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How to avoid being duped by predatory journals

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• eva.amsen{at}gmail.com

Some journals capitalise on researchers’ and clinicians’ need for publications by luring them in with flattering emails, only to subject them to poor editing practices and threatening invoices. The best way to avoid this is to learn to spot the warning signs, writes Eva Amsen

There are tens of thousands of academic journals, with new ones appearing all the time, creating a complicated landscape of many potential homes for every article. “Unfortunately, because it’s so big and confusing, predatory journals have taken advantage of this system,” says Dominic Mitchell, operations manager at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and current chair of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, a trade association of open access journal and book publishers.

“A predatory publication is one that is deceptive in some way; where the publishers are not transparent about what they’re doing,” explains Katherine Stephan, research support librarian at Liverpool John Moores University.

In 2019 a US court ordered OMICS Publishing Group to pay $50.1m to the Federal Trade Commission for misleading researchers. 1 The court found that OMICS engaged in numerous deceptive practices. Often authors were not told about publishing fees until after their articles were accepted. Those who then asked for their articles to be withdrawn were frequently refused.

And this is just the tip of an iceberg of bad publishing practices. Keeping track of the deception is difficult—partly because there is no hard line between what’s considered predatory and what’s not. But publishing experts are trying to make sense of it and help researchers make informed choices.

A spectrum of bad practices

In 2019 an international panel of publishers, librarians, researchers, and others agreed a general definition of predatory publishing: “Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritise self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterised by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.” 2

The definition emphasises the many different behaviours that could be considered “predatory” and that few journals will show all of them at once.

“Researchers often see this as a binary—a publisher is either predatory or not,” says David Moher, director of the Centre for Journalology at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and co-organiser of the panel that set the definition. “But, as in most things in life, there’s a spectrum,” he says.

At the extreme of the spectrum are publishers that add researchers’ names to articles or editorial boards without their knowledge, or place fake impact factors on their websites. At the other end are those that may not have any intention to mislead, but whose editorial processes might have moved away from best practices. Regardless of intent, any lack of quality control creates risks for both authors and readers of scientific articles.

When you read a journal article, you usually can’t see how scrupulous the editing and peer review process was. At first glance, articles with mistakes, oversights, or even made-up data can be difficult to differentiate from any other article, and researchers and clinicians are at risk of unintentionally amplifying unvetted data.

For authors, a journal’s lack of editorial processes may become clear once a paper comes back from peer review with no comments, or when editors introduce errors into the paper. At that point it may, however, be too late to withdraw the submission, and the author risks being stuck with a publication that does not reflect the quality of their work.

“People from all walks of life end up having papers in predatory journals,” says Moher (see box). Some of them might be under pressure to publish quickly and a call for submissions can arrive at just the right time. Recognising the sign of a predatory email can prevent people from being lured into a publication they may regret.

Flattering, desperate emails

Peter Gøtzsche, epidemiologist and director of the Institute for Scientific Freedom in Copenhagen, receives so many unsolicited requests for articles that he decided to analyse these emails for a month. “The emails are always flattering,” he says, “and they say that they are in a desperate situation.” Emails will ask for urgent submissions, and cite the recipient’s own work and praise their qualities as a researcher.

Gøtzsche collected many of these examples in a preprint. 3 A few weeks later, he found another email in his inbox, this time urging him to submit this very preprint—the one about predatory emails—to a predatory journal. 4

Blocking senders doesn’t help. Gøtzsche noticed that one publisher was using email addresses from dozens of different web domains to bypass filters. The best course of action is to ignore such emails completely. But Sam Shuster, emeritus professor of dermatology at Newcastle University, decided to reply to some of the emails he received, just to see what would happen. “They were anxious to get a paper to fill the journal,” he says. But when he feigned interest and replied, it quickly became clear that what they really wanted was his money rather than his research papers. 5

Shuster and Gøtzsche knew that the emails they so regularly received were predatory tactics. “They’re easily detected,” says Shuster.

“It virtually never happens that I am invited by a decent journal to write something,” explains Gøtzsche. And when it does happen, it’s for an editorial or opinion piece, never for a research article. Moher agrees, “It is very rare for a legitimate journal to write to you and ask for a paper.”

