Understanding ‘Predatory’ Journals and Implications for Guiding Student and Client Information Seeking

Abstract

While library professionals working in academic contexts are likely to have knowledge of ‘predatory’ journals and related implications for guiding student information seeking, school and public library professionals may be less familiar with this phenomenon. This article draws on a broad body of research to explore the factors that enable predatory journals to thrive, some of which arise from inequities in current ‘legitimate’ academic publishing practices. While this article highlights the complexities involved when guiding students and clients to make robust information seeking choices in relation to predatory journals, some key implications for professional practice emerge from the research.

Keywords:

• predatory journal
• source credibility
• school libraries
• academic libraries
• public libraries

Introduction and review of the literature

Library professionals play an important role in building and maintaining adolescent and adult students’ understanding of ethical source evaluation practices as part of the suite of information literacy (IL) skills that they seek to foster. This begins at school, where US students are provided with library-led learning opportunities on how to locate, evaluate, and cite a wide range of electronic and print resources, and the ethical implications of doing so (Lance & Maniotes, 2020; Small et al., 2010). In Australia, it is common for teacher librarians in schools to play a key role in supporting the development of IL skills in staff and students, including provision of instruction in “critical information literacy skills such as evaluating information and sources” (Merga, 2020, p. 895). Similarly in the UK, the majority of roles for school library professionals include the expectation that they facilitate IL, including encouraging “students to be ethical and critical users of information” (Merga, 2021, p. 607). As such, elementary and high school libraries play a key role in building students’ understanding of how to identify credible sources of information and cite them correctly to support assertions.

Learning in this area may continue beyond school in academic and public libraries. High IL related to the evaluation and citation of sources is arguably even more vital for university/college students where accountability for these IL skills is much higher, and university students need strong IL to use information appropriately and ethically (Bernard, 2024). Across a breadth of international contexts, academic and public library professionals play a key role in supporting these students and the general public more broadly to access reliable information, with libraries trusted sources of information (De Paor & Heravi, 2020; Ozor & Toner, 2022). Some academic libraries may even find themselves working with local schools to build these students’ IL (Carlito, 2009). Regardless of the age of the client base, keeping across what constitutes credible sources is an ongoing component of professional development for library professionals (Merga, 2023a).

This role in supporting both child and adult library patrons is made increasingly difficult by the overwhelming volume of online and offline resources available, as well as gaps in an individual’s IL that may persist beyond high school (Burton & Chadwick, 2000). Furthermore, determining what constitutes a credible source is not always easy, despite the multitude of tools that have been produced to support this endeavor (e.g. Illinois State University, 2024). Perhaps the best example of this challenge lies in the fact that even established academics who could be expected to have the highest levels of source evaluation skills can struggle with identifying credible sources. This can be seen in the continued citation of articles that have been retracted due to academic misconduct. Research has found that “retraction of articles has no association on citations in the long term, since the retracted articles continue to be cited, thus circumventing their retraction” (Candal-Pedreira et al., 2020).

Though further research is needed, there may be a tendency for journal articles to be broadly viewed as ‘safe’ sources for students and library clients to draw upon, however the rise of ‘predatory’ journals negates the validity of this premise. The notion of ‘predatory’ publishing was introduced by academic librarian Jeffrey Beall, establishing a contentious “divide between ‘legitimate’ and pseudo publishing practices” (Mertkan et al., 2021, p. 470). Predatory journals can be conceptualized as journals that deprioritise research quality through an absent or marginal peer-reviewing process for fee-paying authors, sometimes also associated with misleading information including fake affiliations and editorial boards (Perlin et al., 2018), and they may lack rigorous methodological standards and ethical approval (Grudniewicz et al., 2019). Solicitation coupled with high fees is also a common part of this model.

