Fake Academic Journals Are a Very Real Problem

derekmead writes "Because its become so easy to start a new publication in this new pixel-driven information economy, a new genre of predatory journals is emerging at an alarming rate. The New York Times just published an exposée of sorts on the topic. Its only an exposée of sorts because the scientific community knows about the problem. There are blogs set up to shame the fake journals into halting publishing. There are tutorials online for spotting a fake journal. There's even a list created and maintained by academic librarian Jeffrey Beall that keeps an eye on all the new fake journals coming out. When Beall started the list in 2010, it had only 20 entries. Now it has over 4,000. The journal Nature even published an entire issue on the problem a couple of weeks ago. So again, scientists know this is a problem. They just don't know how to stop it."

Comments

Re:Ban Elsevier!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

That's terrible. Can someone please contact Jeffrey Beall and tell him to add Elsevier to the fake journals list.

Thank God! We nearly let that one get through!

[slow clap]

It's too bad; the problems Beall points out are real enough, but his approach is hopelessly tainted by his obvious biases.