However, Theodora Bloom, executive editor of The BMJ , disagrees: “It is absolutely not uncommon for journals (including some published by BMJ) to call for papers or call for contributions to special issues. Editors also frequently approach researchers whose work is of interest to encourage them to submit relevant work to their journal.”

So, an email requesting urgent submissions may not be a clear red flag, but there are other signs that such an email isn’t genuine. Excessive praise and poor grammar are examples given by Schuster.

Some predatory journals may mention editors that have no idea that their name is being used to recruit articles. “I remind people regularly to check Google that they haven’t become an editor of a suspicious journal,” says Moher.

This happened to Shuster, who discovered that he is named as editor of a journal published by Longdom. It even published an editorial in his name that he didn’t write. “It’s awful,” he says. Shuster tried unsuccessfully to get the editorial and his profile removed by contacting the journal and publisher Longdom through a formal letter. Longdom did not respond to The BMJ’ s request for comment.

The limitations of lists and databases

Researchers and librarians have sometimes checked whether publishers they hadn’t heard of were included in “Beall’s list.” This list was curated by librarian Jeffrey Beall, who also coined the term “predatory publisher,” but he stopped updating it in 2017. 6 There are newer websites that do similar lists, but Mitchell and Stephan are cautious about relying on them.

“Lists like that have a danger of being extremely subjective,” Mitchell says. Whoever curates the list decides which publications are labelled as predatory. “Lists are also biased towards higher income countries and to English language publications,” adds Stephan. That means that many predatory journals from other places and in other languages will be missed.

A less biased, but also imperfect, method is to do the opposite and check whether a journal is included in a database that requires publishers to adhere to some level of editorial practices, such as DOAJ, Medline, or Scopus.

“It’s like the Yellow Pages of open access journals,” says Mitchell about DOAJ. “It’s a way for people to find an approved journal that they know somebody has looked at and reviewed.” However, DOAJ only includes open access journals, so it’s not an exhaustive list.

Biomedical journals are also not automatically above board if they appear in PubMed.

“If research is publicly funded and there’s an article from it, there is a back channel for predatory publishers to get themselves into PubMed,” says Moher. Any papers that were supported by grants from funders with an open access requirement can be uploaded to PubMedCentral, which will get them indexed in PubMed, regardless of the journal. 7

Learning to spot the signs

Instead of relying on lists of journals, Mitchell recommends researchers learn what to look for when submitting a paper.

Mitchell and Stephan are both committee members of Think. Check. Submit, an initiative set up by several international scholarly publishing associations to make researchers more aware of what to look for when submitting to a journal. 8

“Think. Check. Submit is not trying to say, ‘This publisher is bad,’ or ‘This journal is bad’,” says Stephan. “Just that you have to dig a bit deeper.” The website offers a checklist researchers can use to assess a journal before they submit. It includes questions such as “Do you or your colleagues know the journal?” “Is it clear what fees will be charged?” and “Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?”

Asking questions like this will help researchers to recognise when a journal might be concealing information about their process. “It all comes back to transparency,” says Stephan.

Moher’s Centre for Journalology is developing a tool that will help researchers evaluate the transparency of different publishers. 9 Meanwhile, the group also provides other resources and advice for people who are concerned or unsure about journals’ predatory tactics.

“It’s not a black and white matter,” he says. “It’s based on thinking about the behaviours and actions of publishers.”

Whether to submit to a journal or not is up to every individual researcher (and their coauthors). But understanding the hallmarks of predatory publishers and knowing the risks of submitting to them is the best way to avoid being misled.

Non-standard impact factors, poor editing, and persistent threats—two researchers reveal their experiences

It can happen to anyone. Samantha Brooks, reader in cognitive neuroscience at Liverpool John Moores University, was dealing with a family illness when she submitted a paper in response to an email from what turned out to be a predatory journal. “They caught me at a difficult time,” she says. “It was embarrassing because I normally notice these things.”

Steven Lim, infectious disease specialist at Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun in Malaysia, says that he was “young and naïve” when in 2016 he responded to a predatory email. After a brief peer review process, Lim’s paper went through an editing process during which data went missing and tables were badly formatted. “I had to make multiple requests for corrections,” he says.

Neither author was told about publication fees when they submitted, but then invoices arrived. By now, Brooks realised that the journal in her case, published by OMICS, was not using a standard impact factor. A request for article withdrawal was not acted on, but her fee was waived. Despite this, she continued to get emails asking for money, some threatening legal action. OMICS did not respond to The BMJ ’s request for comment.

