De-naturalizing the “predatory”: A study of “bogus” publications at public sector universities in Pakistan

Figures & data

Table 1. Description of HEC journals’ each category.

Level	Description
“W”	Indexation with well-reputed international databases preferably web of science and Scopus. Must have citation information from diverse sources including Impact Factor, Source Normalized impact per paper, Eigen Factor, SCImago Journal Rank, and Impact per paper. Should have required Weighted Average Score on all the above parameters on thresholds fixed for each scientific area calculated through an IT based system.
“X”	Published articles should be peer-reviewed by well-reputed international experts in relevant field Indexing/abstracting with at least one recognized abstracting agency of HEC with some additional quality criteria At minimum: 1/4^th of the published articles should international authorship No self-institutional publications allowed Articles processing through open journal management system (OJS) or similar journal management system
“Y”	An academic editorial board (or equivalent) comprising of members with PhD degrees in relevant fields (i.e., area of publication) and strong research and publications background Publications by editor or members of editorial team not allowed Self-institutional authorship shall not exceed 1/5^th of total articles

(Source: https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/journals/Documents/Policies/Notification.pdf).

Table 2. Corpus of the research articles.

Field of Study	Number of Professors	Number of Articles
Linguistics	5	85
English Literature	5	41
Sociology	5	57
Anthropology	5	44
Political Science	5	34
Economics	5	30
International Relations	5	76
Public Administration	5	39
Gender Studies	5	57
Psychology	5	32
Total	50	495

Table 3. HEC recognized and predatory publications.

Total articles (f)	Recognized in HJRS (f)		Predatory Publications (f)
495	W	19	National	157
	X	9	International	188
	Y	122
	Total	150	Total	345

Table 4. Field-wise recognized and predatory publications.

Name of the field	Recognized Articles (f)			Not recognized (f)
	“W”	“X”	“Y”
International Relations	5	0	35	36
Gender Studies	1	1	16	39
Sociology	1	4	6	46
English literature	3	0	11	27
Anthropology	2	1	4	37
Political Science	0	0	10	24
Economics	0	0	5	25
Linguistics	4	3	22	56
Public Administration	1	0	7	31
Psychology	2	0	6	24
Total	19	9	122	345

Figure 1. Field-wise predatory publications.