There is not one standard definition of what constitutes a predatory publisher, but a useful one is "online journals...which actively solicit manuscripts and charge publication fees without providing robust peer review and editorial services” (Shamseer et al. 2017 p.1). Essentially, they are publishers who exploit the Gold Open Access model by posing as a reputable publisher and charging an article processing fee for authors to publish their work. It is very important to realize that publishing Open Access does not make a publisher predatory – their bad behaviour does! Unlike credible and reputable publishers, the peer review and editorial processes, which are vital to ensure the quality of the research being published, may not be of the standard employed by reputable publishers and in extreme cases may be non-existent. Therefore, predatory publishing perpetuates poor quality research and rarely enhances an academic’s reputation which can result in lasting damage. Even if an individual paper reports on good, sound research, little is to be gained by the authors if it is alongside papers describing fundamentally poor research.
Since Open Access has gained more prominence, predatory publishing has also seen an increase which has, unfortunately, led to a conflation between Open Access and predatory publishing.
Whilst many Open Access publications do charge a fee to the author, this will go towards the entire process, ranging from peer review to quality control and the production of the final output. A predatory publisher is likely to produce, at best, a journal of poor quality, exploiting both the Open Access movement and researchers.
Given the exploitative nature of predatory publishing and the damage such publishing can do to the reputation of individual researchers and research institutions the University of Derby will not knowingly support payment of Article Processing Charges to any predatory publisher.
Typically, predatory publishers will make contact directly with potential authors via email inviting them to submit a paper to their journal. Many legitimate publishers will also go down this route. However, predatory publishers tend to send out hundreds of emails to target as many people as possible. It is very easy for them to identify contact details via mailing lists or online social networking sites.
Legitimate journals are usually much more discerning when it comes to contacting potential authors. For example, they may have worked with the researcher before, or know that potential authors are established in a subject field appropriate to their journal. Unfortunately, predatory publishers will usually contact early career researchers or those new to academia who may be less experienced with the publication process. That said, predatory publishers can fool even the most established researcher.
