Firm action needed on predatory journals
BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h210 (Published 17 January 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;350:h210
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Further to the Editorial by Clark and Smith [1], this week a memorable email arrived from a previously unknown Journal:
"It would be our immense pleasure if you could join our Editorial Board. We humbly request you to serve as an editorial board member for then Journal: Health Systems and Policy Research (Or Else)."
I think this is meant to be an offer I cannot refuse?
[1] Clark J, Smith R. Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ 2015;350:h210
Competing interests: No competing interests
I salute Clark and Smith for their courageous, seminal editorial published in the Journal (1) that denounces predatory publishing which imperils academic medicine and medical care. I hereby amplify several points in this editorial.
First, I am personally concerned that my 240 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals indexed in PubMed (2), with zero publications in predatory journals, may be adulterated and devalued because pseudo-academicians can rack up large numbers of publications in predatory journals published for cash; this phenomenon could deleteriously affect my academic advancement.
Second, the authors emphasize the damage from predatory publishing in low and middle income countries as opposed to high income, highly industrialized countries. I believe the contagion is likely spreading quickly from low to high income countries. A colleague in a high income country noted that she publishes solely in predatory journals, despite the large costs she incurs, because she needs publications for promotion and tenure which she would otherwise not achieve in traditional scholarly journals that accept articles only after rigorous peer review. Furthermore, wealthier countries, with more sophisticated healthcare, should show the lead in combating the nefarious effects of predatory publishing. Likewise, the most influential and most respected medical journals should show the lead in publishing articles and editorials on this phenomenon to raise awareness.
Third, the authors offer remedies of raising awareness of this problem by publishing on this subject in reputable journals, and by improving oversight and mentorship in research institutions (1). As an extension of improved oversight, I propose the following novel defense against predatory journals. Reputable institutions should band together to uniformly mandate faculty to submit curriculum vitas for tenure and promotion in a standard, compartmentalized format in which articles in predatory journals are listed separately, as paid-for publications in for-profit journals, without intermingling with publications in genuine scholarly journals. Compartmentalization may sever the connection between predatory publications and academic promotion or tenure which likely fuels author-customer demand to pay for publications in predatory journals. This remedy should be legal and should permit reputable institutions to separately evaluate publications in predatory journals and assign them a much lower or even nil value compared to traditional publications, adjusted according to individual institutional standards for promotion and tenure. Sever the connection between predatory publication and promotion and tenure by compartmentalization and the phenomenon may disappear, just like containment defeats pestilence. Academicians unite to defeat the enemy!
References
1. Clark J, Smith R. Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ. 2015 Jan 16;350:h210. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h210. PMID: 25596387
2. List available on PubMed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Cappell+MS . Accessed April 13, 2015.
Competing interests: Dr. Cappell is a consultant for the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Committee on Gastrointestinal Drugs. Dr. Cappell is paid a token sum by the FDA for this consultancy (<$1,000.00/year). This paper does not discuss any confidential pharmaceutical industry data reviewed by Dr. Cappell as a consultant for the FDA. Dr. Cappell is a paid speaker for AstraZeneca. This letter to the editor does not discuss any products marketed by AstraZeneca.
Much strident vocabulary is present in this aggressive approach to describing the problem (predatory, racketeering, corrupting communication...). The solutions suggested, on the other hand, seem vague at best and rather undemocratic at worst ("improving oversight, training, and mentorship"; obtaining clearance from central bodies, being "allowed" to submit only to journals that are reputable).
The article also assumes that it is always crystal clear when one is dealing with a predatory journal, and not just a low-brow (but possibly standard) journal with simply lower standards for article acceptance than the (again undefined) reputed journals. Is charging for publishing a red flag for a predatory journal (even as the authors take pains to clarify that all open access is not disreputable), or do cold-call emails with poor grammar and an origin in south Asia or China characterize them best? I've tried looking at surnames of the Editor for clues, but its difficult now that there are so many people with oriental or Asian names in reputed institutions in the west as well.
In the past I have ignored journal emails soliciting papers, only to find them indexed later on PubMed Central, and eventually on the main PubMed as well. Many of them have impact factors less than 0.01. Occasional ones turn out to be journals of learned societies from low-income countries, journals from communities of non-physician healthcare workers, non-medical student trainees and biologists from allied disciplines. They may or may not be desirable babies, but do we want to toss them out with the bathwater?