Some predatory publishers spam researchers, soliciting manuscripts but failing to mention the required author fee. Later, after the paper is accepted and published, the authors are invoiced for the fees, typically US$1,800. Because the scientists are often asked to sign over their copyright to the work as part of the submission process (against the spirit of open access) they feel unable to withdraw the paper and send it elsewhere. (Beall, 2012, p. 179)

Peer-review means that field experts have deemed that the content of a journal article is reliable and ethically produced, making a fitting contribution to the body of research knowledge. Where a journal article is published in a predatory journal, users of that information cannot have confidence in “quality assurance” commonly associated with the peer-review process (Tennant & Ross-Hellauer, 2020, p. 1), though as explored subsequently in this paper, there are some issues inherent in this premise of quality.

Extreme examples of predatory journal articles meet the criteria for disinformation, in that it can be argued that they have “explicit intent to manipulate or deceive others” (American Psychological Association, 2023, p. 7) through mimicking a peer-reviewed output. This leads readers to “wrongly believe such publications are legitimate scientific journals”, with “9/11 conspiracy theorists” regularly citing “an article in a predatory journal as evidence in support of their views”, with other highly questionable outputs including “a study of ancient Martian management practices” (Pyne, 2017, p. 137). However, it is a mistake to assume that articles in predatory journals will always be so easy to recognize (Walters, 2022).

Beyond academic repercussions, mistaken attribution of credibility to predatory journal articles can have serious implications. For example, if students rely on health information from academic sources of dubious quality masquerading as credible sources, they may be exposed to incorrect or even dangerous health advice that can impact on their wellbeing (Merga, 2023b). While there has been a surge in research on predatory publication in recent times (e.g. Mertkan et al., 2021), these articles are primarily concerned with impacts for academics, rarely considering implications for library-based information professionals’ professional knowledge and instructional practices outside this context. After sharing key insights with Public Libraries South Australia at a recent keynote (Merga, 2023a), and discovering that there was a keen appetite for a research review directed at informing library professionals about the emerging issues relating to predatory journals, the author of this article committed to addressing this gap.

Participation in ignorance?

Research suggest that academic researchers may be “largely unaware of ‘predatory’ journals”, and they may not have robust strategies to identify these journals (Mertkan et al., 2021, p. 476), however it is very difficult to quantify how many researchers are publishing in ignorance given that researchers who published in these outlets may not wish to openly disclose that they did so “with full knowledge of their fraudulent nature” (p. 478).

Claims of ignorance may be legitimate. There is currently no universally accepted list of predatory journals, and historical and current attempts to create and maintain these lists have been highly controversial (Koerber et al., 2020). Furthermore, it is not the case that predatory journals lurk in some corner of the dark web. They are closely intermingled with their more credible counterparts. For example, Google Scholar does not weed out predatory journal articles. Indeed, as noted by Lund and Wang (2020), this research is “pushed into the scholarly arena through indexes like Google Scholar” (p. 35).

Even focussing on building IL will not be sufficient to combat ignorance. This is a difficult task even for established academics: “the worst offenders can usually be discovered without too much effort: their websites are littered with grammatical errors and they list bogus contact details. The borderline cases are more difficult to spot” (Beall, 2012, p. 179). The reality is that many journals defy easy classification, more typically situated across a spectrum rather at extreme ends (Mills & Inouye, 2021, p. 90), and even predatory journals on watchlists still continue to accrue citations, sometimes at relatively high levels. For example, one journal flagged on a well-known watchlist for 11 years is achieving robust citation impact, with 96% of papers cited within six years (Walters, 2022). It is also worth noting that journals that begin with questionable practices may evolve to become more legitimate, highlighting the need that watchlists be revisited to reflect changes in journal status (Walters, 2022).

The pressure to publish

Academics may not want to know that the journal that accepted their research article after multiple rejections elsewhere is actually a predatory journal.

To understand the impetus behind predatory journals, pressures to publish need to be understood. While academic library professionals are likely to be well aware of these, library professionals in public and school libraries maybe less familiar with the interplay of factors implicated, so a brief outline is needed to orient the reader. Internationally, the production of academic knowledge is at record volumes, related to incentive schemes that make publication an imperative for academic researchers (Horta, 2022). It is acknowledged that in competitive contemporary academia, research outputs influence academic job security and promotion (Osterloh & Frey, 2015), and academics face comparison with their peers and the need to meet output quantity and quality benchmarks as key performance indicators (Merga et al., 2020; Mertkan et al., 2022). For example, there has been a notable growth in Brazilian academics’ publication “in journals with questionable practices”, with study authors linking this to “the substantial increase in the local incentives for international publications by governmental agencies” (Perlin et al., 2018, p. 269).