Lim started getting invoices from the publisher of his article in his case in 2020, four years after his article was published. “I was dubious about the situation as I had no dealings with the publishers themselves, and then I found out that they had a chequered history,” says Lim, who also tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his article.

Brooks and Lim both got support from their respective institutes and research organisations and were advised to ignore the threatening emails. Their experiences were stressful, however, and their articles are still out there, in journals they regret submitting to.

I have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following: EA was employed at publishers the Company of Biologists (2010-13) and F1000Research (2013-16). EA has carried out occasional freelance work for online or news sections for publishers ACS, Hindawi, PNAS, and Springer Nature. EA did not contribute to editorial selection of any manuscripts for these publishers.

• Grudniewicz A ,
• Gøtzsche PC
• ↵ Gøtzsche PC. Predatory journal “invites” me to submit my preprint manuscript about invitations to publish in predatory journals. Institute for Scientific Freedom. 2023. www.scientificfreedom.dk/2023/06/02/predatory-journal-invites-me-to-submit-my-preprint-manuscript-about-invitations-to-publish-in-predatory-journals
• ↵ Shuster S. Predatory pirate journals and what we can do about them. BMJ Opinion. 2021. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/11/05/sam-shuster-predatory-pirate-journals-and-what-we-can-do-about-them
• Cortegiani A ,
• Ingoglia G ,
• ↵ Think. Check. Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org
• ↵ Centre for Journalology. Journal transparency tool. https://ohri.ca/journalology/oss-journal-transparency .

Predatory Journals: Revisiting Beall’s Research

• Published: 24 May 2022
• Volume 38 , pages 530–543, ( 2022 )

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• Graham Kendall   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2006-5103 1 , 2 &
• Simon Linacre   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1979-1634 3  

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Between 2009 and 2012, Jeffrey Beall analyzed 18 publishers, which were publishing 1328 journals. He classified all but one of the publishers as predatory. In this paper we look again at these publishers to see what has changed since that initial analysis. We focus on the same 18 publishers so that we have a direct comparison with Beall’s original analysis. One publisher has been acquired by Sage (the publisher no longer exists) and another has been acquired by Taylor & Francis (the publisher still retains its identity). Three of the publishers can no longer be found and, of the thirteen that remain, they now publish 1650 journals, an increase of 24.25% over the 1328 journals being published when Beall carried out his analysis. Other ways of carrying out this analysis, could put this increase as high as 50.14%. The increase in the number of journals being published, by fewer publishers, suggests that the problem of predatory publishing is getting worse, although this may be largely due to mega-predatory publishers which have dramatically increased the number of journals they now publish, when compared to ten years ago. Unlike Beall, rather than classifying the publishers as predatory (or not), we classify them into four categories, using data which is publicly available, rather than making a subjective decision. Two publishers are classified as category 1 (the most reputable). One journal is in category 2, four in category 3 and six in category 4.

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The authors would like to thank Cabells for supplying data from its Predatory Reports database to aid the research conducted for this paper.

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Kendall, G., Linacre, S. Predatory Journals: Revisiting Beall’s Research. Pub Res Q 38 , 530–543 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-022-09888-z

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Understanding predatory publishing.

• Introduction
• Basics of Predatory Publishing
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An overview

What is predatory publishing?

There are many ways to describe predatory publishing. The most recent definition of predatory journals and publishers can be found in the December 2019 issue of Nature   where the   consensus definition was: “Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.”

Why does predatory publishing exist?

It is widely recognized that the phenomenon of predatory publishing grew with the emergence of online publishing, especially open access (OA). In the OA publishing business model, authors are charged fees for publication. This business model is not the problem. Many legitimate and prestigious publishers/journals run the business model successfully.  What is problematic is that the predatory journals or publishers exist solely for collecting the funds (Article Publication Charges-APCs) without any commitment to publication ethics or integrity.

What harm would predatory publishing do to academia and/or the individual?

