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Publishing in predatory tourism and hospitality journals: Mapping the academic market and identifying response strategies
Abstract
The exponential growth of open access publishing has sadly encouraged the emergence of numerous predatory publishers and journals harming the scientific community and threatening scholarly communication. While the issue has received some attention from the academic community in medical and applied sciences, much less work has been done within the realm of social sciences. Specifically, despite the gravity of predatory publishing as unethical practice and its negative effect on the progress and quality of tourism and hospitality research, empirical investigation on the topic remains very limited. The present study used a mixed method design combining data from 612 articles published in 13 potential tourism and hospitality predatory journals with data from two surveys drawing on authors’ experiences as well as tourism and hospitality most prolific scholars’ perceptions. The findings reveal that predatory journals are succeeding in targeting a wide range of researchers regardless of their career experience from both developed and developing countries. Lack of awareness of predatory journals, pressure for publication, and high rejection rates in legitimate journals were found to be the key motivations for publishing in predatory journals. Raising awareness of predatory journals and reconsidering tenure and promotion requirements were suggested as the best response strategies to curb predatory publishing. The study offers several theoretical and practical implications and proposes avenues for future research.
... According to the research, scholars from developing countries mostly publish in POA journals (Frandsen, 2017). However, another study states that authors from developed countries like USA are also potentially publishing in POA journals in tourism and hospitality (Alrawadieh, 2020). Other research has indicated that POA publishers and authors publishing in POA journals are not only confined to developing countries (Erfanmanesh & Pourhossein, 2017). ...
... It is concerning that predatory publications are available in an open environment for reference and citation. A country publishing high volumes of junk science has a low quality of research (Alrawadieh, 2020). Another study discusses the threat of junk science to scientific research in general (Cortegiani et al., 2019). ...
... It is alarming to have junk content in the open space. There should be more emphasis on the awareness of junk content (Alrawadieh, 2020). Evolving trends in the OA space continue to strengthen the publishing model. ...
Open access (OA) journals have emerged in the past two decades and have influenced scholarly publications to a great extent, contributing to the benefits of OA publishing. The research focuses on the evolving trends of OA and the measures required to address the issue of exponentially growing predatory publishing. The study concludes the research by proposing measures for the scholarly world to address predatory publishing globally. The scope of the research is qualitative, discussing the fair publishing practices and implications of Plan S and open peer review. In the methodology, the study reviews the wealth of published literature in the discipline to decide the variables and impact on the dependent variable.
... More clues about authors are provided when researchers limit their investigation to specific disciplines or countries; however, generalizations about experience are less pragmatic. Xia et al. (2015) found that authors who published in pharmaceutical-focused journals on Beall's list tended to have fewer publications and less experience, and studies in the areas of the social sciences and humanities came to similar conclusions (Alrawadieh, 2018;Shehata & Elgllab, 2018). However, Bagues et al. (2019) found that Italian authors who have published in predatory journals had a higher number of publications in a shorter amount of time, and Pyne's study of a small Canadian business school found that "only 10 percent of those who were assistant professors … have predatory publications compared with 68.8 percent of associate professors and 100 percent of full professors" (2017, p. 151). ...
... Several studies provide evidence as to why authors have published their work in predatory journals and, particularly, why they may have done so intentionally. Alrawadieh (2018) and Bagues et al. (2019) found that participants unintentionally had their work published in predatory journals, whether owing to hijacked journals, journals with titles mimicking reputable ones, or misleading metrics and websites. The studies by Cobey et al. (2019) and Kurt (2018) found that 96.1% and 70.8% of respondents, respectively, were unaware that the journal they published in could be considered predatory. ...
... At the same time, there is evidence to support that authors knowingly submit their work to fraudulent outlets to assuage publishing pressure, attain rewards, pad their publication record, or publish an oft-rejected manuscript (Alrawadieh, 2018;Demir, 2018). Pyne (2017) found that both predatory publications and higher quantities of research publications were positively rewarded financially. ...
INTRODUCTION Not enough is known about what faculty understand about predatory journals, how they learn about them, and how they feel about them, which has led to insufficient education and guidance on the phenomenon. METHODS A census survey was sent to all publishing university faculty at a mid-sized doctoral granting university and received 109 responses. The survey covered faculty professional history, departmental culture and environment, criteria for journal selection, and knowledge of and experiences with predatory journals. RESULTS Almost all faculty had at least heard of predatory publishing and believed it to be a problem. Faculty reported that, most of the time, they learned about it through colleagues and/or the literature in their field. Yet, faculty expressed uncertainty about the impact predatory journals have on their field and expressed hesitance in penalizing colleagues for publishing in them. DISCUSSION Faculty understanding of predatory journals—and fraudulent publishing overall—may be too basic for efficient application in complex situations such as exploring new publication opportunities and evaluating scholarship. This leads to incongruencies between faculty values and the courses of action they pursue. CONCLUSION It is important to form a fuller picture of faculty relationships with fraudulent publishing in order to respond appropriately to their needs. The results from this study inform how the University Libraries might work with colleges and other entities on campus to provide early and ongoing professional development.
... These journals, some of which can be found even in the most influential indexes (Nwagwu and Ojemeni 2015;Severin and Low 2019), are believed to exploit longestablished academic norms to the extent that 'any hodgepodge has an excellent chance of being published' (Djuric 2015: 184). These articles, critics warn, pollute scholarly literature potentially damaging public trust in scholarly research and threaten the future of any field (Alrawadieh 2020) . Despite the increased attention so-called 'predatory' publishing receives from the scholarly community, with many calling for concentrated action against 'predatory' journals and publishers (Clark and Smith 2015;Downes 2020a, b), it has rapidly and exponentially grown in number to fast become a global threat to scholarly integrity (Shen and Bjö rk 2015). ...
... Departing from these studies, however, Gabrielsson et al. (2021), Wallace and Perri (2018), and Perlin et al. (2018) report authors of 'predatory' articles are experienced with a high number of publications suggesting 'ignorance of publishing standards due to inexperience is not the primary reason authors publish in predatory journals' (Wallace and Perri 2018: 21) and 'young and inexperienced researchers are not necessarily the profile of those who publish in predatory journals' (Perlin et al. 2018: 270). This argument is supported by five more studies reviewed, which report both experienced and inexperienced authors publish in 'predatory' journals (Seethapathy et al. 2016;Shehata and Elgllab 2018;Cohen et al. 2019;Eykens et al. 2019;Alrawadieh 2020). In totality, these findings suggest authors of all hues, experienced and inexperienced, publish in 'predatory' journals and experience alone does not explain the author profile. ...
... Pressure to publish is also a factor underlined repeatedly by reviewed articles (Seethapathy 2016;Demir 2018;Ebadi and Zamani 2018;Kurt 2018;Cobey et al. 2019;Alrawadieh 2020;Rawas et al. 2020;Salehi et al. 2020). In totality, these articles reveal a considerable share of 'predatory' articles is a response to publication pressure PhD students or established scholars experience-an unintended consequence of the unprecedented attention given to publishing in career development or more recently in the award of the doctoral degree. ...
Intensified pressure to publish is a hallmark of a rapidly evolving higher education field where the faculty of any hue cannot avoid the ‘publish or perish’ treadmill. Growing need to publish more and to do so fast have resulted in the proliferation of pseudo scholarly publications many regards as ‘predatory’. This article provides a systematic review of research studies on so-called ‘predatory’ publishing, a new but fast-growing area of research, with a particular focus on the awareness of prospective authors about so-called ‘predatory’ publishing, the profile of authors publishing in ‘predatory’ journals and the causal factors encouraging authors to publish in such outlets. It synthetizes the results of research studies on the topic to identify gaps and trends in the existing knowledgebase to guide further research. Results indicate so-called ‘predatory’ articles are authored by scholars from all fields and levels of academic experience rather than by inexperienced scholars only and ‘predatory’ contributions are not limited to developing countries, suggesting geographical location and author experience fail to explain the author profile of ‘predatory’ articles. Findings of this review suggest causal factors include research evaluation policies and publication pressure that emerge from the research environment in which scholars operate authors’ limited capacity to publish in ‘legitimate’ journals and conventions of so-called ‘predatory’ publishers. This indicates meaningful action might address all these factors in combination, rather than focus on them in isolation.
... In some cases, these and other specious research results get posted on websites or media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Line or reported by local TV and radio stations 12 . In many cases, individuals who read or hear these stories are not given sufficient information to verify the original sources, eventually creating a situation where news consumers cannot distinguish among three types of science: legitimate, junk, and pseudo 13 . A simple example comes from Taiwan, where a research team claimed to have found data indicating that eating pineapple fruit every day was a sufficient alternative to medical treatments for eye spots known as vitreous floaters 14 . ...