It is essential to consider why some academics choose to publish their work in predatory journals. While this is commonly framed to deter the risk averse academic from gambling with their own scholarly reputation through such actions, in reality this choice is not always due to naivete, and the risk may not be as great as expected. Rather than being harmful, publishing in predatory journals has in some cases been associated with excellent outcomes for academics. One study found that

the majority of faculty with research responsibilities at a small Canadian business school have publications in predatory journals. In terms of financial compensation, these publications produce greater rewards than many non-predatory journal publications. Publications in predatory journals are also positively correlated with receiving internal research awards. (Pyne, 2017, p. 137)

Many universities have no policies to inhibit predatory publication, so choosing to publish in these spaces can offer rewards rather than negative repercussions (Mertkan et al., 2021). This may explain why even very experienced academics choose to publish in predatory journals, “not just once by accident, but many times” (Frandsen, 2022, p. 602). As long as academics continue to be rewarded for choosing predatory journals, these journals are likely to continue to thrive.

In some regions a publication is required for the submission of a research degree (Mills & Inouye, 2021), and inability to publish can lead to postponed graduation for doctoral students and even expulsion from the doctoral programme, placing these students in the position of being “under pressure with no hope to publish elsewhere” due to repeated editorial rejections (Mertkan et al., 2022, p. 607). While these rejections may occur due to research being unsound, there are many far more murky reasons for rejection in peer review, as explored subsequently. Where publication is needed for academic survival, “the turn to ‘international’ open access publishers, which often offer low APCs and rapid publication cycles, is a straightforward way of meeting tenure requirements or bolstering a Curriculum Vitae” (Mills & Inouye, 2021, p. 100), though some of these journals can be viewed as predatory.

Implications for diverse voices

Academics who advocate for the wholesale rejection of predatory journal articles as credible sources often ignore the implications for the marginalization of certain voices within academic spaces. While Beall (2012) notes that “to tackle the problem, scholars must resist the temptation to publish quickly and easily” (p. 179), publication means survival in academia, and the playing field is not even. Research suggests “that journals’ article selection process may have certain biases such as institutional affiliation bias, ideological bias, gender bias, nationality bias, publication bias, newcomer bias, and new idea bias” (Tutuncu et al., 2022, pp. 2547-8).

Not all academics are equally well resourced. Predatory journals can be cheaper to publish in than their more credible counterparts (Mertkan et al., 2021), making them attractive to academics working in low socio-economic contexts. It is also important to note that despite early framing to the contrary, it is certainly not the case that only academics in low socio-economic contexts publish in predatory journals, and motives may overlap in many instances (Mills & Inouye, 2021; Shaghaei et al., 2018).

However, academic publishing is not an equal opportunity space. For example, in some cases, parochialism limits both the real and perceived chances of success for projects undertaken outside the USA (Kurt, 2018; Merga et al., 2018). In recent times there has been increasing scrutiny on issues related to internationality at journals that situate themselves as being international in scope, while accepting comparatively few papers from outside a dominant core of anglophone countries. For example, a study of higher education journals found that in line with previous research,

higher education journals are dominated by research and researchers from several core countries, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Not only does this mean that research from beyond dominant geographic contexts is largely excluded from international research discourse, but this likely extends to limited thematic, methodological, and epistemological possibilities. (Mason et al., 2021, p. 11)

While there is growing awareness of the exclusionary nature of the academic publishing industry (Mills & Inouye, 2021), it is hard to imagine all ‘legitimate’ academic journals actively addressing the issue, as those in a position to lead change are also those benefiting from the current status quo.

