Predatory Journals: Who Publishes in Them and Why?

Features that may signal a possible predatory nature of a journal include APC charges usually much lower than credible OA journals, requests to pay APC only after acceptance, absence or questionable location and composition of editorial boards, members lacking academic competencies, and failure to clearly declare manuscript submission, revision, acceptation, and licensing policies.

“For instance, the APC charges of predatory journals are usually much lower when compared with the APCs applied by credible OA journals. Additionally, often authors are requested to pay APC only after the acceptance of their manuscript. Other features include the absence or a questionable location and composition of journal editorial boards, as their members are often lacking academic competencies.”

OA journals are particularly attractive to authors pressurized for high publication productivity.

“Thus, OA journals are particularly attractive to authors pressurized for high publication productivity [158-160].”

Predatory journals have evolved and manage to pass the selection process of major bibliographic and OA databases.

“these artificial journals have evolved and they even manage to pass the selection process of the major bibliographic, as well as OA, DBs [145,150,157,158,166]”