... Along with editorial office addresses, phrases and terms such as "indexing in [specific] database" and "journal metrics" appear to indicate legitimacy, but they are also used in misleading advertising and promotional emails sent out by predatory journals 34 . Other red flags include promises of fast peer review; the use of informal or personal contact emails that are not associated with a website; journal webpages with multiple spelling, grammar, and content errors; false claims of high impact factors with self-created indicators; and lack of publisher listings in universal databases such as the DOAJ, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, or Committee on Publication Ethics 13,19,[33][34][35][36] . Unintentionally publishing academic research through spam and phishing emails may damage careers and loss of money caused. ...
The growing number of online open-access journals promotes academic exchanges, but the prevalence of predatory journals is undermining the scholarly reporting process. Data collection, feature extraction, and model prediction are common steps in tools designed to distinguish between legitimate and predatory academic journals and publisher websites. The authors include them in their proposed academic journal predatory checking (AJPC) system based on machine learning methods. The AJPC data collection process extracts 833 blacklists and 1213 whitelists information from websites to be used for identifying words and phrases that might indicate the presence of predatory journals. Feature extraction is used to identify words and terms that help detect predatory websites, and the system’s prediction stage uses eight classification algorithms to distinguish between potentially predatory and legitimate journals. We found that enhancing the classification efficiency of the bag of words model and TF-IDF algorithm with diff scores (a measure of differences in specific word frequencies between journals) can assist in identifying predatory journal feature words. Results from performance tests suggest that our system works as well as or better than those currently being used to identify suspect publishers and publications. The open system only provides reference results rather than absolute opinions and accepts user inquiries and feedback to update the system and optimize performance.
... The promotion of questionable special issues is one of the identifying characteristics of predatory journals (Alrawadieh 2020). Certainly, the number of special issues published or scheduled in 1 year reveals no quality-related information, although the fact that the number of special issues in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals is so much higher than the number of ordinary issues per year coupled with their constant increase since 2018 inevitably awakens suspicions of a lucrative business aim. ...
... While there may be easily recognizable predatory journals, others have crept into prestigious databases such as Scopus (Cortegiani et al. 2020b), PubMed , MEDLINE, or Embase (Hayden 2020) with the appearance of legitimate scientific journals. Many of the studies on predatory journals in different scientific fields have been completed in reference to the journals listed on Beall's list, since discontinued (Shen and Bjork 2015;Frandsen 2017;Demir 2018;Alrawadieh 2020;Downes 2020). However, to the best of the author's knowledge, the study of a dubious publisher, such as MDPI has not been approached, except on rare occasions. ...
The extent to which predatory journals can harm scientific practice increases as the numbers of such journals expand, in so far as they undermine scientific integrity, quality, and credibility, especially if those journals leak into prestigious databases. Journal Citation Reports (JCRs), a reference for the assessment of researchers and for grant-making decisions, is used as a standard whitelist, in so far as the selectivity of a JCR-indexed journal adds a legitimacy of sorts to the articles that the journal publishes. The Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) once included on Beall’s list of potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers, had 53 journals ranked in the 2018 JCRs annual report. These journals are analysed, not only to contrast the formal criteria for the identification of predatory journals, but taking a step further, their background is also analysed with regard to self-citations and the source of those self-citations in 2018 and 2019. The results showed that the self-citation rates increased and was very much higher than those of the leading journals in the JCR category. Besides, an increasingly high rate of citations from other MDPI-journals was observed. The formal criteria together with the analysis of the citation patterns of the 53 journals under analysis all singled them out as predatory journals. Hence, specific recommendations are given to researchers, educational institutions and prestigious databases advising them to review their working relations with those sorts of journals.
... In fact, many researchers, regardless of their career experience, geographic location, and disciplinary affiliation, seems to be involved [Perlin et al., 2018]. Thus, predatory publishing is not only an issue in developing countries [Eykens et al., 2019;Moher et al., 2017], specifically with regard to tourism and hospitality [Alrawadieh, 2018]. Indeed, according to the findings of the latter, the socioeconomic and geographical dispersion of the problem may be quite wide: in a sample of 1,907 papers in more than 200 journals, thought likely to be predatory, more than half had authors from highand upper-middle-income countries as defined by the World Bank. ...
... This is perhaps not as surprising as it seems at first glance, experienced researchers from the developed world, as represented by the faculty of the University of South Denmark [Shaghaei et al., 2018], publish in predatory journals, too, and mainly for the same reasons as do researchers from developing countries: lack of awareness, speed and ease of the publication process, and a chance to get elsewhere rejected work published. The findings by other researchers [Alrawadieh, 2018;Eykens et al., 2019] also confirm that senior authors are visibly present on the predatory publishing scene, which, as the latter put it, render the assumption that predatory publications are authored mainly by inexperienced authors 'highly doubtful' . For example, experienced researchers in the Brazilian academic system were the ones more likely to publish in predatory journals [Perlin et al., 2018]. ...
The paper draws on evidence of predatory publishing obtained from the 4 year-long
Harbingers research study of the changing scholarly communication attitudes and
behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs). The project featured longitudinal
interviews for the first 3 years with 116 international ECRs researching science and social
sciences who came from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, UK and USA. The
interview data provided the building blocks for a questionnaire survey in the 4th year,
which obtained 1600 responses from a global audience, which included arts and
humanities ECRs and those from Russia. These studies investigated predatory publishing
as part of general questioning about scholarly communications, in other words in context.
The main finding from the interview study were: 1) ECRs generally do not publish in
predatory journals; 2) they only allude to them lightly and mainly in the context of open
access publishing; 3) they no longer acquaint all open access publishing with predatory
journals. The questionnaire found that, as in the case of the interviews, complaints that
open access is low quality publishing are diminishing, however, this positivity according
to the questionnaire has been partly offset by increased concerns about the dangers of
predatory journals.
... In fact, many researchers, regardless of their career experience, geographic location and disciplinary affiliation, seems to be involved (Perlin, Imasato and Borenstein, 2018). Thus, for example, Eykens et al. (2019) report that predatory publishing is not only an issue in developing countries, as do Alrawadieh (2018), specifically with regard to tourism and hospitality, and Moher et al. (2017). Indeed, according to the findings of the latter, the socio-economic and geographical dispersion of the problem may be quite wide: in a sample of 1907 papers in more than 200 journals, thought likely to be predatory, more than half had authors from high-and upper-middle-income countries as defined by the World Bank. ...
... speed and ease of the publication process, and a chance to get elsewhere rejected work published. Alrawadieh's (2018) and Eykens et al.'s (2019) findings, also confirm that senior authors are visibly present in the predatory publishing scene, which, as the latter put it, render the assumption that predatory publications are authored mainly by inexperienced authors 'highly doubtful'. Perlin, Imasato and Borenstein (2018) also found that experienced researchers in the Brazilian academic system were the ones more likely to publish in predatory journals. ...
... In fact, many researchers, regardless of their career experience, geographic location and disciplinary affiliation, seems to be involved [Perlin et al., 2018]. Thus, predatory publishing is not only an issue in developing countries [Eykens et al., 2019;Moher et al., 2017], specifically with regard to tourism and hospitality [Alrawadieh, 2018]. Indeed, according to the findings of the latter, the socio-economic and geographical dispersion of the problem may be quite wide: in a sample of 1907 papers in more than 200 journals, thought likely to be predatory, more than half had authors from high-and upper-middle-income countries as defined by the World Bank. ...
... This is perhaps not as surprising as it seems at first glance, experienced researchers from the developed world, as represented by the faculty of the University of South Denmark [Shaghaei et al., 2018], publish in predatory journals, too, and mainly for the same reasons as do researchers from developing countries: lack of awareness, speed and ease of the publication process, and a chance to get elsewhere rejected work published. The findings by other researchers [Alrawadieh, 2018;Eykens et al., 2019] also confirm that senior authors are visibly present in the predatory publishing scene, which, as the latter put it, render the assumption that predatory publications are authored mainly by inexperienced authors 'highly doubtful' . For example, experienced researchers in the Brazilian academic system were the ones more likely to publish in predatory journals [Perlin et al., 2018]. ...