"Predatory publishing harms the integrity of the scientific record and the reputation of scholarly publishing. Predatory journals provide readers with content that has not been properly vetted and is often of poor quality. Citations to articles from predatory journals, which occur with some regularity in legitimate journals, risk providing misinformation to readers. Predatory publishing also harms individuals. Predatory journals take advantage of unsuspecting authors. Predatory journals’ deceptive names mimic the titles of legitimate journals, which can cause people to confuse a predatory journal with a similarly‐named legitimate journal. Authors who publish their work in predatory journals will not have it indexed in bibliographic databases, such as MEDLINE and CINAHL. Articles in predatory journals may be difficult to locate because of the poor quality of these journals' websites. Authors may even have their articles disappear entirely if a journal ceases publication because predatory publishers rarely have appropriate archiving. People may find themselves listed as editorial board members for predatory journals, with or without their knowledge. Ultimately, involvement with predatory publishing may damage individuals’ work and reputations."  (from Predatory Publishing: The Threat Continues; https://doi.org/10.1111/jmwh.13056 )

In addition, for individuals, falling into the trap of predatory publishing could hinder future publishing opportunities for their research. According to the experience of victims, it is usually very difficult to withdraw a submitted paper from a predatory publisher. Sometimes, predatory publishers will publish a manuscript without the author's permission, making it unlikely be to publishable anywhere else. 

Where can I get help in determining if a journal is predatory?

The easiest way is to start with your subject librarian . The Scholarly Communications Office is also a source of help and can be reached at [email protected] . Please also see the Evaluation Tools tab of this guide.

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Rising number of ‘predatory’ academic journals undermines research and public trust in scholarship

Professor of Journalism and Chair, Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, Michigan State University

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Taxpayers fund a lot of university research in the U.S., and these findings published in scholarly journals often produce major breakthroughs in medicine, vehicle safety, food safety, criminal justice, human rights and other topics that benefit the public at large.

The bar for publishing in a scholarly journal is often high. Independent experts diligently review and comment on submitted research – without knowing the names of the authors or their affiliated universities. They recommend whether a journal should accept an article or revise or reject it. The piece is then carefully edited before it is published.

But in a growing number of cases , these standards are not being upheld.

Some journals charge academics to publish their research – without first editing or scrutinizing the work with any ethical or editorial standards. These for-profit publications are often known as predatory journals because they are publications that claim to be legitimate scholarly journals but prey on unsuspecting academics to pay to publish and often misrepresent their publishing practices.

There were an estimated 996 publishers that published over 11,800 predatory journals in 2015. That is roughly the same number of legitimate, open-access academic journals – available to readers without charge and archived in a library supported by a government or academic institution – published around the same time. In 2021, another estimate said there were 15,000 predatory journals .

This trend could weaken public confidence in the validity of research on everything from health and agriculture to economics and journalism.

We are scholars of journalism and media ethics who see the negative effects predatory publishing is having on our own fields of journalism and mass communication. We believe it is important for people to understand how this problem affects society more broadly.

In most cases, the research published in these journals is mundane and does not get cited by other academics. But in other cases, poorly executed research – often on science – could mislead scientists and produce untrue findings.

Misleading practices

Publishing in journals is considered an essential part of being an academic because professors’ responsibilities generally include contributing new knowledge and ways of solving problems in their research fields. Publishing research is often a key part of academics keeping their jobs, getting promoted or receiving tenure – in an old phrase from academia, you publish or perish.

Predatory publishers often use deception to get scholars to submit their work. That includes false promises of peer review, which is a process that involves independent experts scrutinizing research. Other tactics include lack of transparency about charging authors to publish their research.

While fees vary, one publisher told us during our research that its going rate is $60 per printed page. An author reported paying $250 to publish in that same outlet. In contrast, legitimate journals charge a very small amount, or no fee at all, to publish manuscripts after editors and other independent experts closely review the work.

These kinds of journals – about 82.3% of which are located in poor countries, including India, Nigeria and Pakistan – can prey on junior faculty who are under intense pressure from their universities to publish research.

Low-paid young faculty and doctoral students, who may have limited English language proficiency and poor research and writing skills, are also especially vulnerable to publishers’ aggressive marketing, mostly via email.

Authors who publish in fraudulent journals may add these articles to their resumes, but such articles are rarely read and cited by other scholars, as is the norm with articles in legitimate journals. In some instances , articles are never published, despite payment.

