Abstract
Predatory publishing is a term coined by Jeffery Beall, 1 a librarian and researcher at the University of Colorado, Denver. This term described publishers who exploit and abuse the open access publishing model where authors pay for their publication. It is a growing industry as academic staff strive to meet performance indicators for positive appraisals, promotions and pressures for publications. A quick poll within Singhealth’s specialists revealed that most of the consultants and senior consultants received an average of one to two emails per week from publishers inviting them to submit their articles for publication or to serve on the editorial board. While some of these invitations are genuine, the vast majority are from this thriving business that has grown from a handful in the early 2000s to more than 8000 active journals currently. In this editorial, we will attempt to present the evidences that predatory publishing is real, discuss its mode of operation and caution about the perils faced by authors when their articles are submitted to these publishers.
By the start of this century, many academics were receiving unsolicited emails requesting submission of their original works to a particular journal for evaluation with a view to publication. At face value, this is not different from legitimate journals making contact with a well-known academic whose area of interest or expertise is in sync with the theme of the particular volume. Such invitations are well-searched by the editor, with only one email being sent to one particular researcher. Hence, when Jeffery Beall from the University of Colorado, Denver, received multiple emails with such requests, he searched further and realised that not only were these requests from relatively unknown journals, there was actually an unscrupulous business model that drives such requests. In 2010, Beall published his first list of ‘potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers’. 2 Two years later, he published his criteria for evaluating the journals. There were a couple more publications by him on this topic but Beall removed the list of probable predatory publishers from his blog site in January 2017. 3 There were many criticisms of Beall’s articles, including biased evaluation criteria and lack of direct engagement with the publishers to better understand their processes before placing a judgement. In addition to strong responses from the listed publishers, there were threats of lawsuits,4–6 going into billions, leading to the closing of Beall’s blog and the withdrawal of Beall’s list. 7
There were two other experiments that supported the evidence of predatory publishing. In 2013, John Bohannon submitted an article which was deliberately flawed in many areas to a number of open access journals. The article was accepted by more than 50% of these journals. 8 This was termed ‘the Bohannon experiment’. Another experiment was conducted in 2015 on applications for jobs as a journal editor. Four researchers created a fictitious character, Anna O Szust (‘oszus’ is the Polish word for ‘fraud’), with credentials that were way below par as both a scientist and a potential editor. 9 Applications were made to 360 journals, of which 120 were from Beall’s list. Of these 120 journals, 40 accepted ‘Anna’s’ application without references or verification. In fact, some of the responses were received within hours or days. In comparison, those journals not on Beall’s list made minimal or no response. This experiment resulted in a few journals being purged from the Directory of Open Access Journals.
There have been many other publications on this phenomenon in the last decade, with multiple lists being generated based on various criteria. This resulted in a flurry of activity around this topic, with journals writing in to refute claims and appeal to be taken off the lists. Some lists can only be accessed by subscription, which in itself created a business of its own. Despite all the debates and discussion in academic circles, there is enough evidence to show that predatory publishing exists and is a thriving business in the academic world. Before we get overly excited about being invited to submit an article, we should take a second look at the source of the invitation. The following are characteristics of predatory publishers.
1. The rapid acceptance of articles without a proper process of peer review. 10
2. Poor quality control of articles published, including false and deeply flawed articles.
3. Stating a fee for publication only after accepting the article for publication. 10
4. Aggressive canvassing of academics to submit their works to journals or serve on their editorial boards. 11
5. Publishing fake information of well-known academics as members of their editorial boards.
6. Not allowing board members to resign from their boards. 12
7. Using websites with similar ‘look and feel’ to those of well-respected journals.
8. Mis-information on the details of their operation. For example, the office may be operating from Asia but registered to an address in North America. 13
9. The improper use of ISSN. 12
10. The wrong declaration of impact factor. 12
With all these issues and evidences, Singhealth should, as an organisation, have a system-wide approach to recognition of our staff in the academic arena for scholarly activities.
Singhealth has clear criteria for promotion of our clinicians and having some published work is one of them. These criteria are made known to all our clinicians and are transparent to all. It is indeed a fine balance to strike in setting the bar for recognition of publications such that most clinicians who have an academic mind set and contribute to research in their respective department will be duly recognised. As stated by our Group CMB, Prof Terrance Chua: ‘Just as we value those who teach and do research, we continue to deeply treasure clinicians who do mainly clinical work, as treating our patients is still very much our core focus in academic centres’. As a healthcare cluster anchored on academic medicine, we must ensure that our senior clinicians exhibit the very nature of academic medicine. This means that on top of practising evidence-based medicine, we provide evidences to shape the future practice. With the flourishing of predatory publishing, I do see a need for Singhealth’s senior management to look into other measures to track scholarly activities and review some of the current acceptance criteria of published articles to meet the criteria for promotions.
There is certainly a palpable pressure to publish in an academic organisation. 14 This pressure is not peculiar to Singhealth and this pressure should be part of any good, thriving academic medicine centre. In addition to consideration for promotions, the number of publications, citations and impact factor are important measurements for appraisal assessments and academic appointments. With the issue of predatory publishing, criteria such as number of publications, total impact factor and citations, which are so often used for academic appointments, take on a separate meaning. Every publication will need to be scrutinised. This is akin to obtaining source verification for every one of the more than 100 publications needed for a significant academic appointment.
Predatory publishing also poses significant risk to the submitting authors themselves. Many authors have their manuscripts held for a prolonged duration from acceptance to publication. When their findings are finally published, other articles on a similar subject could have been published ahead. This will have a negative effect on the impact and citation of the article. It is known that predatory publishers will not return the article once it has been submitted and accepted. Authors are also charged exorbitant prices for publication and reprints. The reprints are not optional and have to be purchased as a condition for publication. These charges were often told to the authors after the article had been accepted for publication. 13 This is akin to paying a ransom for your article to be known in the academic arena.
Our response to predatory publishing can be addressed at two levels. At the individual level, we must not subscribe to the business model of these publishers and refrain from submitting articles to such journals. If we are unfortunate enough to have our works held to ransom, we should not yield to the exorbitant publishing prices as that will perpetuate the business. The approach should be similar to the trading of parts of endangered animals, where the cruel act of poaching will stop once there is no demand for the product. At the organisation level, we need to recognise publications only from authentic and legitimate sources. By not recognising publications from predatory publishers, we will send a clear message to our academicians about our stand on this trade. Similarly, we should also moderate the pressures on our staff such that they will not resort to subscribing to predatory publishers to advance their career in Singhealth. As such, we would have managed the pressures, the issues on promotions and the potential perils faced by our clinicians in the light of predatory publishing.