Simon Linacre Academic journals, Academic Publishing, Predatory publishing, Predatory Reports

No laughing matter

The latest meme to sweep Twitter in the last week has been a satirical look at typical journal articles. Simon Linacre introduces Cabells’ own take on the theme and reflects on the impact they can have on our shared conscience.

We all like memes, right? Those social media nuggets that we can all relate to and laugh at, a form of in-joke without having to be with a group of people, which under current circumstances has meant a kind of gold rush for this form of humor. Whether it is the boyfriend looking over his shoulder at another woman or the excerpt from the film Downfall with Hitler going berserk, the number of situations and news items that lend themselves to this form of parody is literally endless.

So, when the meme spotlight fell on our own corner of the scholarly publishing world, we couldn’t help but join in and adapt the scientific paper meme to predatory journals (see image). To be honest, it wasn’t too difficult to think of 12 journal titles that highlighted the problems predatory publishing causes, and a whole series of memes could easily be created to underscore the joke that is the predatory journal phenomenon.

It’s easy to spot the themes we chose to lampoon, although however much we become familiar with the predatory journal tropes, publications and new journals are emerging all the time, as the total number of journals listed in Cabells’ Predatory Reports hitting 14,500 this week testifies. Among the issues we put under the spotlight in the graphic are both the unethical and unaware authors publishing in predatory titles, how poor research or plagiarized content can easily be published, and some of the poor excuses those who end up publishing in dodgy journals have provided.

However, underneath the tomfoolery there is a serious point to be made. A recent op-ed in The Atlantic took the opportunity of highlighting not just the shared joy and geekiness of the scientific paper meme, but also the existential dread it spotlighted. As the article expertly points out, while academics recognize the hamster-in-a-wheel absurdity the meme represents, they cannot help but see themselves in the wheel, unable to stop running. For some, they will just shrug their shoulders and find the next piece of clickbait; for others, there is little consolation in the humor and plenty of angst to try and control to preserve their sanity.

When it comes to predatory journals, from a pure eyeballs perspective we can see that articles and social media posts about the often bizarre world of predatory publishing get the most traction, such as the fact that one predatory journal lists Yosemite Sam on the editorial board. And yet there is always a serious point behind these fun stories, which is that predatory journals can make an unholy mess of scientific research, causing millions of funding dollars to be wasted and allowing either junk or rank bad science to contaminate legitimate published research. This is the real punchline and it rings pretty hollowly sometimes.

Simon Linacre Academic journals, Academic Publishing, Research, Scholarly Communication

Cabells and AMBA launch list of most impactful Chinese language management journals

In his last blog post in what has been a tumultuous year, Simon Linacre looks forward to a more enlightened 2021 and a new era of open collaboration and information sharing in scholarly communications and higher education.

In a year with so many monumental events, it is perhaps pointless to try and review what has happened. Everyone has lived every moment with such intensity – whether it be through 24-hour news coverage, non-stop social media or simply living life under lockdown – that it seems simply too exhausting to live through it all again. So, let’s fast forward to 2021 instead.

While some of the major concerns from 2020 will no doubt remain well into the New Year, they will also fade away gradually and be replaced by new things that will demand our attention. Difficult as it may seem now, neither Trump, Brexit (for the Brits) nor COVID will have quite the hold on the news agenda as they did, and that means there is an opportunity at least for some more positive news to start to dominate the headlines.

One activity that may succeed in this respect is the open science agenda. With a new budget agreed upon by the European Research Council and a new administration in Washington DC, together with an increasing focus more generally on open science and collaboration, it is to be hoped that there will be enough funding in place to support it. If the recent successes behind the COVID-19 vaccines show anything it is surely that focused, fast, mission-driven research can produce life-changing impacts for a huge number of people. As others have queried, what might happen if the same approach was adopted and supported for tackling climate change?

In the same vein, information sharing and data analysis should also come further to the fore in 2021. While in some quarters, consolidation and strategic partnerships will bring organisations together, in others the importance of data analysis will only become more essential in enabling evidence-based decision-making and creating competitive advantages.

In this way, the announcement today made by Cabells and the Association of MBAs and Business Graduates Association (AMBA & BGA) brings both these themes together in the shape of a new list of quality Chinese-language journals in business and management. The AMBA-Cabells Journal Report (ACJR) has been curated together by both organisations, using the indexing expertise of Cabells and the knowledge of Chinese journals at AMBA & BGA. Both organisations have been all-too-aware of the Western-centric focus of many indices and journal lists, and believe this is a positive first step towards the broadening out of knowledge and understanding of Chinese-language journals, and non-English journals more broadly.

There have also been policy changes in China during 2020 which have meant less reliance on journals with Impact Factors, and more of a push to incentivise publications in high quality local journals. As such, the ACJR should provide a valuable guide to business school authors in China about some of the top journals available to them. The journals themselves were firstly identified using a number of established Chinese sources, as well as input from esteemed scholars and deans of top business schools. Recommended journals were then checked using Google Scholar to ensure they had published consistently over the last five years and attracted high levels of citations.