Predatory publishers may also have an unusually large breadth of topics they cover. For example, we examined one Singapore-based company called PiscoMed Publishing, which boasts 86 journals in fields spanning religious studies and Chinese medicine to pharmacy and biochemistry. Nonpredatory publishers tend to be more focused in the breadth of their topics.

The Conversation contacted all of the journals named in this article for comment and did not receive a response regarding their work standards and ethics.

Another journal, the International Journal of Humanities and Social Science , says it publishes in about 40 fields, including criminology, business, international relations, linguistics, law, music, anthropology and ethics. We received an email from this journal, signed by its chief editor, who is listed as being affiliated with a U.S. university.

But when we called this university, we were told that the school does not employ anyone with that name. Another person at the school’s Art Department said that the editor in question no longer works there.

It is extremely difficult for people reading a study, or watching a news segment about a particular study, to recognize that it appeared in a predatory journal.

In some instances, these journals’ titles are almost identical to titles of authentic ones or have generic names like “Academic Sciences” and “BioMed Press.”

Scholars deceived

In a 2021 study , we surveyed and interviewed scholars in North America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe listed as editorial board members or reviewers for two predatory journalism and mass communication journals.

One company, David Publishing , gives a Delaware shipping and mailbox store as its address and uses a Southern California phone number. It says it publishes 52 journals in 36 disciplines, including philosophy, sports science and tourism.

Some scholars told us they were listed as authors in these journals without permission. One name still appeared as an author several years after the scholar’s death.

Our latest, forthcoming study conducted in 2023 surveyed and interviewed a sample of authors of 504 articles in one of those predatory journals focused on journalism and mass communication.

We wanted to learn why these authors – ranging from graduate students to tenured full professors – chose to submit their work to this journal and what their experience was like.

While most authors come from poor countries or other places such as Turkey and China, others listed affiliations with top American, Canadian and European universities.

Many people we contacted were unaware of the journal’s predatory character. One author told us of learning about the journal’s questionable practices only after reading an online posting that “warned people not to pay.”

A lack of concern

Some people we spoke with didn’t express concern about the ethical implications of publishing in a predatory journal, including dishonesty with authors’ peers and universities and potential deception of research funders. We have found that some authors invite colleagues to help pay the fees in exchange for putting their names on an article, even if they did none of the research or writing.

In fact, we heard many reasons for publishing in such journals.

These included long waits for peer review and high rejection rates from reputable journals .

In other cases, academics said that their universities were more concerned with how much they publish, rather than the quality of the publication that features their work.

“It was very important for me to have it at that time. I never paid again. But I got my promotion. It was recognized by my institution as a full publication. I profited … and it did the job,” one author from the Middle East told us in an interview.

Why it matters

Predatory publishing creates a major obstacle in the drive to ensure that new research on critical topics is well-founded and truthful.

This can have implications in health and medical research, among other areas. As one health care scholar explained , there is a risk that scientists could incorporate erroneous findings into their clinical practices.

High standards are crucial across all areas of research. Policymakers, governments, educators, students, journalists and others should be able to rely on credible and accurate research findings in their decision making, without constantly double-checking the validity of a source that falsely purports to be reputable.

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Predatory publishing 2.0: Why it is still a thing and what we can do about it

“ Greetings of the day”, “Dear Colleague”, “Dear Dr.Vilhelmsson A”, “Dear Dr. Vilhelmsson Andreas”

These are just a few examples of how I have been greeted in emails from predatory journals in the last couple of weeks. Almost all wishes me “good health” or believe that my research will be of “great benefit to mankind” as they invite me to join editorial boards or submit any manuscript of my liking for fast publication in upcoming journal numbers or attend conferences.

These invitations are now so common that they have become part of my ordinary life, and although seemingly innocent and obvious fake, they are part of a more nefarious and dark side of academic publishing and the quest for open science.

A known unknown problem

For the last few years what has been called predatory publishing have got a lot of attention from the scientific community. I myself wrote about the misuse of open access and  predatory publishing already in 2017 and since then the problem seems only to have gotten worse. According to a comment in Nature , the number of journals has grown faster than the number of publications, suggesting that many of these journals are basically shells with little content. It is also believed that there are now more predatory journals than real ones ( over 15,500 ).

