Academic Librarians and Their Role in Disseminating Accurate Knowledge and Information about the Gray Zone in Predatory Publishing

Abstract

“Predatory” publishing is a non-binary academic phenomenon, but personal and professional biases may influence the criteria used to create associated blacklists and whitelists. Academic librarians, as scholarly communicators, play an essential role in transmitting accurate information about “predatory” publishing to students, staff, funders, university management and the public. In this paper, lessons are drawn from the published literature to offer advice to academic librarians about the grey zone in predatory publishing to avoid select misinformation pitfalls. Academic librarians need to recognise the flaws and weaknesses of blacklists and of the criteria used to establish them. By offering accurate insight and advice, academic librarians can establish an effective online warning system to users about “predatory” publishing, allowing them to be more effective scholarly communicators, and not vessels of miscommunication. Academic librarians are essential in aiding the academic community to find solutions to this threat to the literature’s integrity.

Keywords:

• Academic and scholarly communication
• academic librarians
• black-
• grey-
• and whitelists
• false positives and negatives
• false discovery rate
• misinformation
• open access
• quality

Acknowledgement

The author thanks the discussion and advice offered by Dr. Yuki Yamada (Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan). The author also thanks the excellent suggestions and guidance offered by several anonymous reviewers.

Authorship

The author contributed to all aspects of the ideas, writing, development and editing of the paper, all drafts and takes responsibility for its content.

Funding

No funding was received for this research.

Conflicts of interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 Note to readers: https://blog.cabells.com/2020/06/08/announcement/: “Customer access will function identically as before the changes, but look for the term “Journalytics” in place of “whitelist” and “Predatory Reports” in place of “blacklist.”” (June 8, 2020; last accessed: December 11, 2021)

2 https://www.springer.com/journal/12109/submission-guidelines#Instructions%20for%20Authors_Manuscript%20Submission (last accessed: December 11, 2021)

3 Examples: https://predatoryjournals.com/; https://beallslist.net/; https://www.researchgate.net/post/List_of_Predatory_Journals_2019; https://predatory-publishing.com/info/

4 https://web.archive.org/web/20201130134954/https://www.professeur-alexandre-georges.info/dolos-list (last accessed: December 11, 2021)

5 Compare the current website (https://kib.ki.se/en/publish-analyse/strategic-publishing#header-1) with the archived website from February 2021 (https://web.archive.org/web/20210219143432/https://kib.ki.se/en/publish-analyse/strategic-publishing) (last accessed: December 11, 2021)