Simon Linacre Blacklist

Do we need the Journal Blacklist?

As any scholar will attest, one of the most annoying aspects of becoming an academic author is the incessant emails popping into your inbox on a daily basis offering to publish your next article for a knockdown price – in just a few weeks’ time, in a subject area you know nothing about, for a journal you have never heard of. Simon Linacre asks if the Blacklist of journals is actually worth the time and expense just to help eradicate this nuisance, or if there is more to it than that.

In the world of academic research, there is an equivalent to the emails everyone receives supposedly from a Nigerian prince who needs to deposit $30m in your account for a few days, for which you will be paid handsomely. These are the emails that promise rapid open access publication for just a few hundred dollars, most likely in a very generic-sounding journal that purports to have an Impact Factor, even though you have never heard of it. As with the emails promising a generous slice of $30m, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. And anyway, just how many gullible idiots pay these people?

Well, if you are sat in a lab or department meeting, you could be looking at one. While it is difficult to establish exactly how many authors fall for predatory publishing, some recent investigations can put the problem in context. Firstly, a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) judgment in the US in 2018 against OMICS Group Inc and related entities found damages totaling over $50m were owing due to the predatory practices of the organizations over a four-year period, based on the operation of predatory journals and predatory conferences. This figure was arrived at following an estimation of the total revenues accruing from predatory practices – revenues from individuals paying for publishing and conference services that were below the expectations they were entitled to have from such services. In other words, that’s a lot of disappointed people.

Human face

The FTC investigation brings the actual cost of predatory practices into relief, as that money will not just have come from the back pockets of some gullible academics, but from university grants and research funders, happy to support research in belief some of the money will enable it to published in reputable journals, cementing its place in the body of knowledge for others to use. Another investigation in 2018 put forward the human side to this problem, namely a joint enterprise by three German news organizations – Süddeutschen Zeitung, the NDR and the WDR. In the article “Das Scheingeschäft – Angriff auf die Wissenschaft” (“The Bogus Business – Assault on Science”), the various aspects, dangers and consequences of predatory publishing are considered using a sting operation as a vehicle. What is striking about the reports – supported by Cabells which gave gratis access to the Blacklist – is that the problem is not just one of annoyance, but large-scale fraud and misinterpretation of science. Amongst other things:

  • After analyzing over 175,000 of publications in predatory journals, authors included Nobel-prize winners and those from top German institutions
  • Individual employees from large firms figured significantly among the authors of papers, including BMW, Siemens and Airbus. Indeed, of the thirty top companies on the German stock exchange (DAX), employees of 12 of these companies had published in predatory journals
  • One top pharma company has published a study on Aspirin in a predatory journal, which purports to provide evidence that a new version of its product is more effective at treating flu symptoms than the original drug
  • Finally, one story emerged about a German celebrity who died of cancer after trying a drug where the only evidence for its efficacy was published in predatory journals.

The German team of journalists concluded that this final example was a warning for the dangers abusing predatory publishing to spread “false science”, citing examples where climate-change deniers had also published research in predatory journals. This highlights an often overlooked point – recently covered by Danish academic Tove Faber Frandsen in the article ‘Why do researchers decide to publish in questionable journals? A review of the literature’ – that far from being duped, many authors knowingly publish in predatory journals simply to tick the necessary box. This trend has also been noted by reports in The New York Times and other research journals like CMAJ and Journal of Scholarly Publishing.

Black and White

Cabells’ Journal Blacklist was several years in development and was specifically designed to provide researchers and their institutions a resource to help them avoid publishing in predatory journals and avoid the serious issues outlined above. The Blacklist uses over 60 different, weighted criteria to determine whether a journal exhibits predatory behaviors or not. It utilizes a team of academic and publishing experts to constantly monitor publishing practices and assess if an individual journal – not a publisher – is legitimate or not. Many journals are left off the Blacklist where they are legitimate, but of low quality, and as such are not listed in the Journal Whitelist either. The process is transparent and often time-consuming, with all the criteria published by Cabells as well as the violations if a journal is listed.

It has been almost two years since the Blacklist was first published, in which time it has grown from 4,000 journals to 11,000.

In all that time, there have only been three requests from journals for a review.

Cabells places a very high value indeed on the legitimacy and veracity of scholarly publishing, a value it believes it shares with academics the world over. It believes that the provision of the Blacklist is a valuable service to those institutions who believe they need to support their academics in a world of fake news, fake science and fake journals. Like any other commercial service, in order to recoup the costs of its investment it charges a fee for a subscription to the Blacklist which can be less than a single APC for many predatory journals, so universities can avert the problems caused by a faculty member submitting to a predatory journal just once to pay for the service.

