Who falls prey to predatory publishers?

April 24, 2018

A while back I wrote Avoiding Predatory Journals and Questionable Conferences: A Resource Guide. As I started digging into the research on the topic, I found that that the people who fall prey to these scams, basically fall into three categories. Here’s an excerpt from the report:

Those who contribute to predatory or parasitic publications or events seem to fall into three main categories: (a) those who are too naïve to know; (b) those who know, but do not mind; and (c) those pseudo-scientists who are masquerading as legitimate scholars or researchers, but are essentially quacks or charlatans themselves (Beall n.d., 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 a, b, c; Grove, 2017; McCrostie 2016, 2017; Nicholl & Chinn, 2015; Nolfi, Lockhart & Redgate, 2015;Ruben, 2016; Vinny, Vishnu & Lal, 2016; Xia, Harmon, Connolly, Donnelly, Anderson, & Howard, 2015):

The Naïve Contributor ultimately recognizes that their contribution will bring them little benefit and their reputation may even be damaged.

The Cognizant Contributor has a more symbiotic relationship with the parasitical publication or conference because they perceive some benefit to their own advancement.

Like the Cognizant Contributor, the Pseudo-Scientist also receives (or at least perceives) benefit because questionable conferences or publications give them a venue to proclaim their own expertise, unproven results or absurd theories. (p. 10).

Here’s an infographic:

Who falls prey to predatory publishers_.jpg

The full report contains a full reference list and much more content. You can check it out here: Avoiding Predatory Journals and Questionable Conferences: A Resource Guide

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Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the Werklund School of Education or the University of Calgary.

 

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Avoiding Predatory Journals and Questionable Conferences: A Resource Guide

January 9, 2018
Cover art - Avoiding Predatory Journals and Questionable Conferences

Download a copy of the full report for free from the University of Calgary: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/106227

Not long ago, a graduate student was lured in by a conference in his precise field of study and wrote to me to let me know of his acceptance. I had never heard of the conference. I had never even come across the name of it in passing. I have worked in higher education for almost a quarter of a century and I’ve heard of many legitimate and credible conferences in my field, so I became skeptical.

I asked numerous colleagues, as well as our resident librarian. No one else had heard of the conference either. Kudos to our education librarian at the University of Calgary,  since he went to significant effort to determine if the conference was legitimate. In the end, we decided that it was not a wise use of the student’s money or time.

As a result of that experience, I started investigating the topic of predatory conferences and journals in more depth. I started this guide thinking of other graduate students and junior academics who might be at risk of being seduced into spending valuable resources on taking part, while doing nothing to advance their own learning, professional development, scholarly experience or reputation. The stakes are high for academics and the pressure to produce can be overwhelming at times. This guide is intended to help scholars make wise decisions about how to spend their time, money and resources, while simultaneously protecting and preserving their professional reputation.

The goal of this guide is to provide a clear overview of the topics of predatory journals and questionable conferences and advice on how to avoid them. This guide intentionally adopts a plain language approach to ensure it is accessible to readers with a variety English language proficiency levels.

Download a copy of the full report for free from the University of Calgary: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/106227

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This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.