The paper draws on evidence of predatory publishing obtained from the 4 year-long Harbingers research study of the changing scholarly communication attitudes and behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs). The project featured longitudinal interviews for its first 3 years with 116 ECRs researching science and social sciences who came from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, UK and USA. The interview data provided the building blocks for a questionnaire survey in the 4th year, which obtained 1600 responses from a global audience, which included arts and humanities ECRs and those from Russia. These studies investigated predatory publishing as part of general questioning about scholarly communications, in other words, in context. The main finding from the interview study were: 1) ECRs generally do not publish in predatory journals; 2) they only allude to them lightly and mainly in the context of open access publishing; 3) they no longer acquaint all open access publishing with predatory journals. The questionnaire found that, as in the case of the interviews, complaints that open access is low quality publishing are diminishing, however, this positivity has been partly offset by increased concerns about the dangers of predatory journals.
... Türkiye kıstasında bakıldığında; konu Üniversitelerarası Kurul (ÜAK) tarafından görüşülmüş ve hazırlanan raporda yağmacı dergilerin özellikleri; "yayımlama için makale işleme ücreti ödenmesinin zorunlu tutulması", "makaleleri hızlı yayınlama sözü verilmesi ve yayınlanması", "ilan ettiği konu dışında veya birbiriyle ilgisi olmayan birçok farklı alanda makalelere yer verilmesi", "yayın ilkeleri açıklamasının eksik olması", "yayın ilkelerinde açıkça makalelerde özgünlük, önem ve etki aranmadığının belirtilmesi", "yayınlanan araştırmanın telif hakkını saklama veya koruma politikası olmaması" ve "hakem sürecinin gerçekçi işletilmemesi, hakem görüş ve önerilerinin yazar ile paylaşılmaması" olarak belirtilmiştir (YÖK, 2019). Alrawadieh (2018); açık erişim ile birlikte artan yağmacı dergilerin, hem gelişmiş hem de gelişmekte olan ülkelerdeki farklı araştırmacıların hedeflendiğini, Kurt (2018) ise; çalışmasında, bu dergilerin daha çok Asya ve Afrika da bulunduğunu, sosyal kimlik tehdidi, bilinçsizlik, yüksek baskı ve araştırma yeterliliği eksikliği nedeniyle tercih edildiğini ortaya koymuştur. Yağmacı dergilerin yazarlara spam e-postalar yollayarak, agresif pazarlama taktikleri uygulayarak ve akran incelemesi yapmadan/ çok az yaparak, süreçlerin çok hızlı gelişeceği vaatleri sunarak ilgi çektiğini belirtmiştir. ...
... Yağmacı dergilerin tercih edilme sebepleri ise; akademisyenlerin farkındalık eksikliği nedeniyle kendilerini ispatlama ve tanıtma isteği, ücret ya da kariyerini yükseltme çabası (Pamukçu Günaydın ve Doğan, 2015), nitelikten ziyade niceliğin önemli olduğu yayın baskısı yaratan "yayınla ya da yok ol" sistemi, akademik teşvik ve ödüllendirme sistemleri (Akça ve Akbulut, 2018), yüksek reddedilme oranları, reddedilme korkusu ve dikkatsizlik (Clark ve Thompson, 2017;Alrawadieh, 2018) olarak sayılmaktadır. ...
Çalışmada turizm alanında doktora düzeyinde eğitim alan öğrencilerin yağmacı yayıncılığa iliş-kin bilgi ve deneyimleri tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bu kapsamda öncelikle açık erişimli, paralı, sahte ve yağmacı dergiler hakkında bilgileri, ikincil olarak da dergi tercihini yaparken nelere dikkat ettikleri saptanmaya çalışılmıştır. Nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden derinlemesine görüşme tekniği kullanılarak, kolayda örnekleme yöntemiyle belirlenmiş doktora eğitimi gören 15 turizm öğrencisine yarı yapılandırılmış soru formu uygulanmıştır. Daha sonra elde edilen bulgular betimsel analiz yöntemiyle yorumlanmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda katılımcıların genellikle yüzeysel ve kulaktan dolma bilgilere sahip oldukları ve kavram karmaşası yaşadıkları görülmüştür. Yazarlardan ücret alınıp alınmamasının kalite algısına etki ettiği, yağmacı dergilerde yayın yapmaya olumsuz bakış açısı sergilense de bu konuda araştırma çabasına girilmediği saptanmıştır.
... Türkiye kıstasında bakıldığında; konu Üniversitelerarası Kurul (ÜAK) tarafından görüşülmüş ve hazırlanan raporda yağmacı dergilerin özellikleri; "yayımlama için makale işleme ücreti ödenmesinin zorunlu tutulması", "makaleleri hızlı yayınlama sözü verilmesi ve yayınlanması", "ilan ettiği konu dışında veya birbiriyle ilgisi olmayan birçok farklı alanda makalelere yer verilmesi", "yayın ilkeleri açıklamasının eksik olması", "yayın ilkelerinde açıkça makalelerde özgünlük, önem ve etki aranmadığının belirtilmesi", "yayınlanan araştırmanın telif hakkını saklama veya koruma politikası olmaması" ve "hakem sürecinin gerçekçi işletilmemesi, hakem görüş ve önerilerinin yazar ile paylaşılmaması" olarak belirtilmiştir (YÖK, 2019). Alrawadieh (2018); açık erişim ile birlikte artan yağmacı dergilerin, hem gelişmiş hem de gelişmekte olan ülkelerdeki farklı araştırmacıların hedeflendiğini, Kurt (2018) ise; çalışmasında, bu dergilerin daha çok Asya ve Afrika da bulunduğunu, sosyal kimlik tehdidi, bilinçsizlik, yüksek baskı ve araştırma yeterliliği eksikliği nedeniyle tercih edildiğini ortaya koymuştur. Yağmacı dergilerin yazarlara spam e-postalar yollayarak, agresif pazarlama taktikleri uygulayarak ve akran incelemesi yapmadan/ çok az yaparak, süreçlerin çok hızlı gelişeceği vaatleri sunarak ilgi çektiğini belirtmiştir. ...
... Yağmacı dergilerin tercih edilme sebepleri ise; akademisyenlerin farkındalık eksikliği nedeniyle kendilerini ispatlama ve tanıtma isteği, ücret ya da kariyerini yükseltme çabası (Pamukçu Günaydın ve Doğan, 2015), nitelikten ziyade niceliğin önemli olduğu yayın baskısı yaratan "yayınla ya da yok ol" sistemi, akademik teşvik ve ödüllendirme sistemleri (Akça ve Akbulut, 2018), yüksek reddedilme oranları, reddedilme korkusu ve dikkatsizlik (Clark ve Thompson, 2017;Alrawadieh, 2018) olarak sayılmaktadır. ...
... Academic misconduct is a major issue that erodes public trust in research. The increasing pressure for publishing and the lack of awareness of ethical practices are suggested as key reasons for involving in academic misconduct (Alrawadieh, 2018;Campos-Varela & RuanoRaviña, 2018;McKercher, 2018;Redman & Merz, 2005). Metrification of research not only impeded the creation of new knowledge (Fennell, 2013), but it also led to the authors engaging in system manipulation to survive in a competitive academic environment (McKercher, 2018b). ...
... This is likely to be attributed to the relative youthfulness of tourism as an area of study and the sensitivity of the topic. Most of the existing studies examined misconduct practiced by students (e.g., Goh, 2013Goh, , 2015) while much less work focused on misconduct by tourism and hospitality researchers (Deale, Schoffstall, & Lee, 2018;Alrawadieh, 2018). In a recent study, Deale et al (2018) investigated tourism and hospitality faculty members' and graduate students' perceptions of ethical research behaviors. ...
Recently, retraction has received considerable attention in several fields of research. The topic, however, remains neglected in the field of tourism and hospitality. The current investigation explores the current level of retraction in tourism and hospitality research. It also draws on the perceptions of the editors-in-chief of tourism and hospitality journals to understand their attitudes toward retraction. The findings reveal that retraction is quite rare in the field of tourism and hospitality (only 5 retracted articles were identified). Empirical evidence shows that editors-in-chief have mixed perceptions concerning the current level of retraction, varying between optimism and pessimism. Optimistic editors-in-chief agreed that the rareness of retraction is reflective of research integrity and identified awareness of the best practices in academic publishing, the youthfulness of tourism as an area of study, and the role of plagiarism detection software programs as significant factors. Pessimistic editors-in-chief were reluctant to consider the low retraction rate to be an indicator of a high level of research integrity and they highlighted the difficulty of detecting malpractice, editors-in-chief's unwillingness to engage in retraction, and the existence of unethical practices that do not lead to retraction. By identifying the retraction level and exploring the perceptions of editors-in-chief, the present study endeavors to track the progress, transparency, and integrity of tourism and hospitality research.
