Predatory Publications

Abstract

The most recognized route for authors to get their articles disseminated is through journals, which are then subscribed to by individuals and/or organizations who pay for these subscriptions. These subscriptions cover the cost of reviewing, editing, publishing, and archiving articles. Once a manuscript is accepted and published, authors usually give copyright ownership for their work to the publisher. Shortly after publishers moved to electronic formats and access, the era of “open access” journals began. Although there are different models of open access, the basic model, which allows anyone to read, download, and print articles freely, uses a different method to finance publication of articles. Rather than subscription based, authors pay for the cost of the publishers reviewing, editing, publishing, and archiving their manuscripts—which is practiced by both scholarly and predatory publishers. The primary purpose of scholarly publishing is to advance science, technology, and medicine; the purpose of predatory publishers is less ethical and more monetarily driven. Although knowledge of predatory practices is growing, many authors are unfamiliar with this, do not realize the consequences, and do not know how to recognize a predatory publisher. This has consequences to them professionally but, within health care, also has negative consequences to research, practice, and patient care. This article will briefly cover what the major differences between scholarly and predatory publications are, what impact they could have, and how to identify them for both researchers and authors.