While more research is needed, if predatory journals are the only potential outlets for some researchers outside the core, and it is parochialism rather than research quality to blame, simply universally rejecting outputs predatory journals means being complicit in the marginalization of voices from beyond the core. Interestingly, predatory journals understand that low socio-economic contexts are disparaged in the international academic pecking order, which may be why, as noted by Beall (2012), “many purport to be headquartered in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Australia but really hail from Pakistan, India or Nigeria” (p. 179). The issue with this kind of critique of predatory journals is that ignores the influence of these pervasive hierarchies and what it means for academics who live in these regions and seek to publish. While Beall (2012) recognized that “perhaps nowhere are these abuses more acute than in India, where new predatory publishers or journals emerge each week”, and that “they are appearing because of the market need—hundreds of thousands of scientists in India and its neighbouring countries need to get published to earn tenure and promotion”, the deeper issues of exclusion are not touched upon in this early work (p. 179).

An invalid dichotomy?

It can be argued that “treating ‘predatory’ and non-‘predatory’ journals as a clear-cut dichotomy, with distinction between the two easily made, is an important oversimplification which fails to acknowledge the blurry lines between what is ‘predatory’ and what is ‘legitimate’” (Mertkan et al., 2021, p. 471), and this is partly due to issues with peer-review, and the ‘legitimate’ academic publishing system.

It is worth noting that peer review is often subject to harsh critique in academia, where discussion of its value can locate around two opposing poles: “for example, the oft-heard ‘peer review is broken’ rhetoric” which can be juxtaposed with the perception that peer-review is “a ‘golden standard’” (Tennant & Ross-Hellauer, 2020, p. 2), and users of research both within and beyond academia need to understand that peer review might be best understood at this stage as an imperfect process with merits that make it currently superior to any viable alternatives when it comes to ensuring the quality of research.

When peer review fails, as it sometimes spectacularly and publicly does, it can erode public trust in academic research. Peer-review failures have occurred in the most prestigious journals, and indeed, there have been high-profile instances of academics submitting spoof articles seeking to ‘test’ the rigor of peer-review (Mills & Inouye, 2021), or to “enact a kind of reflexive ethnography” to highlight perceived issues with the scholarly rigor of certain fields (see Pluckrose et al., 2021, p. 1917). One of the points of difference distinguishing a predatory journal lies in the contention that “now there is a journal willing to accept almost every article, as long as the author is willing to pay the fee” (Beall, 2012, p. 179). However, even journals that meet high quality indicators make mistakes and accept highly flawed works, so this distinction is not unassailable from a critical perspective. For example

in some cases, suspect publishing practices occur at a journal that does not appear to meet any of the criteria that would mark it as predatory. Thus, for instance, in 2017, a journal called Tumor Biology retracted 107 articles. The journal at that time was indexed in Social Science Citation Index, published by Springer, and was considered a reputable journal by every measure. (Koerber et al., 2020, p. 6)

As long as intense pressures and rewards to publish remain, even the most high impact and high quality journals with have to continually grapple with issues of academic misconduct, and the legitimate academic publishing arena is also far from free of ethical controversies. For example, in 2023, “more than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the ‘greed’ of publishing giant Elsevier”, and with one professor contending that “’Elsevier preys on the academic community, claiming huge profits while adding little value to science.’” (Fazackerley, 2023, para.1-5), evoking similar language to that with which predatory journals are typically framed around predator and prey. It could be contended that the whole system is inherently flawed and predatory on a large scale. Not only are academics not typically paid for their journal articles by publishers, but they may also need to pay article processing costs and open access publication fees. This means that the suggestion that predatory journals are exploitative as a divergence from their counterparts is problematic.

So does the distinction, where it can reliably be applied, still matter? While there have been comments on loaded language in relation to predatory journals, and the issue is particularly sensitive as it seems possible for reputable journals to be mislabeled (e.g. Tang, 2023), toning down the language may lead to a softening in recognition of the stakes where predatory journals allow for publication of harmful content under the guise of science.