... Newcomers to academe from the Global South may have been in the eye of the predatory storm, but the socio-economic and geographical dispersion of the problem turned out to be much wider, extending to academics from high-and upper-middle-income countries (IAP, 2022;Elliott et al., 2022;Moher et al., 2017; Segado-Boj; Martín-Quevedo; Prieto Gutiérrez, 2022), as well as to the senior and experienced among them (Alecci, 2018;Elliott et al., 2022). Indeed, researchers from Italy (Bagues; Sylos-Labini; Zinovyeva, 2017), Belgium (Eykens et al., 2019) and Denmark (Shaghaei et al., 2018) were found to have published in questionable journals, as did senior academics (Alrawadieh, 2018;Eykens et al., 2019;Frandsen, 2022;Perlin;Imasato;Borenstein, 2018;Pyne, 2017;Shaghaei et al., 2018;Wallace;Perri, 2018). Perhaps most tellingly, over 5000 researchers from German universities, institutes and federal agencies, inclusive of prominent professors, even a Nobel laureate, have also been found to have published articles in predatory journals with no peer review processes (NDR, 2018;Offord, 2018). ...
Around 170 early career researchers (ECRs) from 8 countries were interviewed about the whole range of their scholarly communication attitudes/behaviours during pandemic times and this paper analyses what they said about predatory journals in a wide range of scholarly communication contexts. Because of the delicacy of the topic there was just one question exclusively directed at predatory journals, which asked about policies rather than actions, which yielded nevertheless wide-ranging comments on the topic. ECRs also volunteered information on predatory journals in another half dozen questions, most notably including one on questionable research practices. The source of data was mainly the final interview of three undertaken, with some comparisons made to rounds one and two. Findings disclose the existence of a whole raft of formal and informal assessment policies/codes that direct ECRs to legitimate journals and away from predatory ones. Despite being junior, ECRs are very accultured to the criteria of what is considered as prestige and quality and believe predatory publishing is not even conceivable. They are far more concerned about low-quality research, preprints and borderline 'grey' journals. The pandemic has increased the level of questionable practices and low-quality research, but predatory journals were only singled out by a relatively small number of ECRs. Funding This paper comes from the Harbingers-2 project: Early career researchers and the pandemic, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
... Kayumovich, Khudoynazarovich, Shavkatovna, Alimovich, & Supiyevna, 2020). Moreover, the responsibility of marketers is to think beyond and innovate new ways of tourism marketing with the availability of existing resources to promote tourism in Asian countries (Alrawadieh, 2020). Tourism marketing via blogging is not a recent trend because marketers have been working on it for a decade (Dewan & Benckendorff, 2013;Liu, Shi, Xue, & Shen, 2022;Ma, Chen, & Ampountolas, 2016). ...
The Marketers and residents of tourist places are facing tourism promotion-related challenges. The trends of digital marketing are stimulating traditional marketers for tourism promotion. Recently, the trend of digital media influencers has been getting considerable attention among marketing academicians and practitioners. However, this study aims to determine the role of modern digital marketing tools for green tourism promotion of foreign tourism in Pakistan. Consequently, 450 questionnaires for data collection were distributed among foreign tourists visiting different tourist destinations. The Partial Least Square (PLS) software was used to analyze the data, and the threshold for significant variables was (P<0.05). The study points out the critical role of modern digital marketing tools, i.e. YouTube marketing and social media influencers, in promoting green tourism through tourism v-logging in Pakistan. The practical implications of this study would enhance the experiences of marketers for green tourism promotion in Pakistan. Moreover, the current research fills the literature gap in the digital marketing domain by thoroughly discussing emerging digital marketing tools.
... Geographically, the majority of the participating authors were from Asia or Africa, in line with previous studies (Salehi et al., 2020;Shen & Björk, 2015). However, a sizeable proportion of them were from Europe, most noticeably the UK, which indicates that even authors from developed countries are prone to publishing in predatory journals (Alrawadieh, 2020). While Cobey et al. (2019) found that 21% of authors publishing in biomedicine PPJs were from the USA, our study showed a much lower percentage (1.4%) of USA authors publishing in language and linguistics PPJs. ...
This study examines the experiences and motivations of language and linguistics academics who have published in potential predatory journals (PPJs). A questionnaire was administered to 2,793 academics with publications in 63 language and linguistics PPJs, and 213 of them returned their responses. A subsample of the respondents (n = 21) also contributed qualitative data through semi-structured interviews or email responses to open-ended questions. Analyses of the survey data found that the authors were mainly from Asia, mostly had a doctorate, chose the PPJs chiefly for fast publication and/or meeting degree or job requirements, were predominantly of the opinion that the PPJs were reputable, and commonly reported positive impacts of publishing in the PPJs on their studies or academic careers. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed five main themes: unawareness, unrelenting publication pressures, low information literacy, social identity threat, and failure to publish in top-tier journals.
... One risk that may emerge if doctoral students are not helped to be equipped with theoretical and methodological knowledge as well as the style sought by the legitimate journals is a possible temptation to search for shortcuts to get published in "predatory" journals (Alrawadieh, 2020;Cobey et al., 2019;Kurt, 2018),which are described as easier and faster (Shehata & Elgllab, 2018), instead of in "legitimate" international outlets. This issue is discussed in detail in Mertkan et al. (2021). ...
Article publication as a requirement for graduation appears to be the most compelling challenge for doctoral candidates, especially for the non-English speaking ones. In order to contribute to this topic of growing interest, we aimed to investigate the key challenges to doctoral student research publication and develop an understanding of support they needed to ease the publication process. To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 non-English speaking doctoral students in varied science and social science programs at an international university in north Cyprus. The findings revealed that the participants supported the “publish or no degree” policy as a condition for their graduation despite several challenges it created for them, such as lack of publication experience, weaknesses in the article composition, tough criteria of journals, and inadequate support from the instructors at the course phase. Peer-support community among the doctoral students lacked in the examined context and promoting it might yield positive results.
... Some studies have shown that the problem of predatory publishing is present not only in the peripheries, but also in the center. For example, in a study on predatory journals focusing on tourism and hospitality, Alrawadieh (2018) found that most authors had affiliations in the US (N = 120), followed by Nigeria (N = 85), Taiwan (N = 77), Malaysia (N = 70), and Turkey (N = 61). However, it is important to see such results in the context of total publication output and the number of researchers in a given country. ...
Knowledge production is an important factor in establishing the geopolitical position of countries. In the recent heated discussion on predatory publishing, the geopolitical dimension of this topic is often ignored or treated superficially. In this paper, we introduce the term “mislocated centres of scholarly communication” to help better understand the emergence of predatory journals, and journals that bear similarities to them, in geopolitical peripheries. Mislocated centers of scholarly communication are perceived in the peripheries as legitimized by the center but are in fact invisible or illegitimate in the center. Thus, we argue the importance of viewing these mislocated centers as the result of unequal power relations in academia. To support our argument, we summarize the research on the topic of predatory publishing and demonstrate that predatory journals are a geopolitical problem because the geopolitical peripheries of science are much more often harmed by them than the center. Unlike predatory journals, mislocated centers of scholarly communication are not necessarily fraudulent but rather they are geopolitical roles imposed on some journals by a dynamic between center and peripheries. Our approach could help to criticize this system without discriminating against peripheral scholars or journals.
... Researchers who have previous publications at a conference or in journals are targets for receiving spam emails with questionable calls for papers. Alrawadieh (2020) analyzed 612 published papers in 13 potential tourism and hospitality predatory journals [22]. He showed that predatory journals target a wide range of researchers from both developed and developing countries. ...
Scholarly publishing currently is faced by an upsurge in low-quality, questionable “predatory/hijacked” journals published by those whose only goal is profit. Although there are discussions in the literature warning about them, most provide only a few suggestions on how to avoid these journals. Most solutions are not generalizable or have other weaknesses. Here, we use a novel information technology, i.e., blockchains, to expose and prevent the problems produced by questionable journals. Thus, this work presented here sheds light on the advantages of blockchain for producing safe, fraud-free scholarly publishing.
... Fourteen of the 16 articles carry out surveys of academics, either via e-mail or online. Survey response rates varied significantly, from 54% (Bagues, Sylos-Labini, & Zinovyeva, 2019) down to 10% (Alrawadieh, 2020). In several cases the respondent population is sizeable, perhaps because of the nationality or perceived institutional legitimacy of the researcher team. ...
