later insist on additional article processing charges to publish your article.
10. The conference websites are unstable. They may change URLs or have no record of conferences in previous years.
11. The website text contains poor grammar or numerous spelling errors.
12. Conference fees seem quite high, compared to those run by non-profit organizations.
Adapted from Sarah Elaine Eaton, University of Calgary
A simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.
Detailed information on all types of periodicals: scholarly journals, e-journals, magazines, newspapers, etc., including language, ISSN, subjects and more.
The SCImago Journal & Country Rank includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. It includes two metrics: SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP). SJR is based on times cited, but also uses an algorithm to calculate article influence, which it uses to create rankings.
Tool to evaluate and compare Science and Social Science journals using citation data from scholarly journals, technical journals, and conference proceedings.
Use SHERPA RoMEO to look up a journal's archiving policies to see what you (as an author) are allowed to do with your articles.
Adapted from the University of South Florida Libraries