Predatory journals make use of the current increased requirement for research results to be made openly available and researchers – especially junior level – might submit work to these outlets naively or cynically; even unread or sloppy articles are rewarded by some universities’ tenure, hiring and promotion decisions. A common denominator with these journals is their low quality and their mission to make money without any real concern over the scientific quality or the service provided for authors or their institutions, thereby threatening science by undermining the very communication system that we are relying on.

Predatory journals often falsely claim who is on their editorial boards to look serious. At the same time they can promise a review report within a week and quick publication dates, which of course is troublesome if the peer review process is not handled correctly. They also give the impression of having high impact factors by listing numbers after the journal title and falsely write that they are listed in different scientific databases to give an impression to be a legit journal. These journals can even have false journals titles, for instance claiming to be European or International although they are not.

Predatory publishing 2.0.

But despite being an academic headache for many years, the knowledge of predatory strategies and techniques is still sparse within the research community. For instance, an online survey tested the knowledge among the German Society for Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery on predatory journals and open access journals showing that the hazard of predatory journals was unknown to many orthopaedic and trauma surgeons. The authors therefore conclude that early-stage clinical researchers must be trained to differentiate between predatory and scientifically accurate journals. Still, not much have happened from either the academic or the judicial system to combat predatory journals and we can now talk about an era of predatory publishing 2.0.

Previous, the conference part of predatory publishing has not been especially highlighted or investigated, despite it being an increasing problem that may already outnumber real ones . For that reason, it is welcome that The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) , a global network of more than 140 scientific academies, just issued a report on predatory academic journals and conferences.

In 2020, IAP launched a two-year study on Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences with the intent to improve the understanding of predatory journals and conferences, their prevalence and impact, the drivers fuelling them, and effective ways to combat them. By issuing a survey of academicians and researchers from all over the world, dialogues with global, regional and national practitioners from key stakeholder communities and a literature review the report argue that there is a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding about what constitutes predatory journals and conferences.

The report define predatory journals and conferences as a spectrum or typology of journal and conference practices, ranging from fraudulent and deceitful to questionable and unethical, with the common core that these practices serve to prioritise self-interest at the expense of scholarship. As IAP write, while open access models have created exciting new avenues for the access, dissemination and production of knowledge – they have also fascilitated and exacerbated the problem of predatory publishing by creating more space for predatory practices. The threat of predatory journals and conferences has also been underestimated by many stakeholders as being a problem of young, inexperienced scientists or those in less developed countries.

Over 80% of the 1,800+ respondents to the survey from 112 countries indicated that predatory journals and conferences are already a serious problem or on the rise in their country, with the highest level of concern expressed by those in low- and middle-income countries. Respondents cited lack of awareness as the main reason for falling prey to predatory practices, highlighting an urgent need for awareness-raising campaigns, training and mentorship resources to protect researchers at all stages of their career. At the same time, 24% of the responders disclosed that they had knowingly published in predatory journals and participated in predatory conferences, sometimes with the acceptance of their institution. It was also revealed that some leading institutions even hosting predatory conferences to generate income while conferring predatory outlets with a veneer of credibility. Since these kind of journals and conferences basically arise because of an existing market opportunity it can be said that it is the academic scholars that publish with attend their conferences that keeps them going.

Trust in science

But is this a problem if researchers do this willingly and knowingly as seems to be the case according to the survey? Yes is the short answer. Predatory publishing not only risk compromising the quality of peer review but is also threatening science by undermining the public trust in the process as a whole while wasting hard invested research budgets, often taxbased. There is also a real concern that non-peer reviewed results are presented as sound science. Clinicians for instance need assurance that the research and other information they find in papers is accurate, has undergone peer review by experts in the field, does not contain misleading information, and is ready for use in practice.

Here we already have a growing problem with illicit “paper mills” where leaders in scientific publishing worry are increasingly corrupting the literature by selling false authorship or prewritten papers. According to a new study a Russian site offers paper authorship in reputable journals for up to a fee of $5000.

It is apparent that the monetisation and commercialisation of research output has lead to a situation where being cited has become a goal in itself. Many research  funders , institutions, and  governments  now  require  research to be made available under Open Access licensing and also provide funds that can be applied to authors’ Open Access publication costs. But the ways in which Open Access is supported varies across different fields and  global regions . There are gaps that leave many researchers who want to publish in Open Access journals without funding for APCs.