This article systematically reviews recent empirical research on the factors shaping academics' knowledge about, and motivations to publish work in, so‐called ‘predatory’ journals. Growing scholarly evidence suggests that the concept of ‘predatory’ publishing’ – used to describe deceptive journals exploiting vulnerable researchers – is inadequate for understanding the complex range of institutional and contextual factors that shape the publication decisions of individual academics. This review identifies relevant empirical studies on academics who have published in ‘predatory’ journals, and carries out a detailed comparison of 16 papers that meet the inclusion criteria. While most start from Beall's framing of ‘predatory’ publishing, their empirical findings move the debate beyond normative assumptions about academic vulnerability. They offer particular insights into the academic pressures on scholars at the periphery of a global research economy. This systematic review shows the value of a holistic approach to studying individual publishing decisions within specific institutional, economic and political contexts. Rather than assume that scholars publishing in ‘questionable’ journals are naïve, gullible or lacking in understanding, fine‐grained empirical research provides a more nuanced conceptualization of the pressures and incentives shaping their decisions. The review suggests areas for further research, especially in emerging research systems in the global South.
As an important medium of science communication, academic journals promote the flow and growth of scientific knowledge. To examine the influence of factors on authors' choice of a journal, this paper reviews the literature on journal selection. A systematic review and critical interpretive synthesis methods were used in this study. A total of 132 articles were included and the content characteristics were extracted. Then, based on behavioural decision theory, the extracted data on journal selection factors were synthesized based on critical interpretive synthesis principles. Four synthetic constructs emerged: factors related to information acquisition, factors related to journal evaluation, factors related to submission outcome feedback, and factors related to the authors' backgrounds. The articles revealed that factors related to journal information acquisition and journal evaluation directly influenced authors' submission behaviour, while factors related to authors' backgrounds were moderating variables. Future research should focus on the processes of manuscript‐submission behaviour, to examine the relationships between the factors and identify the mechanisms.
This study aimed to identify editorial features that can distinguish predatory and legitimate open-access journals in the discipline of language and linguistics. Fifty-six journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and an equal number of journals from Beall’s updated list of potential predatory journals (PPJs) were identified and selected for a close examination. Analyses showed that these two groups of journals differed markedly in a large number of editorial features: certain publication frequencies, contact address and contact information, mean number of articles published per year, specialized focus, mean peer review time, adoption of double-blind peer review, submission mode, listing of editor(s)-in-chief, relevance of their expertise, mean number of editorial board members, availability of the guide for authors and aims/scope sections, an APC for open access, mean APC, claimed indexation by DOAJ, presence of ethical guidelines and publishing policies, and presence of DOIs. Nevertheless, they did not differ significantly with regard to mean years of editorial activity, mention of average peer review period, mention of acceptance rate, mean number of editorial board members, mean number of editors, listing of editorial boards, claimed indexation by Google Scholar/ERIC/Scopus/Web of Science, COPE membership, and availability of ISSNs. These findings point to distinguishing editorial features that language and linguistics scholars need to consider when they look for legitimate open-access journals to disseminate their research and can be used to inform education on how to discern legitimate open-access and illegitimate open-access journals. The implications of this study can guide the open access movement forward, especially in applied linguistics.
Öğrencilerin akademik gelişimindeki son aşama olan doktora eğitim sürecinde öğretim üyeleri ve öğrenciler arasındaki uyumun sağlanması, eğitimin etkinliği ve verimliliği açısından oldukça önemlidir. Bu açıdan, öğretim üyelerinin doktora öğrencilerine ve turizm eğitimine; doktora öğrencilerinin de öğretim üyelerine ve turizm eğitime bakış açısını değerlendirmek mevcut durumu ortaya koyabilmek açısından gereklidir. Araştırmanın amacı, turizm alanında doktora öğrenimi veren öğretim üyeleriyle, turizm alanında eğitim alan doktora öğrencilerinin görüş ve düşüncelerini ortaya koymaktır. Bu amaçla katılımcılarla (20 öğretim üyesi ve 20 doktora öğrencisi) 2020 yılının sonlarında derinlemesine görüşmeler yapılarak veriler toplanmıştır. Veri toplama sürecinde kolayda ve kartopu örneklem
yöntemine başvurulmuş, COVID-19 salgını nedeniyle tüm görüşmeler uzaktan (telefon veya zoom üzerinden) gerçekleştirilmiş ve elde edilen veriler içerik analizi yöntemiyle çözümlenmiştir. Bulgular;
doktora düzeyinde ders veren öğretim üyelerinin genel olarak öğrencilerden memnun olduklarını ortaya koysa da, öğretim üyeleri doktora öğrencilerine yönelik bazı eksikliklerin varlığı konusunda hemfikirdir. Bu noktada öğretim üyeleri tarafından, öğrencilerin en sık araştırma yöntemleri ve akademik yazım konusundaki yetersizliklerinin vurgulandığı görülmektedir. Doktora öğrencilerinden elde edilen
bulgularda ise, öğrencilerin genel olarak öğretim üyeleriyle iyi ve uyumlu bir ilişki yürüttükleri, ancak eğitim kalitesinden tam anlamıyla doyum elde edemedikleri sonucu ortaya çıkmıştır. Mevcut
çalışmanın, özellikle turizmde doktora eğitim deneyimine yönelik sınırlı olan alan yazına teorik katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir. Doktora eğitim sürecinin etkinliği ve verimliliği açısından uygulamaya
yönelik olarak ise doktora ders havuzunun güncellenmesi, akademik gelişimle doğru orantılı derslerin eklenmesi, öğretim üyelerinin öğrenciler açısından yol gösterici olması ve öğrencilerin de akademik
gelişime odaklanmaları önerilmektedir.
It is widely acknowledged that research and publications in peer reviewed journals offer important metrics in describing the academic outputs of higher education institutions on one hand, and their societal impacts on the other. Peer review is a well-tested method for quality control and has been successfully deployed over many decades in academic journals worldwide. But despite the fact that publications on matters related to sustainable development offer solid evidence of academic activity and excellence, there is a dearth of literature in this field. In order to address this need, the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR) and the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) have undertaken the World Survey on Sustainability Publishing and Research in Higher Education (WSSSP-HEI). The paper has two main aims. The first is to document and showcase trends in scientific publishing on matters related to sustainable development. The second aim is to contribute to a greater understanding of this rapidly growing field, by describing the latest developments and the role played by some of the journals active in this area. Consistent with these aims, this paper focuses on publications on sustainability in higher education, describes the methods used in the study and some of its results. It can be seen that despite the intrinsic value of research on sustainable development in higher education as a whole, and of publications in this field in particular, such practices are not as widely developed as one could expect. This paper discusses the possible reasons and also outlines some measures via which higher education institutions may be able to take more advantage of the many opportunities that publishing on sustainability offers to them.
In the internet era spam has become a big problem. Researchers are troubled with unsolicited or bulk spam emails inviting them to publish. However, this strategy has helped predatory journals hunt their prey and earn money. These journals have grown tremendously during the past few years despite serious efforts by researchers and scholarly organizations to hinder their growth. Predatory journals and publishers are often based in developing countries, and they potentially target researchers from these countries by using different tactics identified in previous research. In response to the spread of predatory publishing, scientists are trying to develop criteria and guidelines to help avoid them—for example, the recently reported “predatory rate”. This article attempts to (a) highlight the strategies used by predatory journals to convince researchers to publish with them, (b) report their article processing charges, (c) note their presence in Jeffrey Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers, (d) rank them based on the predatory rate, and (e) put forward suggestions for junior researchers (especially in developing counties), who are the most likely targets of predatory journals.
The issue of predatory journals has become increasingly more prevalent over the past decade, as the open-access model of publishing has gained prominence. Although the open-access model is well-intentioned to increase accessibility of biomedical research, it is vulnerable to exploitation by those looking to corrupt medical academia and circumvent ethics and research standards. Predatory journals will achieve publication by either soliciting unsuspecting researchers who have legitimate research but fall victim to these predators, or researchers looking to quickly publish their research without a thorough review process. Some features of predatory journals are a quick non peer-review process, falsely listing or exaggerating the credibility of editorial board members, and either lack of or falsification of institutional affiliations and database listings. These predatory journals are a serious threat to the integrity of medical research, as they will infect the available literature with unsubstantiated papers, and allow the low-quality publication research. A number of steps can be taken to prevent the spread and increase awareness of predatory publishers, and these must be done to maintain the integrity of medical academia. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Press freedom and worldwide internet access have opened ample opportunity for a staggering number of poor open access journals and junk publishers to emerge. Dubious publishers are abusing and camouflaging the golden open access model. In 2012, Jeffery Beall shed light on the predatory journals (as he preferred to call them) and the threat to open access scientific publication. Publishing in predatory journals is continuing to be a major threat for the development of science in developing countries. The authors of this article proposed solutions and outline a fresh perspective to help authors avoid publishing in predatory journals.
