From the Editor—Predatory Journals in Social Work

As social work educators, we strive to instill in our students a commitment to lifelong learning, including keeping up with the research literature. As someone who has dedicated much of her pedagogical energies to teaching students the evidence-based practice process, I want students to know how to critically appraise the literature that they read and to keep up with new developments after graduation. Unfortunately, most graduates of social work educational programs, including some from our doctoral programs, will not maintain access to research libraries into their careers. Absent access to research libraries, keeping abreast of the content in peer-reviewed journals is beyond the reach of many of our graduates. To my thinking, then, open-access publication, by which publications are freely available to the public, holds considerable promise for making peer-reviewed, high quality research available to assist social workers in the evidence-based practice process.

Unfortunately, for all its promise, the world of open-access publishing has been infiltrated by some shady entities. A few weeks ago, my dean forwarded an invitation to all faculty to submit their research to a journal with which I was not familiar. The submission deadline was tight; about two weeks away. But the journal would be published within a month! Something seemed fishy to me. I looked carefully at who sent the email and saw that it came from a gmail address. I looked up the journal editor and found someone I’d not heard of in social work publishing circles and who was affiliated with a university I did not know had a social work program. I looked at his faculty page, which did not list his editorial duties for this particular journal but did list other journals. Looking at a recent issue of the journal, I noticed that the exact same 4-page paper was published twice in the same issue. Finally, I looked up the publisher of the journal on the Beall’s list of predatory journals and publishers (Anonymous, n.d.) and had my worst suspicions confirmed. The publisher of this (and close to 60 other journals) was listed as a “predatory publisher.”

I followed up with a “reply-all” to indicate what I had learned about the journal in the dean’s email and to warn my colleagues to be cautious. Predatory publishers are sometimes known to aggressively email faculty. I’d heard stories of editors-in-chief denying affiliation with the journals for which they’d been listed on the masthead. I’d read about authors having their papers accepted, submitting the very reasonable article publication costs for open-access, and never seeing their paper in print. In 2004, David Mazières and Eddie Kohler had a profanely titled paper accepted by a journal, but refusing to pay the article publication fees, the paper was not published (Stromberg, 2014). To reinforce my suspicions, I received an email within the next few days inviting me to submit my research to this same journal, this time from someone named Jimmy Kimmel at a gmail address. Who wouldn’t open an email from Jimmy Kimmel?

Some faculty asked how I knew the journal in question was predatory, and I related the steps I’d taken before replying to all. One of the most important steps was one I had neglected: Does the journal publisher appear on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) list (https://publicationethics.org/members)? I referred them to a paper online by University of Colorado Librarian Jeffrey Beall (Beall, 2015) which lists criteria for determining predatory open-access publishers. I referred one still-skeptical colleague to a recent scoping review (Cobey et al., 2018), which identifies the characteristics of predatory journals and predatory publishers including: deceptive or non-transparent journal operations; aggressive, targeted communications to potential authors; and unethical or unprofessional publication practices.

Why is publishing with a predatory publisher not a good thing? After all, the pressure is on for many of us to get our papers into print, get them cited, and build our h-factors so that we can get tenured, get promoted, and get a raise. Publishing in a predatory journal can be detrimental to social work scholarship and to your career. Predatory journals are not transparent about the peer-review process, and it is not clear that papers submitted to these journals receive careful reviews, as indicated by the Mazières and Kohler accepted but withdrawn paper (Stromberg, 2014). There are unprecedented volumes of papers being published in social work journals which are difficult enough to keep up with; social work does not benefit from having poorly reviewed research be freely available to the public and to other social work scholars. Once a social work scholar is up for tenure or promotion, having their name associated with one of these journals may actually be detrimental.

Despite the infiltration of unscrupulous entities, I am still a proponent of both open science and open-access publishing. I believe that it can be very useful for social work scholars to publish their work on an open-access basis. When research is available without a subscription, it is more probably likely to be read by consumers of research. It is also more likely to be cited in other publications and to influence practice and policy. Most publishers, including Taylor & Francis, the publisher of Journal of Social Work Education, provide an open-access option for authors whose articles have been accepted. I have published on an open-access basis and have learned to include article publication fees in budgets for grant requests.

How can you be sure you are submitting your research to a reputable journal? As mentioned earlier, see if the publisher is listed on COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics, n.d.). Check the Beall’s list and updates (Anonymous, n.d.) to see if the publisher or journal title are listed, instead, as predatory. Finally, check the ThinkCheckSubmit web site (Think. Check. Submit. Committee, 2019) for a handy flow-chart and other guidance to help you decide before you submit your manuscript. And remember, if you are writing about concepts, innovations, or empirical research that has important implications for social work education in the United States, please consider submitting to Journal of Social Work Education!

In this issue

Volume 55, issue 2 of JSWE offers a collection of conceptual essays, survey studies, empirical evaluations of teaching innovations, and a number of teaching notes. Our first conceptual essay, by Beadlescomb (“BSW Students of Color: Principle Factors Influencing Intent to Persist Through Completion of Degree”), uses the lens of empowerment theory to offer a framework to understand BSW student persistence and offers theory-based implications for social work program activities such as academic advising and field practicum. A second essay in this issue, by Krings, Fusaro, Nicoll, and Lee (“Social Work, Politics, and Social Policy Education: Applying a Multidimensional Framework of Power”), calls on social work educators to prepare social work students to engage in political advocacy by addressing party polarization and racially-biased attitudes that impinge on social workers’ ability to influence social policy.

