Questionable journals
Questionable journals and publishers are unfortunately here to stay. These actors (often referred to as predators) are happy to take money in the form of publication fees, but are lacking in terms of peer review and editorial work. This page tells you how to identify and avoid publishing in questionable journals.
A short video from KIB on how to navigate among the many journals available for publishing articles – some of them questionable.
Reasons not to publish in questionable journals
Shortcomings in the review processes of questionable journals may lead to substandard research slipping through and outright research fraud not being detected - in short, the scientific quality and integrity of the journals cannot be guaranteed.
Another important reason to avoid this type of publication is that most questionable journals are not indexed in established article databases such as Web of Science and MEDLINE (the peer-reviewed version of PubMed), making articles published in them difficult to find. Such a publication is also not included in resource allocation and in citation analyses.
If you are writing a thesis, remember that at least two original papers (at least one in licentiate theses) must be published, or accepted for publication, in a peer-reviewed journal. Questionable journals do not meet the standards of peer review.
Lists of questionable journals
There are many lists on the internet of suspected questionable journals. The problem with such lists is that it is difficult to keep them comprehensive and up to date. One exception is the Cabell's Predatory Reports database (requires KI login) which openly discloses its criteria for inclusion on the list.
Checklist to avoid questionable journals
By checking a journal against the steps in the checklist, you can decide for yourself whether a journal is legitimate or not. Some points are more important than others: if a journal is indexed in Web of Science or MEDLINE, you can assume that it meets the standards of these databases for peer review, editorial work and journal practices and this is more or less a guarantee that the journal can be considered serious.
1. Check that the journal is indexed in Web of Science
Why? The comprehensive and interdisciplinary article database Web of Science has a quality check on the journals that are indexed.
- Go to the Web of Science database Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
- Search by journal title, journal abbreviation or ISSN
- If the journal appears as a search suggestion, it is indexed. From here you can click through to the information page about the journal, with citation indicator (often Journal Impact Factor, JIF), the journal's ranking in its category and much more.
2. Check that the journal is indexed in MEDLINE
Why? MEDLINE is the part of PubMed that provides quality control of the journals that are indexed.
- Go to the NLM (National Library of Medicine) catalog
- Search by journal title, journal abbreviation or ISSN
- If the journal is listed in MEDLINE or PubMed, it will appear in the hit list
- If you see "Currently indexed for MEDLINE" in the journal information, the journal has met MEDLINE's quality criteria
Why is PubMed indexing alone not enough? PubMed is a collective name for two sub-databases: MEDLINE and PMC (PubMed Central). MEDLINE is the quality-reviewed sub-database. PMC publishes full-text articles of all research funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). It can also include articles published in questionable journals. Therefore, the status "Currently indexed for MEDLINE" is important; indexing in PMC alone does not guarantee that a journal is serious.
When the journal is not indexed in Web of Science or MEDLINE
- Not all research areas are covered by Web of Science or MEDLINE, so check instead that the journal is indexed in a database relevant to that research area and that the database in question has quality requirements to include journals.
- A journal may be too new to be indexed in the databases in the checklist. If the journal is published by a serious and well-known publisher, there are usually functioning procedures for review and quality. You can then more or less assume that it is not a questionable journal, even if it is not yet indexed in databases or has not yet received a Journal Impact Factor (JIF).
3. Check that the journal is indexed in DOAJ
This point only applies to pure open access journals, i.e. journals containing only open access articles. So-called hybrid journals containing both paywalled and open access articles are not indexed in DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).
Why? DOAJ, which is a database of open access journals, has a quality review of the journals that are indexed.
- Go to DOAJ
- Search by journal title or ISSN
- If the journal is indexed, it will appear in the hit list. Clicking on the journal title provides information about the peer review process and publication license, among other things
4. Check that the journal is not in Cabell's Predatory Reports
Why? Cabell's Predatory Reports is a service that lists journals with documented violations of journal practices, such as peer review or editorial work. As a researcher at KI, you have access to this service.
- Go to Cabell's Predatory Reports (requires KI login)
- Search by journal title or ISSN (you can also search by publisher)
- If you get a match, you will see the number of documented violations for the journal
- If you click on the entry for the journal, you will see a description of the violations
- There is also a description of the criteria used by Cabell's to assess violations and a breakdown of how serious different types of violations are considered to be.
Keep in mind that Cabell's Predatory Reports is not a comprehensive list of questionable journals. Even if you do not find the journal you are looking for, this does not guarantee that it is serious, but may be because the database has failed to collect information about it.
5. Review the journal using the tips provided on Think. Check. Submit.
Why? The Think. Check. Submit. website has a detailed checklist for you to verify the journal you are checking against. There are also comprehensive descriptions of the characteristics of a questionable journal. The site is run by a number of publishing and library organizations.
If the journal does not meet the criteria in the site's checklist - consider not publishing in it.
When to refrain from publishing?
If you managed to tick all or most of the steps in this checklist, you have good reason to believe that the journal you are checking is a serious journal. If not, you should consider not publishing in the journal and find other options. If you still feel that you need help - contact KIB's Publication Support.
Please note that KIB's own service Open Access/APC Checker Tool is not a service for quality assessment of journals, but only shows whether there is an agreement for prepaid publication fees for a journal or not.
Also, the fact that a journal appears in Google Scholar when searching does not guarantee that the journal is serious. Google Scholar collects publications broadly and does not make a quality assessment of the journal in which a publication is published.
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