It appears obvious that we are actually staring at a continuum of publishing alternatives now available to people across the world. At one pole are the downright sleazy and seedy (and we all know them when they land in our inbox, or subsequently, the spam folder), while at the other extreme lie the unattainable objects of desire with astronomical impact factors. But there is a whole range in between as well. You can try drawing a line, but if you are going to base that line on "quality" of the research, I suspect it will be rather difficult. And ultimately, subjective.
Perhaps one way of looking at this situation is that its a fallout (or a gift?) of the internet. The publishing world is now like a crowded, noisy marketplace in New Delhi or Baghdad or Shanghai or Bangkok where you can either buy the original smartphone in the showroom, or just walkout and buy a cheap knock-off at 1/10th the price (I mean research effort). Yes, we run the risk of buying it from a charlatan and it won't work beyond a day, but doesn't that risk exist with all publications?
Maybe we only need to fine tune our skills at differentiating the good stuff from the rest. Maybe we also need to be sure that we aren't complaining because we happen to sell the expensive phone model.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Prompted by the editorial by Clark and Smith (1) inciting us to take firm action against predatory journals – an almost impossible task though some might approve it – we wish instead to suggest helping researchers in low and middle income countries by giving them a space to publish their articles in open access as peer-reviewed research in reputable scientific journals thus ensuring a wider readership.
This more positive strategy might overcome the problems arising when research papers from low and middle income countries face publication refusals from peer-reviewed journals yet contain scientifically valid evidence that those who conduct independent systematic reviews could otherwise miss.(2,3) In offering to publish well-selected articles from poorer countries, high-impact, reputable journals might also humbly acknowledge that some on occasions have had to retract misconducted, insidious and even dangerous research.(4,5)
Given today's corrupted research environment, another step forward that reputable journals need to take is to improve their control over three barriers that mine scientific integrity, by ensuring that authors honestly and fully publish their study protocol, disclose research funding and all indirect conflicting interests.(6)
The advantages reputable journals might gain by helping researchers from low and middle-income countries, rather than fighting against predatory journals, include making reliable information from these countries available to their readers and broadening their market.(7)
References
1. Clark J, Smith R. Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ 2015;350:h210.
2. Massarrat S, Kolahdoozan S. Critical assessment of progress of medical sciences in Iran and Turkey: the way developing countries with limited resources should make effective contributions to the production of science. Arch Iran Med 2011;14(6):370-7.
3. Gasparyan AY. Choosing the target journal: do authors need a comprehensive approach? J Korean Med Sci 2013;28(8):1117-9.
4. Reuben SS, Buvanendran A. Preventing the development of chronic pain after
orthopaedic surgery with preventive multimodal analgesic techniques. J Bone Joint Surg Am 2007 Jun;89(6):1343-58. Paper officially retracted in: Heckman JD. Retractions. J Bone Joint Surg Am 2009;91(4):965.
5. Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, Linnell J, Casson DM, Malik M, Berelowitz M, Dhillon AP, Thomson MA, Harvey P, Valentine A, Davies SE, Walker-Smith JA. Ileal lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998; 28(351):637-41. Paper partially retracted in: Editors of The Lancet. Retraction of an interpretation. Lancet 2004;6,363(9411):750. Paper fully retracted in: Editors of The Lancet. Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 2010;6,375:445.
6. Gøtzsche PC Deadly medicine and organized crime. How big pharma has corrupted healthcare. Radcliffe Publishing Ltd. London, UK 2013.
7. Davis PM, Lewenstein BV, Simon DH, Booth JG, Connolly MJ. Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial. BMJ 2008;337:a568.
Competing interests: No competing interests
While welcoming the editorial on predatory journals (BMJ 2015;350:h210), I was concerned regarding the lack of information provided about “reputable publishers”. Predatory journals are accused of having financial gain as their motive and lacking transparency. The same could be said of reputable publishers, who have been accused of making colossal profits - Reed Elsevier’s profits are in the billions (1-2). Most publishers charge fees for open access publishing that ensure they continue to make huge profits, rather than covering costs. May I suggest that reputable publishers agree on publishing their profits in their journals or website on an annual basis. Also, a standard universal open access fee should be introduced. This should be set by non-profit making institutions such as PLoS.