There are five survey-based articles that gather data about various dimensions of social work education and suggest new or altered approaches to curriculum. Mapp and Gatenio Gabel (“Educating Students on International Social Work Issues in U.S. Social Work Programs: How Is It Done?”) surveyed BSW and MSW program directors to learn more about how social work education is preparing students to practice in a global environment. They learned that programs cite multiple goals for introducing international perspectives, use a wide variety of implicit and explicit curriculum strategies, and use institutional supports beyond the program. The authors offer a number of suggestions for how social work education can do more to implement this curriculum standard. Werman, Adlparvar, Horowitz, and Hasegawa (“Difficult Conversations in a School of Social Work: Exploring Student and Faculty Perceptions”) examine MSW student and faculty perceptions of classroom conversations about “isms,” power and privilege and found that students perceived these conversations more negatively than did faculty. Respondents expressed willingness to participate in further education toward fluency in these difficult but necessary conversations, and the authors suggest possible future directions. Funge, Sullivan, Owens, and Harper (“Branch Campuses: Extending the Reach of Social Work Education”) surveyed faculty teaching in branch campuses about curriculum implementation, workload, and relationships with main campuses and offer practical implications for branch program development and implementation. Vassos, Harms, and Rose (“Exploring Rotation Placements for Social Work: A Focus on Student and Supervisor Experiences”) explore using rotation placements as a strategy to increase capacity in field education. The authors surveyed MSW students and field instructors in five Australian hospitals using such placements and found mixed results, but common themes that can inform rotation placement development in other settings. Finally, Lee and colleagues (“Technology-Enhanced Active Learning Classrooms: New Directions for Social Work Education”) surveyed 125 social work students in macro- and micro-focused courses using technology-enhanced active learning strategies. Students, more so in micro than in macro courses, reported positive learning experiences and teaching effectiveness, as well as increased active participation and skills acquisition, and the authors suggest that the teaching methods used in these classes might help develop real-world skills for social work students.

There are seven articles in this issue using a variety of strategies to present and evaluate the implementation of innovations in social work education. Katz, Elsaesser, Klodnik, and Khare (“Mentoring Matters: An Innovative Approach to Infusing Mentorship in a Social Work Doctoral Program”) use a case-study approach to describe three doctoral student-led initiatives to infuse mentorship throughout their program and discuss implications for other social work doctoral programs. Richards-Schuster, Ruffolo, and Hiltz (“Innovating Practices to Prepare Students for Graduate School: Lessons From a Social Work MOOC”) used implementation science as a framework for implementing a Massive Open Online Course piloted to a large incoming cohort of MSW students and intended to prepare students for graduate school. The authors discuss lessons learned from this implementation, including resource allocation, organizational buy-in, and student experiences, and suggest that programs considering MOOCs should conduct a cost-benefit analysis. Davis, Harris, Englebrecht, and Lum (“Teaching International Social Work in a Global Classroom”) used qualitative methods to evaluate the experiences of students from five countries participating in one online global classroom. Authors found that student interactions with international classmates resulted in rich, authentic learning, transformative learning experiences, and a beginning sense of social work in a global context. Koh and Boisen (“The Use-of-Selves Interdependent Model: A Pedagogical Model for Reflective Practice”) used qualitative analysis of student essay assignments in concentration-year integrative field seminars to explore the Use-of-Selves Interdependent Model. Wagaman, Odera, and Fraser (“A Pedagogical Model for Teaching Racial Justice in Social Work Education”) used pre- and post-tests to evaluate a student orientation program developed by social work students and faculty and intended to promote racial justice. Munoz, C. Miller, Fritz, P. Miller, and Khojasteh (“A Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment Collaborative: Impact for Social Work Students”) also used pre- and post-tests to examine the impact of a Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) training for BSW and MSW students and found robust gains in objective knowledge and attitudes for both groups of students. And finally, Coohey and Cummings (“Evaluation of an Online Group Intervention to Improve Test-Taking Self-Efficacy and Reduce Licensure Test Anxiety”) used a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the efficacy of a synchronous online group intervention in reducing test anxiety about licensing exams.

This issue of JSWE wraps up with four teaching notes. Cronley, Black, and Killian (“Preparing Doctoral Students to Confront the Grand Challenges: Strengthening Baseline Statistical Skills”) describe a seminar intended to provide a common foundation in core statistical concepts among entering social work PhD students and suggest that this type of seminar might enable doctoral programs to begin with more advanced quantitative coursework. Nadan (“The Ethnographic Interview as a Method in Multicultural Social Work Education”) describes an assignment in a diversity course in which students conduct and analyze an ethnographic interview with a person from an unfamiliar group. As a follow up to these interviews, students write a reflective assignment focusing on the way their image of the “other” is socially constructed and affects power relations. Counselman-Carpenter (“MSW Student Perceptions of Learning Advanced Clinical Practice Skills Through the Flipped Classroom”) describes the steps involved in developing and negotiating the challenges of a “flipped” course and discusses student feedback on the experiential learning environment, issues of instructor workload and preparation, and implications for future implementation. Finally, Greene, Mullins, Cherry, and Baggett (“BSW Students’ Experiences With an MBSR Assignment and the Five Facets of Mindfulness”) describe the implementation of an elective self-care course for BSW students in which the primary assignment for the course is completion of an online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course. The authors used mixed methods to examine the effects of this assignment on mindfulness and their subjective experiences.