Library Guides: Predatory Publishing: Predatory Practices

Predatory Practices

Lack of meaningful peer review Academic Research Publishers state, "Peer review. We use double-blind system for peer-review; both reviewers and authors’ identities remain anonymous. The paper will be peer-reviewed by three experts; one is an editorial staff and the other two are external reviewers. The review process may take 1-2 weeks". That is NOT sufficient time for the publisher to recruit 3 peer reviewers, for the reviewers to read and review an article, and for the reviewers to submit a review analysis.
Lack of long term article preservation The American Research Journal of Genetics has only 1 volume listed that contains 2 articles. They do not even state the date this volume was published.
Lack of credibility American Research Publications lists a wide variety of publications. They are too varied in scope. Also, they indicate that they are from the US, but their English on this page looks like it went through a translation program.
Misrepresent editorial board members This article, published by Nature (2017), describes a sting operation. The researchers created a persona who then requests to be on the editorial board of 360 journals. Predatory journals were more likely to accept the fake persona onto their boards.
Misrepresent impact factors The International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR) reports impact factors for its journals. Clicking on these links takes you to the Index Copernicus website (real evaluator) but if you take the extra time to input the journals' names into the search bar, none of them are cataloged by Index Copernicus.
Misrepresent relationship with credible organizations The American Journal of Science and Medical Research (AJSMR) indicates that it is "an official journal of AIRA" , the Advaita Innovative Research Association which appears to be a fake organization and their website shows only "honorary members" and a conference with a nonexistent brochure.
Misrepresent indexing sites The American Research Journal of Public Health indicates that they are indexed by 12 different indexing groups, none of which confirm the indexing.