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Dubious journals abound: study
What has happened?
- A systematic study of the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) approved list of journals has confirmed what scientists have long suspected.
- The white list contains a huge number of dubious or predatory journals which publish substandard papers for a small fee with very little peer-reviewing, if at all.
Methodolgy
The researchers had randomly selected 1,336 journals from 5,699 university-recommended journals that were included in the UGC list
The journals included were representative of science, arts and humanities, and social science. After excluding 327 journals that were indexed in Scopus/Web of Science, the researchers took up 1,009 journals for critical examination.
Findings
- 88% of 1,009 journals recommended by universities and included in the white list are dubious journals
- Only 112 journals met the criteria set by UGC to be included in the list
- Only 132 journals reached the secondary level of scrutiny for analysis
- The secondary level of scrutiny looked for misleading journal names such as ‘international’ and ‘global’ in journal titles, editorial policies, and nature of charges levied on authors
- Twenty journals were rejected at the secondary level and only 112 journals out of 1,009 were found to be genuine in all.
No verifiable addresses (email or postal)
34.5% journals in the list either did not provide these details or the details provided were incorrect and therefore rejected.
False claims about their impact factor
Of the remaining 660 journals, 528 were removed owing to false claims about their impact factor, being indexed in dubious indexing databases, incorrect ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) and poor credentials of editors.
A scam in itself
The dubious or predatory journal publishing in India parallels the Nigerian lottery scam
UGC should not maintain the white list
It is simply not equipped to do it efficiently. It should instead issue advisories on the quality of research publications