References
1. Smith R. The highly profitable but unethical business of publishing medical research. J R Soc med 2006;99: 452-456
2. Dorsey ER, George BP, Dayoub EJ, Ravina BM. Finances of the publishers of the most highly cited US medical journals. J Med Libr Assoc 2011;99: 255-258
Competing interests: I am a Deputy Editor for Archives of Disease in Childhood, BMJ Publishing group and receive payment for this work. I am an Academic Editor for PLosOne - no payment received
Clark & Smith rightly draw attention to the academic equivalent of the 419 scam - spam emails that declare "come pay us a large amount of money for fast review, a swift decision, and open access publishing". However unlike the 419 scammers who require a degree of creative writing skills in crafting their recently deposed princes, the authors of predatory journals have only to look as far as the Guidance for Authors at most scientific journals to provide a template, although their model is often "in addition to the huge and increasing subscriptions paid by your academic libraries, come pay us the price of a mere Rolex for slow review, a prolonged decision, and open access publishing if you really insist on it and we can work out how to update the default settings in our publishing system".
While the suggestion that "predatory journals can be "reservoirs of author misconduct" including plagiarism, falsified data, and image manipulation", a perusal of the most recent examples of these crimes on the marvelous RetractionWatch blog shows just what sort of shady operations let such misdeeds through the net (IF: Impact Factor): Molecular Medicines Reports (IF:1.5), Oncotarget (IF: 6.6), PLOS ONE (IF: 3.7), Nature Medicine (IF: 28), Journal of Neurochemistry (IF: 4.3), PNAS (IF: 9.3) (First two pages of RetractionWatch.com, accessed January 25th 2015. Disclaimer: Yes, impact factor is a silly metric for the value of an individual piece of work).
This is not to suggest that "everything is terrible so why bother fixing it?" Rather, we should critically examine the role of new tools like PubPeer in identifying fraud or in new models such as PeerJ which offer authors lifetime publishing from $99 (waived for authors from low income countries https://peerj.com/pricing/institutions/). The status quo of traditional publishing should be viewed only as one step on the journey to somewhere better, and not the final destination and natural resting place of scientific rigor.
Competing interests: PW is an associate editor of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and on the editorial board of the BMJ. See complete competing interests at BMJ.com
Following my presentation at the European Conference on Positive Psychology, I'm being contacted at regular intervals by predatory journals asking for papers on my practical work in this field of psychology.
Reading between the lines, I asked computer-savvy friends to follow the trail to the original source of the inquiries. All landed in China.
Even those publications that have addresses in Europe originate in China, where theft of intellectual property is rife.
It is of paramount importance to warn and protect genuine researchers in economically disadvantaged countries too from being abused by criminal moneymakers.
Sincerely,
Katalin Halom
Competing interests: No competing interests
Clark et al (1) provide valuable discussion on a very important present-day issue affecting research publication in many emerging low and middle-income countries (LMICs). But predatory journals and their publishers are only half of the problem. The other side of the problem is the low quality of research being done in LMICs because of various reasons including lack of support for research, substandard infrastructure, lack of incentives etc. (2).
A good quality research done anywhere in the world including LMICs gets published in high quality journals without much difficulty and is not sent for publication to the predatory journals. The problem is with the not so good quality research. When researcher knows he won’t be able to publish his work in a good journal or fails to do so, he turns towards these predatory journals which provide easy publication at some cost. Moreover many of these predatory journals are searchable on Google Scholar (Google Inc.) which has gained popularity among researchers in last decade (3).
To address the issue, many good institutes in LMICs are now impressing upon publishing in reputed indexed journals and take into account the Impact Factor (Thomson Reuters), H-Index and other matrices while recruiting and promoting researchers. But in addition to optimizing publication literacy and enforcement of publication guidelines, there is a dire need to improve the overall research in LMICs by enhancing the resources and providing supportive environment for research. Until that happens there will always be a market for these predatory journals.
References
1. Clark J, Smith R. Firm action needed on predatory journals. BMJ 2015;350:h210.
2. Langer A, Díaz-Olavarrieta C, Berdichevsky K, Villar J. Why is research from developing countries underrepresented in international health literature, and what can be done about it? Bull World Health Organ 2004;82(10):802-3.
3. Bohannon J. Scientific publishing. Google Scholar wins raves--but can it be trusted? Science 2014;343(6166):14.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Thank you so much to the editors for this recent editorial on predatory publishing practices. As you noted, this is a huge problem and getting worse by the minute.