As we have seen, faculty can be unaware of the problems, or in some cases, they can be aware but make unethical decisions. Either way, librarians or research managers are often tasked with policing publications, and Cabells continues to develop the Blacklist to support them in their work. Hopefully, a subscription is a small price to pay to ensure public or institutional funding isn’t wasted and quality research is published in the right journals.

The Source Predatory Reports

Cabells Predatory Reports Criteria v 1.1

VERSION INFORMATION

This post serves to outline the revision to the Cabells Predatory Reports criteria that went into effect on March 13, 2019. Journals evaluated under this version of the criteria will link to this page.

VERSION CHANGE NOTES

  • The indicator that read “Gender bias in the editorial board” was removed
  • To increase the granularity of our evaluations on this subject, the indicator “The publisher hides or obscures relationships with for-profit partner companies” was split into two separate indicators:
    • The journal/publisher hides or obscures relationships with for-profit companies that could result in corporate manipulation of science
    • The journal/publisher hides or obscures information regarding associated publishing imprints or parent companies
  • The indicator that read “Emails from journals received by researchers who are clearly not in the field the journal covers” was changed and split into two separate indicators:
    • Emailed solicitations for manuscripts from the journal are received by researchers who are clearly not in the field the journal covers
    • Email invitations for editorial board members or reviewers from the journal are received by researchers who are clearly not in the field the journal covers
  • The following behavioral indicators were added:
    • Evident data that little to no peer review is being done and the journal claims to be “peer reviewed.”
    • No affiliations are identified for editorial board members and/or editors.
    • Editorial board members (appointed over 2 years ago) have not heard from the journal at all since being appointed to the board.
    • The journal has a large editorial board but very few articles are published per year.
    • The journal’s website attempts to download a virus or malware.
    • The number of articles published has increased by 25-49% in the last year.
    • The number of articles published has increased by 50-74% in the last year.
    • The number of articles published has increased by 75% or more in the last year.
    • The journal is open access but no information is given about how the journal is supported financially (i.e. author fees, advertising, sponsorship, etc.).

GENERAL INFORMATION

This policy establishes the criteria for identifying deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory journals for inclusion in Cabells Predatory Reports. The Cabells Predatory Reports Review Board uses the following criteria to evaluate all journals suspected of deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory practices. Each identified behavior listed is assigned a score based on the severity of the offense. The behaviors are grouped according to relative severity and subject matter.

CRITERIA

The following criteria are considered are considered SEVERE:

  • Integrity
    • The same article appears in more than one journal.
    • Hijacked journal (defined as a fraudulent website created to look like a legitimate academic journal for the purpose of offering academics the opportunity to rapidly publish their research for a fee).
    • Information received from the journal does not match the journal’s website.
    • The journal or publisher claims to be a non-profit when it is actually a for-profit company.
    • The owner/Editor of the journal or publisher falsely claims academic positions or qualifications.
    • The journal is associated with a conference that has been identified as predatory.
    • The journal gives a fake ISSN.
  • Peer Review
    • No editor or editorial board listed on the journal’s website at all.
    • Editors do not actually exist or are deceased.
    • The journal includes scholars on an editorial board without their knowledge or permission.
    • Evident data that little to no peer review is being done and the journal claims to be “peer reviewed.”
  • Publication Practices
    • The journal publishes papers that are not academic at all, e.g. essays by laypeople or obvious pseudo-science.
    • No articles are published or the archives are missing issues and/or articles.
    • Falsely claims indexing in well-known databases (especially SCOPUS, DOAJ, JCR, and Cabells).
    • Falsely claims universities or other organizations as partners or sponsors.
    • Machine-generated or other “sting” abstracts or papers are accepted.
  • Indexing & Metrics
    • The journal uses misleading metrics (i.e., metrics with the words “impact factor” that are not the Clarivate Analytics Impact Factor).
  • Fees
    • The journal offers options for researchers to prepay APCs for future articles.
    • The journal states there is an APC or another fee but does not give information on the amount or gives conflicting information.
    • The journal or publisher offers membership to receive discounts on APCs but does not give information on how to become a member and/or on the membership fees.
    • The author must pay APC or publication fee before submitting the article (specifically calls the fee a publication fee, not a submission fee).
    • The journal does not indicate that there are any fees associated with publication, review, submission, etc. but the author is charged a fee after submitting a manuscript.

