Predatory open access is the attempt to exploit the business model of open access. Some publishers try to use the "golden road" of open access in order to gain money from the publishing fees without providing the editorial and publishing services of regular open access publishers. In recent years the number of these suspicious publishers has dramatically increased.
Jahr | Number of publishers |
2011 | 18 |
2012 | 23 |
2013 | 225 |
2014 | 477 |
2015 | 693 |
2016 | 923 |
2017 | 1155 |
Scientists are lured into publishing in mostly relatively new journals without giving information about the publication fees. If an article is submitted to these journals a transfer of copyright has sometimes already taken place. The scientist then receives a notice of the publication fee and maybe even additional requests. He then no longer has the possibility to publish his article elsewhere if he decides not to publish in this journal anymore. Some of these publishers are letter-box companies where the adress of the editor is not in the same country as the bankaccount where the fee is to be transfered to.
Complaints associated with predatory open-access publishing:
- articles (even nonsens- and joke-articles) are quickly published with little or without any quality control.
- information about publication fees is given after the article has been submitted.
- aggressive recruiting of scientists (even using spam), to publish in the journal or act as an editor.
- listing of scientists as editors without their consent and not deleting the names upon being asked to.
- listing of totally fabricated scientists as editors.
- copying the style and the name of well established journals for tricking scientists.
A list of these suspicious journals and publishers was maintained by the librarian Jeffrey Beall from the University of Colorado Denver. Unfortunately the list was
taken offline in January 2017 due to "threats & politics". The cached versions from internet-archiving services are still available. The list was published online together with a
row of criteria (cache of the WayBackMachine) with which scientists can discover if a journal or publisher is to be trusted and with which he evaluates phoney publishers.
The list has become known as the
Beall's List of Predatory Publishers (cache of the WayBackMachine).
In addition there is the
Beall's List of Predatory standalone Journals (cache of the WayBackMachine).
For his work and clarification he receives applause from representatives of the open access movement as well as critique and threats from the enlisted publishers.
The University Library also has a special site with more information on
Predatory Publishing.