Why the line dividing the established and predatory publishing is much thinner than you would expect.
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World can be a rough place, including the academic one. Adorned as protectors of the quality of research journals and their content, the motivation of editorial boards and journal owners is unquestionably noble and correct. Most often, this protection is implemented by many volunteer idealists - professors, associate professors, etc.; kudos to them! These idealists, though, typically have very little to do with the rough side of this world or unconsciously accept the "traditional way" things are done as implicitly correct. Being busy academics, I do not blame them. But the top organizational structures of journals almost resemble a religious cult, or a political party. Strange parallel? Let me explain..
Predatory academic journals are a perfect example to use here. You can find many more characteristics of a predatory journal. Nevertheless, the following ones are the most relevant for what I am trying to convey in this post:
- Duplication and plagiarism
- Lack of editorial transparency
- Low quality to no peer review
- High publication fees
My background is in electrical, antenna, and RF engineering. Thus, the following writing reflects the state of the matters in this field, which may differ from yours, but bear with me for a moment. Since, you may find similar traits in yours. Let me know in the comments what you think.
PREDATORY EVENTS
The networking events as conferences one gets exposed to early in the academic career qualify as predatory events. They fit all four aspects of what defines predatory publishing behavior.
The papers published in the proceedings of the conferences online and offline are overwhelmingly re-written previous papers. You can also say they are duplicate or plagiarized publications. More precisely, self-plagiarized.
These papers are reviewed by a collective of graduate students, postdocs, maybe associate professors, and rare cases by professors. Which sort of makes sense - since students and postdocs outnumber those higher in the academic ranks. Their identities as reviewers of conference papers are undisclosed, and there is an almost non-existent barrier to acceptance. The review rounds, if any, constitute the most obvious grammatical, logical, or syntactic errors, rarely touching the content. You can also say there is a lack of editorial transparency and almost non-existent peer review.
Publication slash attendance fees for academics float around hundreds of euros up to a thousand for the standard rates. Also, hundreds of companies are paying way more for every square meter of the booth they occupy or a presentation they can choose to give. With thousands of attendees, delegates, and company representatives, the event must be profitable. Yes, the venues are often grand, beautiful, and costly. Nevertheless, organizing any mass event, one works with rough numbers. The income vs. expenses is always planned with a safe margin on the plus side. Besides that, no information can be found upon searching for $ ins and outs of the conferences. One can say there is a lack of transparency.
Using the definition of predatory publishing raised by those declaring to be the protectors of academic truth, quality, and purity, it turns out the conferences are just as predatorial. Now, do not get me wrong please. I understand that conferences are networking events meant to foster collaboration and friendships in the research community. And I must say, I did enjoy those I attended myself. At the same time, if the community get together is the real purpose of the conferences, then:
- Keep them reasonably small - a narrower pool of topics will naturally limit the number of attendees, and you are more likely to meet & network meaningfully with the people relevant to your work.
- Abandon the requirement of submitting useless duplicates and self-plagiates of previous work published elsewhere. It will save vast amounts of effort to the idealists taking care of the work behind this.
- Organize the conferences at the university campuses - spare the conference attendees the top dollar payments and minimize the pressure to make more money.
- Make the financial ins and outs of the conferences public - transparency is the key.
PREDATORY JOURNALS
Journals and platforms different or newer than the most respected ones often receive a dismissive verdict as potentially or literally predatory. These come from the members of the editorial boards of the established and respected journals. The same board members behind the conferences spoken of, annually publishing thousands of papers no one will ever cite. It is clever not to include these papers into the journal contents despite the fact that the same people are taking care of both. And understandably so. The impact factor of such journals would drop significantly if the conference papers were included.
It is true that the state of the art journals tick less boxes of the predatory behavior definition. Often, the same people in the editorial boards of the esteemed journals play a pivotal part in organizing the academic conferences mentioned above. The more populous a conference is, the more research fields are lumped under one event, making it more predatory. This way, the respected journals are part of the predatory publishing, albeit in a more sneaky way.
The question that begs to be asked here is - how many tick boxes of predatory publishing practices must be ticked for a journal (read a group of people running the journal and its activities) to be considered predatory? Based on the heavy reliance on community judgment, it overwhelmingly seems the decision depends on that same community. That is, the established majority of respected individuals decides how many tick boxes are enough. So the definition of predatory behavior relies on subjective opinion and belonging to the right group of people.
Sounds familiar? A religious cult or a political party, both use similar decision processes. Do you want to stand out and do something we disagree with? Do you do openly and / or more of what we do? You are predatory then, because we said so!
I believe the motivation of the academics behind the editorials of journals is pure - to maintain the quality and integrity of research journals. The way it is executed today, though, is outdated. Few industries are so resistant to a change as academic publishing is. The increasing unrest within the academic community itself about the current ways of judging research results is a clear sign of that. Not to say, it is so easy to point out that the initially well-intentioned group of people at the heart of academic publishing over time turned into a club of influential people averse to change because of the sheer burden of transition to a better state.
While any academic with common sense would agree that change is the only constant, when it comes to changing ways academic publishing is done, this understanding vanishes in the dust of a deep human desire. The desire to belong. To be accepted by your peers. To be celebrated by your peers. You do not get points for sticking out and trying to initiate or implement a meaningful change, but for serving those gentlemen and ladies that currently hold the torch of the truth that they and people around them agree on being the truth.
The revolutionary times are over. Besides, it is rarely the case that a revolution achieved anything it was officially proclaimed to stand for. We live in the times of political correctness, tendency to please the authority, or become famous. Listening to our curiosity, courage, and a sense of justice is left at the door of universities. One may call it the wokeness of science.
The change is coming, though. As the moon cannot be stopped from waxing and waning, neither can the shift of academic publishing. The only question is, what part do you want to play in it. Stand quietly, wait for what the majority will do, or do something to initiate and support a meaningful evolution. I would love to know your opinion and ideas - do let me know in the comments below.
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