Trends in Questionable Journal Publishing:
A Year in Review
Lise Brin & Lisa Goddard
Atlantic Provinces Library Association June 5, 2014 - Moncton, NB
March 2013
htp://www.nature.com/news/investigating-journals-the-dark-side-of-publishing-1.126661
htp://scholarlyoa.com/2013/03/26/author-misconduct/
April 2013
htp://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/for-scientists-an-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html
htp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open-access_publishing
October 2013
htp://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full
November 2013
March 2014
htp://scholarlyoa.com/2014/03/20/misleading-metrics-a-new-list-on-this-blog/
May 2014
htp://www.otawacitizen.com/technology/Blinded+scientifc+gobbledygook/9757736/story.html
htp://www.otawacitizen.com/technology/Blinded+scientifc+gobbledygook/9757736/story.html
Predatory publisher numbers according to Beall’s List
2011 December 2012 April 2014
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
What can we learn from looking at the past year
from the point of view
of a researcher?
How concerned should we be about the emergence of these
questionable publishers?
Talking to faculty about
Gold OA.
Faculty Motivators
• Tenure
• Prestige
• Funding
• Control over work
• Accessibility of scholarly literature
• Beneft to community
• Global innovation
• Library budgets
P&T Fears
Will my commitee consider OA journals to be of low quality?
Open Access is now a mainstream publishing model.
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 0
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Number of OA Journals 2000-2011
Approximately 10 - 12% of
academic
journals are Open Access.
Open Access Journals -
Wiley
Open Access Journals - Springer
Open Access Journals – T&F
Open Access Journals - Elsevier
Funder Support for OA
SSHRC/NSERC OA Mandate
Government Policy - US
Government Policy - UK
Assessing Journal Quality
Journal Quality Indicators
• peer-review quality
• editorial board
• acceptance rates
• readership
• citation rate
• years of publication
• indexing
• Impact Factor*
*Reliance on journal metrics may vary according to discipline.
business model
OA Journal Quality
ISI Journal Citation Reports
Journal Metrics
Journal Metrics
Journal Quality Standards
SPARC Europe Seal of
Approval
• Registered with SHERPA/RoMEO
• Editorial board with clearly identifiable members
• Clear review process
• Allows use and reuse at least at the levels
specified in the Open Access Spectrum. (e.g.
HTML vs. PDF)
DOAJ Listing Criteria
Open Access Spectrum
DOAJ Seal of Approval
• Use DOIs (digital object identifiers) as permanent article-level identifiers
• Provide article-level metadata to DOAJ
• Have a long-term digital preservation
arrangement in place with an external party
• Embed machine-readable CC copyright information in its articles’ metadata
OASPA Membership
OASPA Censure
Institutional Reassurance
Statement of Support for OA
Collective Agreement
“ We will regard a record of open access publication as evidence of
service to the community in evaluation of applications for faculty
appointments, promotions and grants.”
Visibility
Social Media Sharing
RR Download Stats
Teaching & MOOCs
Altmetrics
Sharing in social media.
Reporting in news outlets.
Prevalence in citation managers.
More Citations
Control over your work.
Reuse Your Work
Professional Websites
Scholarly Networking
I can’t afford to pay to write.
Open Access Author’s Fund
Library pays author’s fee for publication in OA journals.
•Faculty & grad students
•$3000/year
Tri-Agency Support
No Fee OA Journals
OA Journals with APC OA Journals without APC
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
OA Journals 2011
- Laakso and Björk (2012)
No fees Fees
