The guide to form an opinion about predatory open access journals and publishers was published a couple of weeks ago in Swedish and now it has been translated into English.
It is important always to check the journal you choose to publish in so that you do not choose a journal which is missing all the scientific criteria for accepting, reviewing and publishing scientific articles. New predatory journals are born every week and they have new ways to seem more serious and to get citations. These journals charge article processing charge (APC) to publish your article. The APC will not be as high as for Springer or other well-known publishers but they will not work with your article: it will not go through a review process; it will not be edited etc.
The latest way in trying to up the journals impact factor is to buy citations. Some publishers have started to send thank-you e-mails to those who have cited articles from their journals in other publishers’ journals. In these e-mails they say they will not charge you APC if you ever want to publish in one of their journal with the condition that you continue to cite their articles. The aim with this is to increase the number of citations so that the journal’s impact factor will increase. This kind of play with impact factor is unethical and something serious science should not be a part of. Read more of this and other topics on predatory publishers in Jeffery Beall’s blog.
You will find the guide below.
Open Acccess and predatory publishers – the guide
First published in Biblioteksbloggen 2012-10-24
By: Pieta Eklund