Predatory Publishing: What Authors Need to Know

The low cost of online journal publishing has brought unscrupulous publishers new opportunities to exploit unsuspecting authors. In August 2014, at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE) in Portland, Maine, editors of nursing journals agreed that it was important to raise awareness about this phenomenonin our constituent communities. In support of this effort, this editorial is an adaptation of a statement written by the INANE Predatory Publishing Practices Collaborative. Open-access publishing has the praiseworthy goal of enabling free online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research by shifting the costs of access from subscribers to authors. When a paper is accepted, the author pays a publication fee to cover the costs of making journal content freely available online. The author fee for open-access publishing can be as much as US $5000. While self-funded authors are likely to find the fees burdensome, funded researchers commonly include open-access publication costs in their grant budgets. Open access does not mean low quality. The PLoS journal group, the BioMed Central group, and other highly-ranked open-access journals apply rigorous peer review practices and standards of scholarly excellence that enable continued development of a strong evidence base for disciplines such as nursing. Some longstanding publications, including this one, offer authors both traditional and open-access options. When a paper is accepted for RINAH, the author has the option to pay a fee to enable immediate worldwide access to that article, or the author may choose traditional publishing without an author charge, which restricts access to journal subscribers only. (There are exceptions to this restriction, including required posting of the manuscript form of NIH-funded articles on the open access site PubMed Central, and the agreement by many publishers to make journal content freely available in the developing world.) Some journals also offer delayed open access to specific types of articles. While rigorously-managed open-access journals are a great boon to readers worldwide, open-access publishing has significantly altered the financial model of journal publishing. Journal owners historically relied entirely on subscriptions, content licenses, reprint fees, and advertisements as their revenue base, but open-access publishing typically is funded by author fees. The potential for this revenue and the relative ease of digital publishing have enabled the emergence of new online publishers offering a myriad of new journals, all competing for authors and their money. The window of commercial opportunity has been flung wide open and perhaps thrown off its hinges. Across academic fields, professional disciplines, and geographic regions, a new species of publisher is emerging whose practices reflect questionable editorial and publishing quality. With profit as the driving force, these "predatory publishers" (Beall, ) engage in a range of disturbingly unethical and unscholarly practices with the goal of attracting author fees, offering little in return. Beall has been monitoring these developments and sharing updates in a web log entitled Scholarly Open Access (www.scholarlyOA.com), where many of the examples cited here can be found. Predatory publishers are adept at creating the impression of scholarly trustworthiness. Authors can be easily deceived when an invitation to submit or guest edit comes from a journal whose title and font or logo closely resembles a highly respected publication. A recent example is Biomed Research, a large group of newly-minted journals easily mistaken for Biomed Central (Beall, ; September 11). In another example of falsification, a fabricated impact factor for the suspect journal European Academic Research was said to come from a non-existent metrics source (Beall, ; October 30). Some upstart journals advertise fabricated editorial boards, using well-known names on journal mastheads or as honorary editors without the knowledge or consent of those scholars. The goal of such creative strategies is always the appearance of authenticity, luring unwary authors who presume credibility. Senior scholars may be deceived by these appearances and agree to serve as guest editors, which typically involves inviting one's colleagues to submit papers for rapid acceptance in a special issue—for a fee. Publishers may establish corporate homes in countries that afford protection from legal repercussions of copyright violation. Predatory publishers make promises of rapid review and acceptance for publication, which are enabled by minimal to non-existent review processes. The named journal editor may be an employee with no qualifications in the field who may fill the editor role for a suite of suspect journals in a wide range of disciplines. To enable rapid acceptance and collection of fees, these individuals may review submissions single-handedly or rely on a single employee "peer" to approve the manuscript as publishable. The result is a "review process" unfettered by actual expert critique. This practice may be evident in the eventual published document, in which the listed dates of submission and acceptance are only a few days apart. But those articles may not remain in the permanent record. Journal webpages may disappear, along with the articles previously posted there, presumably to avoid closer inspection and possible legal action. The focus of predatory journals is on attracting authors, who are the primary source of revenue, and deception is common. Skillful flattery, impressive-sounding journal titles, and promised rapid review with likely acceptance can obscure potential risk, especially for a striving academic whose promotion or tenure deadline is looming. Predatory publishers commonly send flattering individualized e-mail solicitations, praising a would-be author's accomplishments and inviting submission of manuscripts with a rapid review and high likelihood of acceptance, without disclosing initially that a fee will be charged. Inexperienced authors may fall prey to these enticements. Two of my colleagues have been misled by such offers; when fees were levied, they withdrew their submissions only with great difficulty and emotional turmoil. In one case, a publisher offered a lower but still unattainable fee and then threatened legal action, only to disappear from contact when challenged further. An author who does pay the fee may see the article posted on the journal website, at least for a time. Yet these authors may find that their career progress is obstructed when a promotion review panel recognizes the lack of credibility of the journal. Authors may find themselves liable for unexpected additional fees once their papers have been published. And, worst of all, their articles may suddenly cease to exist, or float in legal limbo, with the copyrights signed away to non-existent publishers that are inaccessible through established search mechanisms, making contractual agreements unenforceable. Not only are authors' careers harmed, but the knowledge they produced is not disseminated. We as editors see predatory publishers as a significant threat not only to individual scholars but to our colleagues' and the public's trust in nursing literature. The publications in the discipline of nursing must enhance the quality and credibility of nursing knowledge. When a journal with a nursing title becomes known for unscrupulous practices, the discipline loses stature. A valid contribution that appears in a fly-by-night journal and is not reliably retrievable is lost to the knowledge base. Most important, articles not subject to true peer review may have the appearance of scholarliness but contain weak or fabricated evidence, which not only discredits the profession but could result in harm to patients and the health-information-seeking public. The INANE community of editors of credible nursing journals believes it imperative to inform scholars in the discipline, including educators, mentors, scholars, and clinical practitioners, of the harm inherent in this new hazard in the publishing scene. We encourage those who oversee faculty and staff promotion processes to ensure that new scholars are well mentored with respect to the publication records they are building, and that promotion review committees are prepared to conduct fair assessment of work across the spectrum of publication modalities. As a quick reference, we offer a brief compilation of "red flags," summarized from reputable organizations concerned with publication ethics (Table 1). Would-be authors can have confidence in Beall's list of predatory publishers at Scholarly Open Access as a reliable resource of publishers and journals to avoid. His dynamic monitoring of the online publishing world and constant attention to accuracy of the listings make this site extremely helpful for nurses seeking to confirm the credibility of journals to which they entrust their manuscripts. The Directory of Open Access Journals (http://doaj.org/) is another cross-disciplinary resource whose staff is continually working to strengthen its journal approval process. Among nursing-specific sources, potential authors can consult the Directory of Nursing Journals (http://nursingeditors.com/journals-directory/), a collaborative effort between INANE and Nurse Author & Editor () to maintain a complete list of trustworthy nursing journals. A blog by Long, Nursing Writing (http://nursingwriting.wordpress.com/), includes a compilation of recent reports on predatory open-access journals and scholarly conference scams. INANE will maintain information on this topic on the INANE website (http://nursingeditors.com/). Above all, INANE seeks to serve the discipline of nursing by ensuring both accessibility and quality in the published literature of nursing. Open-access publishing is in many ways an exciting opportunity. INANE members are committed to sustaining high standards even as we embrace new possibilities for disseminating nursing knowledge in the digital universe. By extending nurses' expertise to the publishing domain, we can help keep our colleagues and their important ideas safe from harm.