The new list is very much intended to be an introduction to Chinese-language journals in business and management, and we would very much welcome input from people on the list so we can develop it further for a second iteration in 2021.

For more information on ACJR, visit https://www.associationofmbas.com/ and https://www.cabells.com/ 

Simon Linacre Academic Publishing, Predatory Reports

Five dos and don’ts for avoiding predatory journals

HAVE YOUR SAY

Publication ethics is at the core of everything that Cabells does, and it continually promotes all scholarly communication bodies which seek to uphold the highest standard of publishing practices. As such, we would like to express our support for Simon Linacre (Cabells’ Director of International Marketing and Development) in his candidacy to become a COPE Trustee. COPE plays an essential role in ensuring scholarly publishing maintains the highest standards, and if you are a COPE member is it important you use your vote to support the organization’s progress.

Simon has been with Cabells two years, and involved in academic publishing for almost 20 years. In that time he has gained wide experience of all aspects of journal publishing, and in particular Open Access issues which this role focuses on.

If you would like to vote in the election, please go to the COPE website, log in and cast your vote for your favored candidate.

Thanks, The Cabells Team

It is three years since Cabells first launched its database on predatory journals, and a good deal has happened in that time in the world of scholarly publishing. In his latest post, Simon Linacre reflects on these changes and offers some ‘dos and don’ts’ on the latest version of the database.

In June 2017 – which seems a lifetime ago now for all sorts of reasons – Cabells launched a new database that included details on over 4,000 predatory journals. It was the first time that a resource of that size had been made available to researchers who wanted to check the legitimacy or otherwise of journals they may be considering as a destination for their articles. In the intervening years, it is to be hoped many authors have been alerted to the dangers of publishing their research in such journals and benefited from worthwhile publishing experiences in good journals.

At the time, Cabells chose to name the database the ‘Blacklist’ as the most straightforward description of the intent of the database. As some may have seen, we brought forward the decision to change its name to ‘Predatory Reports’ last week in the first of a number of changes Cabells intends to introduce in 2020 and beyond.

5.5 x 8.5 – PR - front

The new name includes the word ‘Reports’ for an important reason. The database has been designed as more than a simple list of predatory, fake or questionable journals – it has also been put together so that researchers can use the information that has been collated on all 13,400 journals to inform their understanding of scholarly communications, and as a result, make better decisions about their research publications and career into the future. In this spirit, here are FIVE DOS AND DON’TS of how to use the Cabells Predatory Reports database:

  1. DO check all violations listed for each journal on Predatory Reports to fully understand what the journal is NOT doing properly, as this can to help identify predatory behavior in future
  2. DON’T trust a journal because it has an ISSN on its website – over 40% of journals listed on Predatory Reports include one, with many copied from legitimate journals or simply invented
  3. DO check the publisher’s name in the ‘Advanced Search’ option if a journal is not included on the database, as the same publisher could have created a new journal with the same predatory behaviors
  4. DON’T visit a predatory journal website unnecessarily as they could contain malware – hover the cursor over the website to view the full URL to see if it corresponds to that of the journal being checked out
  5. DO send Cabells updates or information on potential new predatory journals by sending an email to ‘journals@cabells.com’

And as a final ‘DO’, do click the link to our 70+ criteria that we use to identify predatory journals – these will be updated soon to streamline and clarify the process of reviewing journals for inclusion in Predatory Reports, and offer a much more robust checklist than currently exists to help researchers avoid falling into the predatory journal trap.

Simon Linacre Predatory publishing, Research

The power of four

After hearing so many different ways that its Journal Whitelist and Journal Blacklist have been used by customers, Cabells has started to map out how any researcher can use journal data to optimize their decision-making. Fresh from its debut at the World Congress on Research Integrity in Hong Kong last month, Simon Linacre shares the thinking behind the new ‘Four Factor Framework’ and how it could be used in the future.

The 6th World Congress on Research Integrity (WCRI) was held in Hong Kong last month, bringing together the great and the good of those seeking to improve the research process globally. Topics were surprisingly wide, taking a look at such diverse areas as human rights, predatory publishing, data sharing, and policy. It was significant that while much of the focus of the conference was on the need to improve education and learning on how to conduct research ethically, many of the cases presented showed that there is still much to do in this respect.

