CIMUS hosts the talk entitled ‘Don’t fall prey to predatory journals’

CIMUS, one of the centres whose research quality and impact has been accredited by the Galician Autonomous Government (Xunta de Galicia) with the CIGUS seal,has organised a talk that seeks to explore whether science is also a potential victim of fraud, and the existence of pseudo-scientific publications that endorse fake articles that lack empirical evidence or are of poor quality.

Cristina Candal, a researcher in Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Santiago de Compostela, will offer a talk entitled ‘Don’t fall prey to predatory journals’, in which she addresses the focal point of her doctoral thesis, namely scientific misconduct She will speak at the CiMUS as a guest of the group led by Pablo Aguiar, Molecular Imaging BIomarkers and Pharmacokinetic Modelling and will cover topics such as how to detect these types of journal and how to avoid them, as well as giving tips on how to ensure scientific integrity.

A photo-fit image of predatory journals and the most threatened areas

As researcher Cristina Candal explains, it is not always easy to detect this type of journal merely from their “appearance”. She describes them as “adopting a business model based on the publication of scientific texts in Open Access, without providing the quality guarantees required of standard scientific journals”. Predatory journals prioritise their own benefit over the standard of the articles they publish. Indeed, they are characterised by dubious editorial practices, a lack of transparency, requests for scientific articles sent to authors via email and the absence of a rigorous peer review process. In general, they are difficult to identify because they can pass themselves off as legitimate journals. “Some have even managed to be indexed in well-known and widely used scientific databases such as Pubmed,” claims Candal.

STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are the most susceptible to falling prey to such practices. The field of medicine is being particularly impacted. However, they have also been identified in other areas of knowledge, such as economics. “This type of journal probably exists in practically all fields of knowledge, taking advantage of the Open Access movement,” adds the USC researcher.

Malpractice and how to correct it

Predatory journals are directly related to Open Access publishing, and therefore many people fail to differentiate between the two. This poses a problem for the Open Access movement and Open Access journals that, in the opinion of some researchers, are suspect simply because they are Open Access. “It must be remembered that the fact that a journal is Open Access does not mean that it is predatory or that it is of lower quality than journals that publish under a subscription model”, clarifies Cristina Candal.

There are various tools and checklists that enable researchers to detect whether a journal is trustworthy or not. While it is true that none of the tools currently available can unequivocally identify a predatory journal, they can provide clues on which decisions can be taken about where to publish. One of the most widely used is probably Think.Check.Submit, which is highly intuitive and is also available in several languages.

There are several ways of ensuring that an Open Access journal is legitimate and therefore not predatory. One quick and simple way is to check if the journal is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), since inclusion on this database requires meeting certain criteria, such as carrying out rigorous quality controls on the articles published.

Science is falling victim to fraudulent practices, not only by predatory journals, but also by the so-called paper mills. “A new type of scam that threatens the integrity of science. “New forms of fraud are likely to continue to emerge as scientific publishing advances, and paper mills are just one example,” states the researcher in Epidemiology and Public Health. There is therefore a need to improve education in scientific integrity, especially in health sciences undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as to change the assessment system for researchers, in order to prevent new forms of scientific publication fraud from emerging. “Mechanisms must also be put in place to deal with scientific misconduct and to impose sanctions, where necessary, for researchers who engage in such practices,” the expert concludes.