One of the major challenges in the world of scientific publishing is the growing number of “predatory journals.” These publications deceive authors by publishing their papers for a fee without doing the peer review and other editorial services provided by legitimate publishers.
Publishers of predatory journals send phishing emails to researchers inviting them to submit papers to their journals. They create websites claiming they have expert peer reviewers and editorial board members who oversee quality control for journal content. They claim that articles published in their journals are widely cited by others and have high impact factors.
Unfortunately, these claims are false and are used only to collect money from researchers. The most common victims for these predatory journals are early-career researchers. While publications in the sciences and biomedicine are most heavily impacted by this exploitative business model, predatory publications exist in every academic discipline and continues to be a growing concern in scholarly research.