The IAP report therefore recommend publishers to waive APCs in their Open Access journals for all researchers in low-income countries. PLOS have introduced other models that target specific challenges in the Open Access ecosystem—keeping costs low for selective journals through  CAP , reflecting regional economic differences through  Global Equity . Their  Flat Fee  model similarly aims to make Open Access publishing easier and more accessible for researchers while being flexible and granular enough to suit many different communities.

Publish or perish?

For ECRs it is especially important to avoid fraudulent publications or those of such low quality that publishing in them acts as a demerit. A publication in a predatory journal can be extremely hurtful for PhD students that want to get their studies published but when examined before an examination board risk that their whole PhD defence becomes a failure. Predatory journals also have a tendency to disappear after a few years and with them content that should be archived for future referencing making the whole research effort being in vain.

Thus, the focus on publish or perish must be abandoned for a broader agenda that merits peer reviewing and taking part in the scientific discussion. Raising awareness of predatory practices, the importance of not adressing them, and their threat to both science and society is a first step to avoid engaging with, and legitimizing predatory journals and conferences. Academia need therefore to create discentives for researchers who use predatory publishing or attend predatory conferences, whether knowingly or not. It is important that academics highlight the dangers of predatory journals and conferences and mandate that all members of their academy avoid predatory journals.

The first thing is to learn more about the problem of predatory publishing. One good place to start is is to check the website Think. Check. Submit. that helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research. Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications. This can help the researcher to make an informed choice. Here you can also read some of the papers written of the phenomenon.

Parallel to this, we need to learn to spot the predatory journals to learn to see their weak spots and there are several things to look out for, or if you will predatory red flags.

Red flags and recommendations to ECRs (and other researchers as well) to avoid predatory publishing:

• Double, triple check  the name of the journal. Is it similar or the same as another reputable journal in your field, but something looks off-kilter? Do some googling prior to submitting. Check if the journal is a member of Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) or is member of an organisation of good publishing practices, such as COPE, the Committe on Publication Ethics .
• Black lists: Check black list websites of potential predatory journals and publishers, but be sure not to rely entirely on these, since the ecosystem of predatory publishing is constantly evolving.
• Contact the scientists listed on the journal’s review board : Are they truly associated with the journal? Ask them about the journal’s peer review system.
• Contact your university library before publishing in an open access journal to reasure that the journal is legit.
• The gut check : Does this website look or feel legitimate? Does this journal have an authentic Internet presence (e.g. social media profiles, a public relations page etc.?)
• Dear Dr. (Your Last Name Here).  You can also sometimes quite easily spot the fake invites by looking how they address you. For instance, if you receive a request email that reads, “Dear Dr.” and you don’t have a PhD, it’s probably fake. Sometimes, they don’t even bother to mention your name at all in a “Dear, *fill in the blanks*” approach. Do not fall for the generic flattering where your name is pasted in to a standard letter praising your scientific knowledge, despite that you only have published one article or none at all.
• They basically want you send in whatever you want : “If you’re interested to write and submit a manuscript, kindly share a Research/Review/Case Report/Case Series/Case Blog/Short Communication (2-4 pages)/Clinical Images (150 words)/Letter to the Editor/Opinion on any topic related to your research interest which falls in the journal scope” (from an actual invitation)
• Fast turnarounds: if the journal promises very fast peer review, like in a week and if peer revewing only engages one single peer reviewer, this can not be regarded as serious.
• If you are offered an APC waiver , despite being an established researchers this should be a red flag. This offer also often comes with hidden charges for publishing or additional services like the DOI number.
• No submitting system: predatory journal do in most cases not have a submitting system for your manuscript and instead just asks you to email them your contribution. This does not always need to be the case since also regular respected journals still uses submissions by email, but I myself have not yet come across an obvious predatory journal ask for my contribution through a submitting system.
• Put pressure on your university to take the problem of predatory publishing seriously and inform employers and students so that they can spot and avoid publishing in fake journals.
• In most cases, serious journals or publishers do not email offers to junior researchers to join editorial boards. These positions are often advertised on their journal webpages and they demand that you have published a certain amount of articles and/or have peer-reviewed a certain amount of articles for different journals.
• Be suspicious if you get invited to conferences that are way out of your research area. If you are invited to the World Chemistry 2022 Conference, despite being a public health researcher never worked or published anything within the field of chemistry, there is something fishy going on. The same goes for journal invitations where it does not make sense that a public health researcher is invited to publish with the Journal of Astrobiology & Outreach or the International Journal of Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation .
• If the journal takes payment in bitcoin , it is most surely false.
• Finally , since it can not be highlighted enough, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If it sounds too good it is because that is the case. If an open access journal market itself by offering cheaper and faster open access publishing than traditional journals, often within a week, this also means that their quality control is flawed or nonexistent.