The following criteria are considered MODERATE:

  • Integrity
    • The title of the journal is copied or so similar to that of a legitimate journal that it could cause confusion between the two.
    • The name of the journal references a country or demographic that does not relate to the content or origin of the journal.
    • The journal uses language that suggests that it is industry leading, but is in fact a new journal.
    • The journal/publisher hides or obscures relationships with for-profit partner companies that could result in corporate manipulation of science.
  • Peer Review
    • The journal has a large editorial board but very few articles are published per year.
    • Inadequate peer review (i.e., a single reader reviews submissions; peer reviewers read papers outside their field of study; etc.).
    • The journal’s website does not have a clearly stated peer review policy.
    • The founder of the publishing company is the editor of all of the journals published by said company.
    • Evident data showing that the editor/review board members do not possess academic expertise to reasonably qualify them to be publication gatekeepers in the journal’s field.
    • No affiliations are given for editorial board members and/or editors.
    • Little geographical diversity of board members and the journal claims to be International.
    • The journal includes board members who are prominent researchers but exempt them from any contribution to the journal except the use of their names and/or photographs.
    • Editorial board members (appointed over 2 years ago) have not heard from the journal at all since being appointed to the board.
  • Publication Practices
    • No copyediting.
    • Little geographical diversity of authors and the journal claims to be International.
    • The Editor publishes research in his own journal.
    • The journal purposefully publishes controversial articles in the interest of boosting citation count.
    • The journal publishes papers presented at conferences without additional peer review.
    • The name of the publisher suggests that it is a society, academy, etc. when it is only a publisher and offers no real benefits to members.
    • The name of the publisher suggests that it is a society, academy, etc. when it is only a solitary proprietary operation and does not meet the definition of the term used or implied non-profit mission.
    • Authors are published several times in the same journal and/or issue.
    • Similarly titled articles published by same author in more than one journal.
    • The publisher displays prominent statements that promise rapid publication and/or unusually quick peer review (less than 4 weeks).
    • The number of articles published has increased by 75% or more in the last year.
    • The number of articles published has increased by 50-74% in the last year.
  • Fees
    • The publisher or journal’s website seems too focused on the payment of fees.
  • Access & Copyright
    • States the journal is completely open access but not all articles are openly available.
    • No way to access articles (no information on open access or how to subscribe).
    • The journal is open access but no information is given about how the journal is supported financially (i.e. author fees, advertising, sponsorship, etc.).
    • No policies for digital preservation.
    • The journal has a poorly written copyright policy and/or transfer form that does not actually transfer copyright.
    • The journal publishes not in accordance with their copyright or does not operate under a copyright license.
  • Business Practices
    • The journal has been asked to quit sending emails and has not stopped.
    • The journal or publisher gives a business address in a Western country but the majority of authors are based in developing countries.
    • Emailed solicitations for manuscripts from the journal are received by researchers who are clearly not in the field the journal covers.
    • Email invitations for editorial board members or reviewers from the journal are received by researchers who are clearly not in the field the journal covers.
    • Multiple emails received from a journal in a short amount of time.
    • Emails received from a journal do not include the option to unsubscribe to future emails.
    • The journal copyproofs and locks PDFs.

The following criteria are considered MINOR:

  • Integrity
    • Insufficient resources are spent on preventing and eliminating author misconduct that may result in repeated cases of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, image manipulation, etc. (no policies regarding plagiarism, ethics, misconduct, etc., no use of plagiarism screens).
    • The journal/publisher hides or obscures information regarding associated publishing imprints or parent companies.
  • Website
    • The website does not identify a physical address for the publisher or gives a fake address.
    • The journal or publisher uses a virtual office or other proxy business as its physical address.
    • The website does not identify a physical editorial address for the journal.
    • Dead links on the journal or publisher’s website.
    • Poor grammar and/or spelling on the journal or publisher’s website.
    • No way to contact the journal/only has web-form.
    • The journal’s website attempts to download a virus or malware.
  • Publication Practices
    • The number of articles published has increased by 25-49% in the last year.
  • Indexing & Metrics
    • The publisher or its journals are not listed in standard periodical directories or are not widely catalogued in library databases.
  • Business Practices
    • No subscribers / nobody uses the journal.
    • The journal’s website does not allow web crawlers.

Predatory Report Appeals

The Cabell’s review board will consider Predatory Report appeals with a frequency of one appeal request per year, per journal. Publications classified as predatory, those with unacceptable practices, are encouraged to amend their procedures to comply with accepted industry standards.