Cabells was also there and used its presence to share some ideas on how to overcome some of these challenges, particularly with regard to engagement with improved research and publishing practices. Taking the established issues within predatory publishing encountered the world over as a starting point (i.e. choosing the wrong journal), as well as the need to look at as much data as possible (i.e. choosing the right journal), Cabells has very much put the author at the center of its thinking to develop what it has called the ‘Four Factor Framework’:

 

The framework, or FFF, firstly puts the onus on the researcher to rule out any poor, deceptive or predatory journals, using resources such as the Blacklist. This ‘negative’ first step then opens up the next stage, which is to take the four following factors into account before submitting to a research paper to a journal:

  • Strategic: understanding how a journal will impact career ambitions or community perspectives
  • Environmental: bringing in wider factors such as research impact or ethical issues
  • Political: understanding key considerations such as publishing in titles on journal lists, avoiding such lists or journals based in certain areas
  • Cultural: taking into account types of research, peer review or article form

Having talked to many customers over a period of time, these factors all become relevant to authors at some point during that crucial period when they are choosing which journal to publish in. Customers have fed back to Cabells that use of Cabells’ Whitelist and Blacklist – as well as other sources of data and guidance – can be related to as benchmarking, performance-focused or risk management. While it is good to see that the databases can help so many authors in so many different ways, judging by the evidence at WCRI there is still a huge amount to do in educating researchers to take advantage of these optimized approaches. And this will be the main aim of Cabells’ emerging strategy – to enable real impact by researchers and universities through the provision of validated information and support services around scholarly publishing.

The Source Academic Publishing

Guest Post: Business Ethics — Challenges and Conundrums

Are case studies about to play a key role in the development of business teaching and cultural awareness? In a guest post Gina Vega, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Instructional Cases, argues that the need for higher education, the business world and society at large to collaborate is stronger than ever, and invites interested parties to get involved in this critical discussion.

Business includes any transaction that requires money or ownership to change hands. Even in a barter-based society, engagement in business would be unavoidable in our 21st-century world. Business is what we “do.” However, the way we conduct our business is not consistent between individuals or across cultures and nations. Our business conduct reflects our norms and serves as a measure of the moral nature of our society.

We often relegate the topic of the moral nature of society to philosophy, the study of systems of thought. Business ethics is applied ethics, or the study of systems of action to our own actions. Philosophy provides the structure, but the behavior itself emerges from our inherent sense of morality which, in its turn, derives from philosophical perspectives, socio-economic and legal models, and religious training.

The many forms of decision-making are the core of business ethics: how we make decisions, why a decision must be made, how we can evaluate various options for action and select a recommendation, how we can reflect on the purpose of the decision and its potential consequences, which tools we can apply when analyzing an opportunity or an action, the correct identification of the decision to be made, syncretic (reconciled) approaches to harmonizing options and opportunities, and more. How do we apply the lessons learned from a vast array of multi-disciplinary theories to the small, daily decisions we make in business, and how do we wed our various small tactical decisions into a strategic behavioral thrust for our organizations?

We start by asking four BIG questions:

  • Cui bono? (Who benefits?)
  • Who is going to get hurt?
  • How will my decision affect my personal sense of morality?
  • What is the goal of business?

We conclude with an even bigger question:  What actions do our values endorse?

Cui bono?

The Starting Block

Regardless of our role in an organization or business, we are frequently confronted by conundrums that challenge our moral compass, our ability to apply ethical standards, and our actions on the ground. Our goal is to develop and share materials that can help our students learn how to handle the ethical issues that grow from today’s experiences and trials through providing guidance and practice in ethical analysis.

At the International Journal of Instructional Cases (www.ijicases.com), we share a strong commitment to advancing good business ethics curricula for both undergraduate and graduate programs. To that end,  we are sponsoring a competition aims to generate teachable concise cases with expanded teaching notes related to addressing the ethical challenges presented to businesses and organizations internationally for use in the classroom and the boardroom.

Case submissions may focus on any specific ethical theme, as long as the case is four pages or fewer, following the submission guidelines here.   Cases may be submitted in English, Spanish, or French and will be reviewed in English.

Cases may be focused specifically on any area that relates to business or organizational ethics on a wide variety of levels: individual, teams, SMEs through multinationals, even nations or regions. Challenges may come in the disciplines of marketing, management, human behavior, economics, finance/accounting, logistics, and others.

Prize:  The winning case will receive an award of US $250 and fast track review for publication in IJIC. The prize will be awarded in December 2019.

Key Dates:

  • 1 March, 2019, Submissions open
  • 1 August 2019, Submission deadline

We warmly encourage your submissions and your visits to www.ijicases.com where we are pursuing a focus on a wide range of societal forces that have evolved into an increasingly complex web of societal, government and business relationships.  As society is changing and raising its expectations for business and government, the existence, power and changing nature of our relationships and expectations requires careful, and ethical management attention and action.  The need for education, business, and society to work together has never been more critical. We have made our personal and professional commitment to developing tools that encourage the next generation of learners to share our focus on ethical business behavior.

Please join us!

Gina Vega, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Instructional Cases, taught corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship for 20 years and is widely published in academic journals. She has written or edited seven books, including The Case Writing Workbook: A Self-Guided Workshop (1/e and 2/e, also in Spanish).  Dr. Vega is a Fulbright Specialist with assignments in Russia (2010), the UK (2012), and Peru (2018). She has been Editor-in-Chief of The CASE Journal, associate editor of the Journal of Management Education, and Teaching Case Section Editor of Project Management Journal. She is president of Organizational Ergonomics, an academic services consulting firm through for writing workshops and technical writing assistance (www.orgergo.com ).