When ‘Jane’ turned to alternative medicine, she had already exhausted radiotherapy, chemotherapy and other standard treatments for breast cancer. Her alternative-medicine practitioner shared an article about a therapy involving vitamin infusions. To her and her practitioner, it seemed to be authentic grounds for hope. But when Jane showed the article to her son-in-law (one of the authors of this Comment), he realized it came from a predatory journal—meaning its promise was doubtful and its validity unlikely to have been vetted. (Grudniewicz et al., 2019, p. 210)

While the predatory journals’ ‘legitimate’ counterparts may pass through an occasionally flawed peer review system, to be published in an academic publishing system also plagued by ethical issues, there is a lack of a viable alternative at this stage. It is important that despite the plethora of issues with the dichotomy, the risks of disinformation that can be particularly perpetuated through predatory journals without the (flawed, but still generally valuable) quality assurance of robust peer-review are recognized, and not ignored due to the complexity of the issue.

How to work with students and library clients

First, to discourage students from using predatory journals, they would need to be taught how to identify these journals. How can library professionals and students be expected to succeed where even established academics apparently fail? It is unrealistic to expect school students and undergraduate students to be able to consistently and accurately identify where a journal article seems to lack credibility, and there may be a tendency for students at these levels to unquestioningly accept whatever information is being conveyed where the source appears to be a peer-reviewed journal article. Trust in science across political persuasions is lower than it was before the pandemic (Kennedy & Tyson, 2023), so teaching students to regard every possible source with a high degree of critical skepticism is a dangerous necessity, given that some students with extreme viewpoints can use this rationale to reject the veracity of all scientific findings, including those that are legitimate, in the post-truth worldview.

Despite the complexities briefly touched upon in this article, library professionals need to have pragmatic ways of identifying problematic journal articles to the best of their abilities, both for their own information needs, but also to support their clients and students to do so. While it would perhaps be ideal if a comparative pilot could be undertaken to identify the efficacy of student tools to capture predatory journal articles, it may be highly unrealistic for students to have the time and IL skills to make individual evaluations of the reliability of journal articles, even with the support of such tools. While this research is lacking at this stage, available tools on source credibility in general (such as the CRAAP test, see Illinois State University, 2024) cannot be relied upon to detect predatory journal articles.

The first logical port of call may be seeking a list, though as previously covered, there is no universally accepted list available. Of the available lists, most fall into one of two categories, being a watchlist, aiming “to identify predatory journals or publishers” or a safelist, which seeks “to identify legitimate journals or publishers” (Koerber et al., 2020, p. 2). Analysis of the lists has yielded generally accepted criteria for determining journal inclusion on these lists, relating to “publication practices, false branding, role of authors, and list procedures” (p. 3), however in reality, journals adopting questionable practices in areas such as peer review may not explicitly advertise this, bringing the reliability of these lists into question. Even if library professionals review the available lists and select one that fits their purposes, given the ongoing expansion in journals which may outpace list updates, library professionals will still need strategies for identification that they can apply to individual journals. The reality is that “any attempt to create a list of this nature will be incomplete and out-of-date from the moment it is published”, and it is an unfortunate reality that such lists “place the responsibility on individual people rather than systems” (Koerber et al., 2020, p. 6). Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology may make the development and maintenance of lists more viable in the future, however this application of AI technology has yielded imperfect results to this stage, and it may always require human moderation (Tang, 2023).

In elementary schools and high schools, library professionals may be providing curated lists of research sources to support some research inquiries by students. In these cases, the library professional may be able to check the status of suspect journals in advance to reduce the likelihood of accidental inclusion of predatory journal articles. So how should school, public and academic library professionals decide if journal articles are predatory? Some factors could be indicators, and this information should be gleaned from the journal’s website and emails. However, factors are not usually easy to apply. Here are two examples.

Issue 1: Incorrect or misleading information

A “predatory journal’s website or e-mails often present contradictory statements, fake impact factors, incorrect addresses, misrepresentations of the editorial board, false claims of indexing or membership of associations and misleading claims about the rigor of peer review” (Grudniewicz et al., 2019, p. 211).

Example of an innocent explanation

Composition of the editorial board has changed, but website updates have lagged due to high workload of the responsible parties, leading to incorrect listing of the editorial board.

Example of a major challenge

It may not be possible to identify misleading claims about the rigor of peer review without actually attempting to go through the submission process at the journal, which is not practical.