Requests for appeals must be sent to journals@cabells.com. Journals wishing to appeal inclusion in Cabells Predatory Reports must demonstrate an honest revision of their behaviors with proof of corrective and preventative actions for each Predatory Report violation.

Upon review, the criteria will be applied with strict scrutiny and the board will conduct a complete examination of the appellant. To facilitate the appeals process, the appellant must comply with all requests for additional information regarding policies, procedures, and the publication’s peer review process.

Following this appeal process, a journal found to no longer qualify for Cabells Predatory Reports will be removed. Please note that removal from Cabells Predatory Reports does, by no means, qualify a journal for Cabells Journalytics. Journals wishing to be included in Cabells Journalytics must follow the proper application procedures and are subject to additional review to confirm qualification.

Simon Linacre Editorial

Cabells signs transparency declaration

Ever since Cabells started in the 1970s, it has sought to shine a light on journals and highlight information needed by academic scholars. Simon Linacre shares today’s news that Cabells has signed a transparency declaration aimed at opening-up peer review and editorial policies.

Cabells is delighted to announce that today it has become just the second institution to sign the Declaration on Transparent Editorial Policies for Academic Journals. As well as becoming a signatory, Cabells will be working with other supporters to work on improving the transparency for all aspects of editorial policy.

The Declaration was formed last year by the participants of the meeting “IT Tools in Academic Publishing: between Expectations and Challenges”, held at Leiden University in The Netherlands on 5-6 July. The aim was to promote greater openness in peer review and editorial procedures, and those individuals signing up were from publishers such as Elsevier, IOP and Brill, institutions such as Tilburg and Paris Descartes Universities, and industry operators PubPeer and Origin Editorial.

Key aims

At the heart of the Declaration there are four clear publication phases where Cabells believes greater transparency will benefit authors and editors, as well as the scholarly publishing environment as a whole. These are:

  1. Submission: Journals and publishers explain editorial governance, including the precise composition of the editorial board, the scope of the journal, the applicable ethics policies, and the use of journal metrics, including rejection rates
  2. Review: Journals and publishers should explain the criteria for article selection (e.g. the relevance of novelty and/or anticipated impact and methodological rigor) and the timing of review in the publication process (e.g. whether registered reports and/or post-publication review are used). They should be clear about the extent to which authors’ and reviewers’ identities will be known (blinding), and to whom review reports will be communicated. They should also specify how reviewers will be selected, instructed, or possibly trained, and explain how digital tools such as similarity scanners and scanners for digital image manipulation will be used and whether any reporting guidelines are applied
  3. Publication: Journals and publishers should make information about the review process of published articles available on the article-level, by detailing the roles in the review process (e.g. specify how many reviewers were involved and what other people contributed to the final decision), what criteria for acceptance and what digital tools were used
  4. Post-publication: Journals and publishers should explain the criteria and procedures for corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other rectifications or changes to published material.

(Source: www.ru.nl/transparencydeclaration)

Going forward, Cabells will be using these tenets as guidance on the decisions it makes for journals it assesses for both its Whitelist and Blacklist products. The Declaration states that making editorial policies more transparent will require a concerted effort by publishers and editors, but this effort will be rewarded by trust in the research community. Cabells believes this is the sincere aim of every responsible publisher and editor, and as such is proud to sign the Declaration as part of its ongoing support for scholarly communications.

Lucas Toutloff Blacklist Criteria

Cabell’s Blacklist Criteria v 1.0

VERSION INFORMATION

This post serves as an archive location for the Cabells Journal Blacklist evaluation criteria v.1.0. In this version, the criteria were grouped by subject matter. In later versions, criteria is grouped according to relative severity and subject matter. Journals most recently evaluated under this version will display a link to this post.

GENERAL INFORMATION

This policy establishes the criteria for identifying deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory journals for inclusion in Cabell’s Blacklist. Cabell’s Blacklist Review Board uses the following criteria to evaluate all journals suspected of deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory practices.

