Basic Medical Sciences: Predatory Journals Home

- NRF Statement on Predatory Journals

- Predatory Journals, Publishers and Conferences by Prof. Don Cowan

- Predatory Publishers: How to Recognize Them and Why We Should Avoid Them by Dr Cheryl Tosh

Predatory open-access publishing is an exploitative open-access academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not).

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishing, accessed on 08/05/2018)

The Department of Higher Education and Training  have already compiled a list of Accredited Journals for your convenience:

http://www.library.up.ac.za/journals/journalsaccredited.htm

If a journal does not appear in this list, check the link below on how to identify a predatory journal:

https://thinkchecksubmit.org/

Also consider:

• Invitation to publish via overly flattering e-mails
• Deception/hijacking – they use the same title as a well-known existing journal
• Broad journal title – includes subject fields not normally grouped together
• Charge exuberant author fees – more than $5,000.
• High acceptance rate – more than 50%
• Rapid publication – little or no peer-review
• Authors are not required to rework material – publish without changes
• No ISSN or DOI (digital object identifier)
• Editorial board members
  - no affiliation, experience or contact detail
  - Gmail or yahoo e-mail addresses (not academic)
  - do these people know they are on the Board?
• Fake websites
  - do not exist
  - poorly maintained
  - spelling mistakes
  - dead links
• Proof of peer review
• Indexed by typical databases in the field
• Journal claims to have an impact factor – but no way of confirming this
• Trust your professional judgment

            If something feels wrong, it probably is!

- Combatting predatory academic journals and conferences

A report by the Interacademy partnership (IAP), 2022.

- The Extent of South African Authored Articles in Predatory Journals

A Research article by Johann Mouton and Astrid Valentine, 2017.

- Tips to Avoid Predatory Journals and Conferences

This article is a summary of a full-length guide, complete with a full list of references, by Sarah Eaton, 2018.

- Avoiding Predatory Journals and Questionable Conferences

A Resource Guide by Sarah Eaton, 2018.