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Public Management and Administration: Predatory Journals

Welcome to the Public Management and Administration LibGuide. This one-stop-shop subject guide gives students, researchers, and staff access to useful subject links, resources, and tips. Contact your Information Specialist if you need any assistance

Accredited Journals

What are Predatory Journals?

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)

National Research Foundation (South Africa) - Statement on Predatory Publishers

Articles

- The Extent of South African Authored Articles in Predatory Journals

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

- Tips to Avoid Predatory Jouranls 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.

How do I Identify a Predatory Journal?

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 pointers below on how to identify a predatory journal:

  • 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!

Lists that Identify Predatory Journals

Stop predatory journals

  • Lists of predatory journals

https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/

(This is a list of possible predatory journals. The kernel for this list was extracted from the archive of Beall’s list at web.archive.org. It will be updated as new information or suggested edits are submitted or found by the maintainers of this site.)
 

  • Lists of predatory publishers

https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/

(This is a list of possible predatory publishers. The kernel for this list was extracted from the archive of Beall’s List at web.archive.org. It will be updated as new information or suggested edits are submitted or found by the maintainers of this site)

Beall’s list of predatory journals (Archived on internet archive as at 31.12.2016)