CRITERIA

The following criteria are considered when evaluating a suspected journal:

Integrity

  • The same article appears in more than one journal.
  • Hijacked journal (defined as a fraudulent website designed to look like a different specific established academic journal for the purpose of leveraging that journal’s brand to solicit publications).
  • Information provided to auditors from the journal does not match information on the journal’s website.
  • The journal or publisher is claimed to be a non-profit when it is actually a for-profit company.
  • The journals’ publisher hides or obscures relationships with for-profit partner companies.
  • The owner/editors of the journal falsely claims academic positions or qualifications.
  • The journal is associated with a conference that exhibits predatory behaviors.
  • The journal displays or reports having an ISSN that has not been issued to it.
  • Insufficient resources are used to prevent or eliminate author misconduct (resulting in repeated cases of plagiarism, self plagiarism, image manipulation, etc.).
  • The title of the journal references a country or demographic that does not substantially relate to the content or origin of the journal.
  • The journal uses language to suggest that it is industry leading, but is, in fact, a newly created journal.
  • The title of the journal is copied or so similar to that of an established journal so as to cause confusion between the two.

Peer Review

  • No editor or editorial board is listed on the journal’s website.
  • Listed editors do not actually exist or are deceased.
  • The journal lists individuals on an editorial board without their knowledge or permission.
  • The founder of the journal’s publishing company is the editor of all of the journals published by the company.
  • There exists evidence showing that the editors/review board members lack sufficient academic expertise to reasonably qualify them to be publication gatekeepers in the journal’s field.
  • The journal enlists board members who are established researchers but are exempt from any contribution to the journal except for the use of their names and/or photographs.
  • Gender bias on the journal’s editorial board.
  • For a journal that claims to be ‘international,’ little geographical diversity of board members.
  • Inadequate peer review practices (i.e., a single reader reviews submissions, peer reviewers evaluate papers outside of their field of study, etc.).
  • The journal’s website does not display a clearly stated peer review policy.

Website

  • The journal’s or its publisher’s website does not identify a physical address for the publisher or gives a fake address.
  • The journal or its publisher uses a virtual office or other proxy business as its physical address.
  • The journal’s website does not identify physical editorial address for the journal.
  • Dead links on the journal’s website.
  • Poor grammar and/or spelling throughout the website.
  • There is no way provided to contact the journal’s editors or only has a web-form.

Publication Practices

  • The journal publishes papers that are not academic at all, e.g., essays by laypeople or obvious pseudo-science.
  • No articles are actually published or the archives are missing issues and/or articles.
  • Falsely claims indexing in well-known databases (SCOPUS, DOAJ, JCR, Cabells, etc.).
  • Falsely claims universities or other organizations as partners or sponsors.
  • Accepts machine-generated or other “sting” abstracts or papers.
  • No copyediting.
  • The publisher displays prominent statements that promise rapid publication and/or unusually quick peer review (less than 4 weeks).
  • Little geographical diversity of authors and the journal claims to be international.
  • Similarly titled articles published by same author in more than one journal.
  • The editor of a journal publishes research in her own journal.
  • Authors are published several times in the same journal and/or issue.
  • The journal purposefully publishes controversial articles in the interest of boosting citation count.
  • The journal publishes papers presented at conferences without additional peer review.
  • The name of the journal’s publisher suggests that it is a society, academy, etc. when it is only a publisher and offers no real benefits to members.
  • The name of the journal’s publisher suggests that it is a society, academy, etc. when it is only a solitary proprietary operation and does not meet the definition of the term used or implied non-profit mission.

Indexing & Metrics

  • The journal uses misleading metrics (i.e., metrics with the words “impact factor” that are not the Clarivate Impact Factor).
  • The journal or its publisher is not listed in standard periodical directories or is not widely catalogued in library databases.

Fees

  • The journal’s or its publisher’s website seems too focused on the payment of fees.
  • The journal offers options for researchers to prepay APCs for future articles.
  • The journal states there is an APC or other fee but does not give information on the amount.
  • The journal or publisher offers membership to receive discounts on APCs but does not give information on how to become a member and/or on the membership fees.
  • The author must pay APC or publication fee before submitting the article (specifically calls the fee a publication fee, not a submission fee).
  • The journal does not indicate that there are any fees associated with publication, review, submission, etc. but the author is charged a fee after submitting a manuscript.

Access & Copyright

  • States the journal is completely open access but not all articles are openly available.
  • There is no way to access articles (no information on open access or how to subscribe).
  • No policies for digital preservation.
  • The journal has a poorly written copyright policy and/or transfer form that does not actually transfer copyright.
  • The journal publishes not in accordance with their copyright or does not operate under a copyright license.

