Training from institutions on publishing norms could help to thwart predatory publishers.
Predatory journals are a known scourge of science. They collect publication fees and publish articles without adequate (or sometimes any) peer review, ultimately wasting researchers’ time and money and undermining public trust in science. But few studies have sought to understand what makes authors submit articles to these journals.
We have observed recently that our language about questionable publishers needs to change to reflect the fact that some researchers very intentionally submit their work to a title that has very little by way of peer review or editorial processes. For them, paying to quickly have their work published is exactly their intention. This is a manifestation of a system that rewards quantity over quality. Even if we decide to continue assisting our researchers to identify predatory publishers, we need to alert them to the fact that it will harm their reputation and the reputation of their projects if they are published with a questionable publisher.
What I learnt has considerably changed my understanding of predatory journals and has revealed steps that institutions should take to limit these journals’ harmful influence.
I was not surprised that most respondents were from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) nor that some knowingly submitted to predatory journals, seeing them as a way to get ahead in what they perceived as a cut-throat and unfair academic system.