Press freedom and worldwide internet access have opened ample opportunity for a staggering number of poor open access journals and junk publishers to emerge. Dubious publishers are abusing and camouflaging the golden open access model. In 2012, Jeffery Beall shed light on the predatory journals (as he preferred to call them) and the threat to open access scientific publication. Publishing in predatory journals is continuing to be a major threat for the development of science in developing countries. The authors of this article proposed solutions and outline a fresh perspective to help authors avoid publishing in predatory journals.
Recently, there has been an alarming increase in the number of “academic” papers published in vanity journals and publishers. Such journals, dubbed predatory because their main objective is making money out of authors, compromise or completely abandon the peer review system. An increase in publishing with such journals, which is common in developing counties, will affect the quality of science, excellence, development, and individual researchers' and institutions' professional reputation. In this article, the author discusses strategies for individual researchers and institutions for identifying and discouraging publishing in predatory journals. Moreover, suggestions on how to deal with faculty who have published and already bestowed positions on the grounds of papers published in predatory journals are also given. Strategies and suggestions discussed in this article can provide insights to librarians and publication officers on how to curb the problem of predatory publications.
The presence of journals considered predatory are analysed in various bibliographic databases and in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Of the list produced by Jeffrey Beall of possible or probable predatory open access academic journals, 944 of those are reviewed, cross-referencing their ISSN with the Information Matrix for the Analysis of Journals (MIAR) developed at the University of Barcelona. It is then determined whether these journals appear in citation indexes such as Web of Science or Scopus, in multidisciplinary databases, in specialised databases or in the DOAJ directory. The study concludes that there is no significant widespread presence of predatory journals in bibliographic databases, although some such as Emerging Sources Citation Index, Veterinary Science Database or DOAJ show somewhat higher values than expected, and so should be monitored and revised in the future by database producers or by Beall's list.
This article introduces predatory publishers in the context of biomedical sciences research. It describes the characteristics of predatory publishers, including spamming and using fake metrics, and it describes the problems they cause for science and universities. Predatory journals often fail to properly manage peer review, allowing pseudo-science to be published dressed up as authentic science. Academic evaluation is also affected, as some researchers take advantage of the quick, easy, and cheap publishing predatory journals provide. By understanding how predatory publishers operate, researchers can avoid becoming victimized by them.
An unexpected, relatively unknown, pitfall of electronic journals is the proliferation of “fake journals,” fake in so far as there are no editorial boards nor peer reviews of submitted manuscripts. The author’s investigation and personal experience with one such journal is described. Although most of the submissions to that journal have been from Third World scholars taking advantage of the low fees, it is only a matter of time before unsuspecting scholars from Europe and North America become entangled in such journals.
In recent times some publishers are intensively exploiting the model of open access publishing. During the last several years, studies have shown that there was a substantial increase in the number of fake publishers and hijacked journals. These cyber criminals make money by stealing the identities of legitimate journals and collecting the article processing charges on the papers that are submitted. This is all accomplished by a well developed framework that includes web development steps, intensive e-mail marketing and victim selections. This review article strives to recommend that the Beall's list of predatory publishers and journals should be consulted every time when an author plans to submit scientific work to some of the journals that are indexed by Thomson Reuters/Institute for Scientific Information-ISI and covered by the Journal Citation Report. Also, the authors are advised to be "up to date" with new information regarding this controversial topic by informing themselves through various websites and specialized scientific portals. The review paper itself strives to summarize the most recent investigations on predatory and spurious journals/publishers which affect the entire scientific community, thus representing an outbreak with rising trend not only on national and regional level, but on global level as well.
This study analyses theoretical problems in the study of tourism and reviews some major thoughts and literature as well as tourism as an emerging discipline. Tourism as a scientific discipline still does not haveits own and established academic body that distinguishes it from other sciences. Therefore, tourism as a recent field of research is struggling without being understood in the correct way because its theory of knowledge is not delimited and tries to be reflected from the point of view of its formal components. In this sense, the principal aim of this article is to try to delimit the perspectives and definitions of the main authors that have contributed tothe" tourism theory" in general until now, by focusing on several dimensions such us: positivism, materialism, neo-durkheimism, functionalism and post-modernism.
Background
A negative consequence of the rapid growth of scholarly open access publishing funded by article processing charges is the emergence of publishers and journals with highly questionable marketing and peer review practices. These so-called predatory publishers are causing unfounded negative publicity for open access publishing in general. Reports about this branch of e-business have so far mainly concentrated on exposing lacking peer review and scandals involving publishers and journals. There is a lack of comprehensive studies about several aspects of this phenomenon, including extent and regional distribution.
Methods
After an initial scan of all predatory publishers and journals included in the so-called Beall’s list, a sample of 613 journals was constructed using a stratified sampling method from the total of over 11,000 journals identified. Information about the subject field, country of publisher, article processing charge and article volumes published between 2010 and 2014 were manually collected from the journal websites. For a subset of journals, individual articles were sampled in order to study the country affiliation of authors and the publication delays.
Results
Over the studied period, predatory journals have rapidly increased their publication volumes from 53,000 in 2010 to an estimated 420,000 articles in 2014, published by around 8,000 active journals. Early on, publishers with more than 100 journals dominated the market, but since 2012 publishers in the 10–99 journal size category have captured the largest market share. The regional distribution of both the publisher’s country and authorship is highly skewed, in particular Asia and Africa contributed three quarters of authors. Authors paid an average article processing charge of 178 USD per article for articles typically published within 2 to 3 months of submission.
Conclusions
Despite a total number of journals and publishing volumes comparable to respectable (indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals) open access journals, the problem of predatory open access seems highly contained to just a few countries, where the academic evaluation practices strongly favor international publication, but without further quality checks.
Publishing scholarly articles in traditional and newly-launched journals is a responsible
task, requiring diligence from authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers. The current
generation of scientific authors has ample opportunities for publicizing their research.
However, they have to selectively target journals and publish in compliance with the
established norms of publishing ethics. Over the past few years, numerous illegitimate or
predatory journals have emerged in most fields of science. By exploiting gold Open Access
publishing, these journals paved the way for low-quality articles that threatened to change
the landscape of evidence-based science. Authors, reviewers, editors, established
publishers, and learned associations should be informed about predatory publishing
practices and contribute to the trustworthiness of scholarly publications. In line with this,
there have been several attempts to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate journals by
blacklisting unethical journals (the Jeffrey Beall’s list), issuing a statement on transparency
and best publishing practices (the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association’s and other
global organizations’ draft document), and tightening the indexing criteria by the Directory
of Open Access Journals. None of these measures alone turned to be sufficient. All
stakeholders of science communication should be aware of multiple facets of unethical
practices and publish well-checked and evidence-based articles.
There is increasing evidence that scientific misconduct is more common than previously thought. Strong emphasis on scientific productivity may increase the sense of publication pressure. We administered a nationwide survey to Flemish biomedical scientists on whether they had engaged in scientific misconduct and whether they had experienced publication pressure. A total of 315 scientists participated in the survey; 15% of the respondents admitted they had fabricated, falsified, plagiarized, or manipulated data in the past 3 years. Fraud was more common among younger scientists working in a university hospital. Furthermore, 72% rated publication pressure as "too high." Publication pressure was strongly and significantly associated with a composite scientific misconduct severity score.
© The Author(s) 2014.
This research note reports a study that analyzed the 100 most influential articles, which is operationalized as the most cited publications published in tourism journals from 2000 to 2007. A Google Scholar‐based software system was developed in Java to retrieve the citation information. The empirical findings show that 10.16% of the citations were from Institute for Scientific Information‐listed (ISI) journals, and that 71.64% of them were from neither ISI nor tourism journals. The most popular topics covered by these articles were psychology and tourist behavior, followed by destination image and marketing. This article contributes to the literature by providing an alternative means of assessing the impact of research into tourism.