Business Practices

  • Emails from journals received by researchers who are clearly not in the field the journal covers.
  • Multiple emails received from a journal in a short amount of time.
  • Emails received from a journal do not include the option to unsubscribe to future emails.
  • The journal has been asked to quit sending emails and has not stopped.
  • No subscribers / nobody uses the journal.
  • The journal or publisher operates in a Western country chiefly for the purpose of functioning as a vanity press for scholars in a developing country.
  • The journal’s website does not allow web crawlers.
  • The journal copyproofs and locks PDFs.

Cabell’s Blacklist Criteria v 1.0

GENERAL INFORMATION

This policy establishes the criteria for identifying deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory journals for inclusion in Cabell’s Blacklist. Cabell’s Blacklist Review Board uses the following criteria to evaluate all journals suspected of deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory practices.

The following criteria are considered when evaluating a suspected journal:

Simon Linacre Predatory publishing

Blacklist Journals Overtake Whitelist

What’s in a number? Well, when the number of bad journals overtakes the number of good journals, we may have something to worry about. Simon Linacre takes a brief look behind the figures and shares some insight into the current dynamics of scholarly publishing.

Right up there with ‘How many grains of sand are there in the world?’, ‘Is Santa Claus real?’ and ‘Where do babies come from?’, one of the questions you do not want to be asked as a member of the scholarly communications industry is ‘How many journals are there?’. This is because, like grains of sand there is no finite answer as the numbers will change from one day to the next, but also there is no way to even approximate an educated guess. You could, perhaps, as a fall back look at the numbers of journals where someone has actually counted and updated the number. For example:

  • Cabells Journal Whitelist: 11,048
  • Clarivate Analytics Master Journal List: 11,727
  • Directory of Open Access Journals: 12,728
  • Scopus: 36,377
  • Ullrichs Periodicals Directory: 300,000+ (periodicals)

However, all of the above have criteria that either limit the number of journals they count or include most journals plus other forms of publication. And another journal list that adds further complexity is this one:

Now, the more eagle-eyed among you will have seen that the Cabells Blacklist now lists more journals than are indexed in the Whitelist. How can this be? Are we saying there are more predatory journals than legitimate titles out there? Well, not quite. While Cabells has a growing Blacklist thanks to the ever-expanding activities of predatory publishers, the Whitelist is limited to journals of evident quality according to specific criteria and is yet to include medical and engineering journals. When both databases were launched in 2017, the Whitelist was based on Cabells Directories that went back decades, while the Blacklist was newly developed with 4,000 journals. That has now grown to over 11,000 in nearly two years, with many journals coming through the pipeline for assessment.

Due to the rigorous process Cabells administers for the Whitelist, it was inevitable that such a list where many titles are rejected would be superseded by the Blacklist where sadly ever more titles are acceptable for inclusion, due to the proliferation of predatory publishing practices.

So, if you do get asked the dreaded question, the answer is that there are a LOT of journals out there. Some are good, some are bad, and some are in-between. But arm yourself with a trusted index and some relevant criteria, and you won’t need to play the numbers game.

Mike Bisaccio Predatory publishing

Yosemite Sam is at Yale University? And he’s on the editorial board of an academic journal??

yosemite sam ajbsrAccording to the fraudulent ‘journal’ American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research, published by Biomed Research and Technology, the answer is yes on both counts.  Thanks to a tip from a subscriber—a librarian who, along with several colleagues, received an email calling for editorial board members for this publication—our Journal Blacklist team initiated an investigation and lo and behold, among the ‘Honorable Editors’ on the journal’s Editorial Committee is one Yosemite Sam, of Yale University:

AJBSR screenshot
Wait, what?

Sam closeup.png
Upon closer inspection…

You can probably guess which of our Blacklist criteria the presence of Bugs Bunny’s archenemy (with all due respect to Elmer Fudd) violates (hint: it’s the one that expects editors to be living…or actually exist).  This is of course not the only violation for American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research, there were several other doozies such as:

  • Emails from journals received by researchers who are clearly not in the field(s) the journal covers
  • Scholars included on the editorial board without their knowledge or permission (not Yosemite Sam, though this would apply to him too)
  • Promise of rapid publication and/or unusually quick peer review (less than four weeks)
  • No policies for digital preservation
  • The same article appears in more than one journal

AJBSR blog 3.1.19

Unfortunately, not all predatory journals include cartoon characters on their editorial board, making them easy to spot if you know where to look. And, without a doubt, none are a laughing matter.  We’ll continue to keep on top of the different methods of deceit used by predatory publishers, closely investigate suspected journals, and report on those that prove to be fraudulent. We’ll also be sure to pass along any that give us a chuckle along the way.