Some implicated literacy and IL skills needed by library professionals

Ability to recognize contradictory statements. Ability to recognize and cross check impact factors and indexing. Knowledge of what a rigorous peer review process actually involves.

Issue 2: “Deviation from best editorial and publication practices”

“Standards here have been set out in the joint statement on Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (see go.nature.com/35mq7mj), issued by the DOAJ, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, COPE and the World Association of Medical Editors. Examples of substandard practice include not having a retraction policy, requesting a transfer of copyright when publishing an open-access article and not specifying a Creative Commons license in an open-access journal. These characteristics can be difficult to know before submitting, although such information is easily obtained from legitimate journals. An unprofessional-looking web page—with spelling or grammar mistakes or irrelevant text—should also raise red flags.” (Grudniewicz et al., 2019, p. 211-12).

Example of an innocent explanation

The person in charge of maintaining the website may speak English as an additional language or dialect, leading to errors in spelling and grammar.

Example of a major challenge

New journals will face issues given that “journals are not eligible for listing on the DOAJ or joining COPE until after one year of operation” (p. 212).

Some implicated literacy and IL skills needed by library professionals

Ability to locate, access and interpret standards-related documents.

Conclusions

Responsibility for identifying and ethically dealing with predatory journals falls completely on information users of all ages and their professional supports, such as library professionals, rather than the academic publishing system. Students need to know that predatory journals exist, and school, public and academic library professionals should provide information about what identifying features could be, without asserting that these are infallible. One commentator has suggested that “the moral panic evident in the academic literature heralding the doom of academic publishing because of the rise of predatory journals is misplaced”, given that “traditional journals routinely demonstrate the poor practices that are held up as damning in predatory publishers” (Houghton, 2022, p. 236). Learning about predatory journals needs to sit within a broader suite of IL skills, where all sources need to be open to critical evaluation. However, the author recognizes the damage in trust in science that this viewpoint can engender, so it is important that rather than adopting an ‘all evidence is potentially wrong’ orientation, students and clients can be encouraged to view information sources as sitting along a spectrum, of ‘most likely’ to ‘least likely’ to be reliable according to the best available current information (which changes over time) (Merga, 2023a).

While students should be encouraged to privilege articles from journals that bear the hallmarks of legitimacy, even high-quality IL education will not guarantee that even the brightest students and clients can make this assessment with perfect accuracy, given that even PhD holding academics struggle with this skillset. School, public, and academic library professionals should play a key role in both supporting this identification process and teaching this skillset, working with students and clients to arrive at a ‘most likely’ assessment.

At this stage, academics, students and the public will not necessarily face any negative repercussions for using predatory content, as explored earlier in this article, but if such repercussions could be foreseeable in certain current applications, or if they emerge in time, a written record (ideally associated with a time stamp, such as through an email) of the efforts that students/clients and their supporting library professional have made during this diagnostic process could be retained to show that where a source has been queried as a possible risk and then cleared, a process of inquiry was undertaken to reach this conclusion. Of course, applying this evaluation to every source in an output such as an academic thesis can involve a massive time commitment, so only suspect sources should be subject to this degree of scrutiny for this undertaking to be at all realistic.

There also remains the niggling issue in the cases of positive identification of whether students should be discouraged from using predatory journal articles as information sources as a rule with no exceptions, given the issue of marginal voices raised in this paper. Students and clients may need to work closely with information professionals to acknowledge, where permissible, that while there may be identified issues with the veracity of a source, it is being used with qualification as offering key potential insights from marginalized geographic and cultural groups that might not otherwise be accessible. It is not reasonable to use the material as one would use non-peer-reviewed sources such as grey literature, as the predatory nature of a journal should be acknowledged if confirmed; it will be interesting to see if citation styles evolve to allow for this kind of qualification to be added as a new kind of text type, to be cited as such with unique rules. Simply ruling out the inclusion of all predatory journals articles as a blanket policy without considering the related equity issues may be potentially problematic, particularly given the issues of inequities in publication are well-entrenched, however the power of predatory journal in spreading disinformation (such as in the health-related examples in this paper) to cause incalculable harm means that great care and qualification needs to be applied in their use, particularly given that their citation can prop up their legitimacy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).