This study reports productivity of authors, universities, and countries using research contributions to top hospitality and tourism journals. Since the new millennium, hospitality and tourism research has seen tremendous expansion and diversification. To understand hospitality and tourism research in the first decade of the new millennium, this study examined articles published in the six most commonly cited hospitality and tourism journals: Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, and Journal of Travel Research. To provide more insight, this study classified and analyzed articles from the selected journals into various research agendas. A total of 2,834 research articles in these journals from 2000 to 2009 revealed the 50 most prolific authors and universities and the 20 countries of residence of these authors and institutions in the field of hospitality and tourism. In addition, overall productivity rankings for 100 hospitality and tourism authors and universities and 30 countries are presented. The results of this study provide valuable and detailed information for academic stakeholders such as current and prospect graduate students, faculty, and academic administrators.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
In recent years the academic world has witnessed the mushrooming of journals that falsely pretend to be legitimate academic outlets. We study this phenomenon using information from 46,000 researchers seeking promotion in Italian academia. About 5% of them have published in journals included in the blacklist of ‘potential, possible, or probable predatory journals’ elaborated by the scholarly librarian Jeffrey Beall. Data from a survey that we conducted among these researchers confirms that at least one third of these journals do not provide peer review or they engage in some other type of irregular editorial practice. We identify two factors that may have spurred publications in dubious journals. First, some of these journals have managed to be included in citation indexes such as Scopus that many institutions consider as a guarantee of quality. Second, we show that authors who publish in these journals are more likely to receive positive assessments when they are evaluated by (randomly selected) committee members who lack research expertise. Overall, our analysis suggests that the proliferation of ‘predatory’ journals reflects the existence of severe information asymmetries in scientific evaluations.
Purpose
This paper provides a personal view of the state of hospitality and tourism research as we enter 2018. It seeks to highlight a number of systemic issues that are affecting adversely the quality of research published.
Design/methodology/approach
An auto-ethnographic approach based on the author’s nearly 30 years of working and researching in the field of hospitality and tourism.
Findings
The paper begins by talking about many of the positive things that are occurring in our field, before raising five main issues that are of concern: the changing nature of academic research; our own lack of critical thinking; becoming method robots; publishing and authorship pressures that hinder career development and creativity; and, whether our own lack of working experience hurts the academic development of the field.
Originality/value
The paper provides a list of 5 key issues all academics must be aware of to ensure both their own career progression and the continued development of the field.
Although researchers have begun to investigate the difference in scientific impact between closed-access and open-access journals, studies that focus specifically on dynamic and disciplinary differences remain scarce. This study serves to fill this gap by using a large longitudinal dataset to examine these differences. Using CiteScore as a proxy for journal scientific impact, we employ a series of statistical tests to identify the quartile categories and disciplinary areas in which impact trends differ notably between closed- and open-access journals. We find that closed-access journals have a noticeable advantage in social sciences (for example, business and economics), whereas open-access journals perform well in medical and healthcare domains (for example, health profession and nursing). Moreover, we find that after controlling for a journal's rank and disciplinary differences, there are statistically more closed-access journals in the top 10%, Quartile 1, and Quartile 2 categories as measured by CiteScore; in contrast, more open-access journals in Quartile 4 gained scientific impact from 2011 to 2015. Considering dynamic and disciplinary trends in tandem, we find that more closed-access journals in Social Sciences gained in impact, whereas in biochemistry and medicine, more open-access journals experienced such gains.
This study examines the reasons why authors publish in ‘predatory’ OA journals. In total, 50 journals were randomly selected from Beall's list of ‘predatory’ journals. Different methods, including WHOIS tracking, were utilized to query basic information about the selected journals, including location and registrant. Then, 300 articles were randomly selected from within selected journals in various scientific fields. Authors of the selected articles were contacted and sent survey questions to complete. A grounded theory qualitative methods approach was used for data collection and analysis. The results demonstrated that most of these journals were located in the developing world, usually Asia or Africa, even when they claimed they were in the USA or UK. Furthermore, four themes emerged after authors’ survey responses were coded, categorized, and sub-categorized. The themes were: social identity threat, unawareness, high pressure, and lack of research proficiency. Scholars in the developing world felt that reputable Western journals might be prejudiced against them and sometimes felt more comfortable publishing in journals from the developing world. Other scholars were unaware of the reputation of the journals in which they published and would not have selected them had they known. However, some scholars said they would still have published in the same journals if their institution recognised them. The pressure to ‘publish or perish’ was another factor influencing many scholars’ decisions to publish in these fast-turnaround journals. In some cases, researchers did not have adequate guidance and felt they lacked the knowledge of research to submit to a more reputable journal. More needs to be done by institutions and reputable journals to make researchers aware of the problem of ‘predatory’ journals.
Similar to a study by Nelson and Huffman on the presence of predatory journals in aggregator databases, this study presents the results of a comparison between Jeffrey Beall’s List of Standalone Journals and a group of six commercial publisher and open access journal packages. A subject analysis of the predatory journals listed on Beall’s standalone journal list was also conducted along with an analysis of the trend in predatory publisher and journal growth. In the end, only a small number of predatory journals were found to exist within the publisher packages. The subject analysis of the journals on Beall’s standalone journal list revealed that most of the journals on his list were either multidisciplinary in nature or allied with science, medicine/health, and technology subjects. However, because the number of predatory journals discovered in the publisher packages was too small, a meaningful statement about the predominant subject areas of the predatory content found in the publisher packages could not be made. Finally, within the context of the publishing world at large, based on the historical development of predatory publishers and their journals, a dramatic increase in their growth is forecast. Because Beall’s lists of predatory publishers and standalone journals were often used by authors for guidance but are no longer available, several tools for evaluation of publisher and journal quality are summarized.
The term ‘predatory journal’ hides a wide range of scholarly publishing misconduct. The term ‘predatory journal’ unhelpfully bundles misconduct with poor quality. The term ‘predatory journal’ blinds us to important possibilities, needs, and questions arising in the developing scholarly landscape. The current scholarly publishing environment cannot rely on such a simplified classification of journals into predatory or not.
Predatory publishers have been a growing concern since librarian Jeffrey Beall first coined the phrase in 2010. Much like any phishing ploy, predatory publishers know what to exploit, making academic researchers feel pressured to publish and increase their bibliometrics in order to gain funding and earn tenure. Examples of the poor peer review processes of predatory publishers highlights the issues surrounding the research contained in their journals and, while evaluating predatory publishers, traditional journals also have fallen under the microscope for their peer review processes. With predatory publishers gaining more attention and growing at a rapid pace, more information is being published to inform researchers how to detect and avoid these journals. Thanks to Beall’s work, librarians are finding their expertise being recognized and may soon find a stronger place in research processes.
The purpose of this paper is to present the historical development of tourism studies literature and institutions in chronological order, dating back to the early twentieth century. Data sources used include books, journals, reports, theses and dissertations. Guidance was provided by academicians who have had personal communications with the first generation of pioneers in tourism research, or personal experience of the transformation of tourism as an academic discipline from its junior to its mature stages. The paper indicates how tourism as a field of research and education evolved from the early 1900s to the early 2000s and how this development can be divided into three major periods. In the first period, tourism was considered to be an applied field and was integrated within other major disciplines. During this time, scholars from Germany, Switzerland and Austria dominated research. The second period saw the first steps towards internationalisation, with tourism research and education expanding into Anglophone countries and some other developing areas. The third period reflects how tourism research and education became international.
Increasingly scholars and researchers are being solicited by predatory “open access” journals seeking manuscript submissions and abusing the author-pays model by charging authors with publishing fees without any or proper peer review. Such questionable editorial practices are threatening the reputation and credibility of scholarly publishing. To date no investigation has been conducted on this phenomenon in the field of rehabilitation. The present study attempts to identify specific predatory journals operating in this field, to quantify the phenomenon and its geographical distribution. Beall’s list has been used to this end which, although not perfect, is a comprehensive and up-to-date report of predatory publishers. Of the 1,113 publishers on the list, 59 journals were identified, for a total of 5,610 published articles. The median number of articles published by each journal was 21 and the median amount of the article processing charges was 499 USD. Only 1 out of 59 journals was included in the Directory of Open Access Journals while 7 (12%) were indexed by PubMed. Most of the publishers were based in India (36%) followed by the USA (25%) and Pakistan (5%) and 25% were without a verifiable address.