I fully agree with your recommendation that journals and journal editors have a responsibility to raise awareness among their authors, readers, reviewers, and publishers and "should publish something." To this end, the International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE) has established an initiative on Open Access, Editorial Standards and Predatory Publishing. This came about after our annual meeting last summer, at which Jeffrey Beall was one of the keynote speakers.
Our first step was to create a collaborative document, "Predatory Publishers: What Editors Need to Know." This was published in September in Nurse Author & Editor and can be found here:
http://www.nurseauthoreditor.com/article.asp?id=261
We made this document available to any nursing editor who wanted to use it as a basis for an editorial in his or her journal. So far 7 editorials have been published, as well as a reprint of the paper, and a blog post. More editorials are in the pipeline. We are keeping track of these publications at the INANE website:
http://nursingeditors.com/inane-initiatives/open-access-editorial-standa...
As INANE leaders, we are proud of our efforts in this regard. We are glad that you concur that our approach is appropriate and important in addressing this increasingly problematic issue.
Thank you.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Firm action needed on predatory journals
Dear Editor,
Following retirement from my Academic post of Professor of Orthopaedic & Accident Surgery and from my clinical post as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon I decided, like many others, to continue supporting and contributing to academic journals – reading and submitting papers, reviewing articles and maintaining my interests.
During the past two months I have personally received 20 email requests from Open Access journals inviting me to submit articles at a reduced rate (or even free); to review submitted articles; to join editorial boards or even to become a sub-editor. I have summarised those journals submitting these requests below.
• Adolescent Health, Medicine and Therapeutics; Publisher - Dove Medical Press, London UK
• Advanced Emergency Medicine; Publisher - Universe Scientific Publishing Pte, Singapore
• Annals of Rheumatology and Arthritis; Publisher - Remedy Publications LLC, California, USA & Hyderabad, India
• Clinical Research in Orthopedics; Publisher - SciTechnol, Los Angeles, USA
• General Medicine - Open Access; Publisher - Omics International, Nevada, USA
• General Surgery; Publisher - Omics International, Nevada, USA
• Insights in Biomedicine; Publisher - Insight Medical Publishing, Delaware USA & London UK
• International Journal of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation; Publisher - Savvy Science Publisher, location unknown
• Journal of Forensic & Genetic Sciences (PRJFGS); Publisher - Lupine Publishers, New York, USA
• Journal International Medical Research; Publisher -Sage Publishing, London, UK
• Journal of Neuroscience and Neurological Disorders; Publisher - Heighten Science Publications Corp, Texas USA
• Journal of Orthopaedics Spine and Sports Medicine; Publisher - OPUS Journals, Staines, UK
• Journal of Spine; Publisher - Omics International, Nevada, USA
• Journal of Translational Science; Publisher - Open Access Text, Romford, UK
• Journal of Sports Research; Publisher - Crimson Publishers, New York
• Orthopedic Research Online Journal; Publisher - Crimson Publishers, New York, USA
• Orthopedics and Sports Medicine: Open Access Journal; Publisher - Lupine Publishers, New York, USA
• Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery; Publisher - Open Access Text, Romford, UK
• Rheumatology and Orthopedic Medicine; Publisher - Open Access Text, Romford, UK
• Trends in Otorhinolaryngology; Publisher - Open Access Text, Romford, UK
It is now clear that publishers are treating the publication of papers of all types as a potentially lucrative business or “cash cow”, Unfortunately they are in danger of “Killing the goose that lays the golden egg”. It is clear that many of these publishers are lowering standards for the publication of scientific papers because submitted and accepted papers generate an income for their journal. However, there is a more serious effect which is already beginning to undermine the whole structure of academic publications – those currently involved in reviewing papers are being invited to join the editorial boards of these new journals, which they perceive as raising their profile and kudos. It is consequently removing these academically gifted individuals from supporting our current established journals. This is why the editors of established journals have become so reactive and are now writing about aggressive or predatory publishers.
The UK Universities and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are protecting the established publishers by placing greater emphasis on articles published in journals with a high Impact Factor and this is commendable, but overseas Universities are not as selective. Unfortunately, many patients and doctors who are “Googling” medical treatments, operations and outcomes are not as selective, and we are in danger of allowing poorly refereed research papers to influence future medical practice and patients will suffer.
Emeritus Professor W Angus Wallace
Competing interests: No competing interests