There have been a number of studies in recent years about the awareness of predatory journals among researchers, which have had some troubling findings around perceived knowledge and actual knowledge of their activities. One study, for example, showed that while 87% of respondents to one survey said they were confident in identifying a predatory journal, only 60% could do so when tested. Another study showed much lower levels of confidence (67%), but fewer said they were familiar with them (57%).
Perhaps most concerning in both these studies was that respondents reported little or no training in identifying predatory journals, despite the concerns researchers have for the phenomenon. In this context, a new article by Webber et al. seeks to better understand faculty knowledge across a range of disciplines and institutions in the United States, as previous studies were limited in this regard. As such, the new study draws from over 1,000 faculty across 17 research-focused universities – and the results are quite shocking.
Bad education
Where other studies have conducted surveys to assess the professed knowledge about predatory journals and then tested participants on that knowledge, Webber et al. look at four different aspects:
- academic discipline
- years employed in academic research
- number of articles published
- early career researcher status.
This range of approaches is interesting as it accounts for the very different ways different research disciplines appear in a publishing environment, and also compares years of experience to the type of experience, i.e., many faculty members will teach throughout a long career and hardly publish, while others will barely teach but are highly productive in terms of books and articles published. Importantly, these differences can also occur early in careers, so early career status is also relevant.
What the authors found, firstly, was that whether a researcher was in their early career or later, it was not an indicator of whether they had knowledge of predatory journals. Furthermore, nor was the discipline they were engaged in either, which suggests that no matter how many years someone has been an academic, or which subject they specialise in, they are no more likely to understand the risks or avoid the deceptive practices employed by predatory publishers. This is salient information for research-intensive universities, which should be educating faculty on the threats to research that predatory journals pose.
Experience counts
The most startling finding in the study was that while discipline and career length were not indicators of knowledge about predatory journals, actual publishing experience was. More specifically, the article states: “the number of recent articles that a faculty member has published was shown to be the strongest indicator of their level of knowledge about predatory journals.”
This obviously begs the question: why?
Digging down into the findings, the authors say that more recent publishing experience is more significant in determining knowledge, i.e., in the last five years, as those with the best knowledge of predatory publishing activities had published the most in that time. The authors seem to think that the enhanced exposure to the publishing process means that authors become more aware of scholarly communications issues, which would include predatory publishing. It is to be hoped the results of this study are taken note of by research-intensive universities globally. For many faculty, the ‘publish or perish’ mantra still reigns supreme, but they are only finding out about predatory publishing and perhaps other nefarious practices by bending to that mantra, and in the meantime, who knows what mistakes in judgment they are making? If there is an expectation for researchers to publish, they should be given the tools and information to do so effectively and not leave it to chance that their important research could end up wasted in a predatory journal.