The career prospects of tourism and hospitality academics have changed radically in the past 40 years, and this study examines how senior researchers, mid-career academics, and new and emerging scholars are negotiating the rapidly changing research, publishing, and ultimately career progression landscape. A total of 264 respondents were recruited via TRINET and CIRET. Respondents assessed their perceived pressures to adopt research and publishing approaches and provided career advice that were analyzed via content analysis. Collaboration, selection of journal, topic choice, and contribution to the field were highly ranked publishing advice from academics. Pressures to adopt authorship tactics were reported among new and emerging, and mid-career academics to maximize publication output. This study suggests academics may risk sacrificing longer-term career prospects for short-term survival as increased emphasis of performance metrics becomes more common, and considers the implications of shifting goal posts in research and publishing for the field.
The quality of medical literature is increasingly threatened by irresponsible publishing, leading to rising retraction rates, irreproducible results, and a flood of inconsequential publications that distract readers from more meaningful scholarship. "Predatory publishers" offer rapid publication with loose peer review, exploiting a system in which faculty seek longer bibliographies to achieve academic promotion. In this Commentary, the authors highlight some of the evidence that this problem exists and suggest actions to address it. Recommendations for protecting the medical literature include preventing predatory journals from being indexed by the National Library of Medicine; encouraging academic promotions committees to ensure that they prioritize value over volume of publications and that faculty understand that priority; excluding publications from predatory journals on curricula vitae and requiring that retractions are included; developing sanctions for repeated retractions or duplicate publications; and convening an expert panel to better elucidate this problem and determine strategies to combat it.
(C) 2016 by the Association of American Medical Colleges
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to identify predatory journals in nursing, describe their characteristics and editorial standards, and document experiences of authors, peer reviewers, and editors affiliated with these journals.
Design:
Using two sources that list predatory journals, the research team created a list of nursing journals. In Phase One, the team collected data on characteristics of predatory nursing journals such as types of articles published, article processing charge, and peer review process. In Phase Two, the team surveyed a sample of authors, reviewers, and editors to learn more about their experiences with their affiliated journals.
Methods:
Data from the review of predatory nursing journals were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Written comments were summarized and categorized.
Findings:
There were 140 predatory nursing journals from 75 publishers. Most journals were new, having been inaugurated in the past 1 to 2 years. One important finding was that many journals only published one or two volumes and then either ceased publishing or published fewer issues and articles after the first volume. Journal content varied widely, and some journals published content from dentistry and medicine, as well as nursing. Qualitative findings from the surveys confirmed previously published anecdotal evidence, including authors selecting journals based on spam emails and inability to halt publication of a manuscript, despite authors' requests to do so.
Conclusions:
Predatory journals exist in nursing and bring with them many of the "red flags" that have been noted in the literature, including lack of transparency about editorial processes and misleading information promoted on websites. The number of journals is high enough to warrant concern in the discipline about erosion of our scholarly literature.
Clinical relevance:
Nurses rely on the published literature to provide evidence for high-quality, safe care that promotes optimal patient outcomes. Research published in journals that do not adhere to the highest standards of publishing excellence have the potential to compromise nursing scholarship and is an area of concern.
Predatory journals are out to get you and your work. Awareness of predatory publishers and their practices is now much higher than even three years ago: predatory being defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as 'preying naturally on' and 'seeking to exploit' others. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Much of the recent library literature related to scholarly communication and predatory publishers has focused on faculty concerns regarding publishing in questionable journals for tenure or promotion purposes. However, little attention has been paid to predatory publishers in the context of student research and library instruction. The presence of predatory journals in library databases may put students at risk of including questionable content in their academic output. While the results of this study reveal that the number of predatory publishers and their associated journals are fairly small in the three article database packages and one directory that were examined, predatory journal content was more prevalent in one particular resource and in certain subject areas.
Like human cultures, research cultures are passed down from one generation of scholars to the next. The advent of predatory journals and conferences is damaging existing research cultures. Predatory publishers and conferences carry out a fake or incomplete peer review that allows low-quality, un-vetted research to become a part of the scholarly record. This article examines predatory publishers and conferences within the framework of the five functions of scholarly communication. Academic institutions need to revise their evaluation policies based on the new realities predatory journals and conferences have created.
This paper presents the bibliometric characteristics of 32 biomedical open access journals published by Academic Journals and International Research Journals – the two Nigerian publishers in Jeffery Beall's list of 23 predatory open access publishers in 2012. Data about the journals
and the authors of their articles were collected from the websites of the publishers, Google Scholar and Web of Science. As at December 2012, the journals had together produced a total of 5,601 papers written by 5,599 authors, and received 12,596 citations. Authors from Asia accounted for
56.79% of the publications; those from Africa wrote 28.35% while Europe contributed 7.78%. Authors from Africa accounted for 18.25% of the citations these journals received, and this is about one-third the number of citations by authors in Asia (54.62%). At country level, India ranks first
in the top 10 citer countries, while Nigeria, the host country of the journals, ranked eighth. More in-depth studies are required to develop further information about the journals such as how much scientific information the journals contain, as well as the science literacy of the authors and
the editorial.
This study examines the payment policies of a list of standalone predatory open access journals available on scholarlyoa.com. It is found that 72% do charge article publication fees (APCs), which is a higher percentage than found in DOAJ journals. The mean number of articles published
during 2013 was 227, but ranged from 4 to 2,286 articles. The majority of journals charge low APCs and can be assumed to have modest annual incomes. There was no correlation between the amount of APC charged and the number of articles published. Comparing the number of journals charging APCs
compared to the percentage from DOAJ, the findings suggest a connection between predatory practices and charging author fees. However, a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics of open access journal publishing beyond author charges should be done to avoid using APCs alone as a measure of
whether a journal is predatory or not.
Lately, a phenomenal dimension of peripheral scholarship, compulsorily demanding the ‘foreign’, has evolved into the practice of paid publishing in ‘foreign’ journals among Nigerian academics. These ‘foreign’ journals afford speedy publishing at a fee with little or no peer review. This study is a descriptive research which collected qualitative data through 30 in-depth interviews conducted with academics in two federal universities in Nigeria. The findings established that though some universities are beginning to question their intellectual validity and propriety, predatory paid-for foreign journals remain popular among academics desirous to satisfy the ‘international publishing rule’ for promotion at all costs. Lacking international scholarly credibility, predatory journals will not advance Nigerian scholarship into the global scholarly mainstream which the ‘international rule’ ultimately seeks.
Open access publishing has expanded dramatically over the last decade. For the most part, this works to everyone's advantage, enabling important, cutting-edge science to get to readers sooner than by more traditional publication methods. JAN supports open access initiatives including its periodic Virtual Issues program and providing a full open access publication option. Many journals and respectable publishing houses offer similar choices and there are also open-access-only publishers whose publishing standards match those of JAN. However, this is not the case for all open access only publishers.
Many open access journals have a reputation for being of low quality and being dishonest with regard to peer review and publishing costs. Such journals are labeled “predatory” journals. This study examines author profiles for some of these “predatory” journals as well as for groups of more well-recognized open access journals. We collect and analyze the publication record, citation count, and geographic location of authors from the various groups of journals. Statistical analyses verify that each group of journals has a distinct author population. Those who publish in “predatory” journals are, for the most part, young and inexperienced researchers from developing countries. We believe that economic and sociocultural conditions in these developing countries have contributed to the differences found in authorship between “predatory” and “nonpredatory” journals.
Corresponding author. Address: International Centre for Ecotourism Research, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD 4222, Australia. Tel.: +61 7 55528675; fax: +61 7 55528895.
This paper uses network analysis to identify the pioneering scholars and seminal works which have influenced recent papers in leading journals. The analysis extends beyond rankings of scholars by using co-citation networks to visualize the relationships between the most influential scholars and works and to uncover the disciplinary contributions which have supported the emergence of tourism as a field of academic study. The networks of scholars and works illuminate invisible colleges, tribes and territories in tourism research and indicate that while the social sciences have been most influential, business-related citations are increasing. The findings contribute to the discourse about the epistemology of tourism research by using bibliometric techniques to offer insights into the interdisciplinary structure of tourism research.
This study identified the most frequently cited tourism scholars in two time periods (1970–2007, and 1998–2007). Google Scholar (www.scholar.google.com) and Publish or Perish (www.harzing.com) were used to analyze citation counts. A total of 58 tourism academics registered at least 500 citations for their books and journal articles published at any time between 1970 and 2007, while a minimum of 250 citations were recorded by 48 authors for their works published since 1998. The study suggests that Google Scholar and Publish or Perish may provide an alternative means to develop impact scores for tourism scholars, provided a number of codicils are considered.
The explosion in open-access publishing has fuelled the rise of
questionable operators.