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• v.75(5); 2021 Oct

Predatory Journals and Publishers – Dilemmas: How to Assess it and How to Avoid it?

1 Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

2 World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), 4225 Solano Avenue, Suite 631, Napa, CA 94558, USA

3 European Academy of Sciences and Arts, (EASA), Salzburg, Austria

1. WHY IS WRITTEN AND TO WHOM THIS EDITORIAL TARGETED?

A few days ago authors of the papers deposited on the ResearchGate platform informed us by a letter from the ResearchGate team titled: "A note on recent content takedowns" where has been noticed that ResearchGate recently received demands from two publishers: Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS) - "to remove certain content that they alleged infringed their copyrights" ( 1 ).

The main statement of the ResearchGate (RG) is: "These types of requests are not new: we have received many similar requests from them in the past, and, in accordance with applicable law, have complied with them. But these most recent requests were notable because of the number of articles involved. Although privately stored files were not affected, the demands by Elsevier and ACS resulted in the removal of around 200,000 public files. In the context of a community of over 20 million researchers, this is unfortunate, rather than existential, but it has sparked an acute reaction from many of our members who believe in the importance of open science" ( 1 ). Further RG explains: "Some of you have commented on the serious nature of our communications with you regarding the removal of content. We appreciate that the tone of our messaging was rather direct. International laws require that we implement a policy regarding repeat takedown requests from publishers, and we felt duty-bound to communicate these policies to you in no uncertain terms. This is done for the protection of users and the benefit of the ResearchGate community" ( 1 ).

Concerning the future work (perspectives) RG stated: "Finally, we are mindful of recent changes in European copyright law in some countries, particularly relating to Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market ( 2 ). While we believe we are not subject to such laws due to the nature of our business, we decided to nonetheless take advantage of advancements in technology which we believe will be beneficial for researchers. In particular, we have started implementing a new system - called "Jarvis" - which matches publisher rights information with user content at the time of upload. Where a publisher has provided the required information, Jarvis can prevent a researcher from unintentionally uploading content that is not allowed to be public. As always, it remains the responsibility of researchers to know and confirm their rights before uploading any content" ( 1 ).

The final message of the RG team sent to its users’ is: "The future of academic publishing is open. Let’s work together to unlock its true potential" ( 1 ).

According to this letter and content of the message from the RG team, as an experienced former and current Editor of a few indexed journals and prolific contributor and author of a lot of papers, especially in the Science Editing field and Scientometrics ( 3 - 9 ), let me expressed some views and comments regarding important facts and problems within Science Editing area and concerns of the scientific and academic community.

Two extremely important problems in scientific publishing represent plagiarism and predation. More and more authors of articles in this scientific field, in the absence of other opportunities to engage in science, in this period of the Corona pandemic crisis imposed as a devastating consequence, began to deal with these topics, write about plagiarism and predation, conduct meta-analyze, and recommend what and how authors, especially who are not close to the fields of Science Editing and Publishing, to deal (prevent and avoid) these issues.

So, it would be interesting to make a serious study and reveal to which fields do all the authors, who have written articles on these topics, so far belong, and what are their essential intentions in order to make advancement in science or produce something else?

This is the main reason why I wrote possible assumptions about both, in this Editorial.

Namely, from 2012 to 2015, I was a member of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) Council. At my first meeting with a large number of editors of journals from several scientific fields from Europe and worldwide, held in Tallinn (Estonia) in December 2012, I publicly discussed the problem of plagiarism and unethical behavior in the field of Science Editing.

From then until today, I have published several articles on this issue ( 10 - 20 ), but also organized several scientific conferences in this area ( 21 , 22 ). Finally, with a group of like-minded people and fellow editors of biomedical journals in the Balkans, we have prepared several strategic documents ( 23 , 24 ) to try to prevent and reduce the problems in editing and publishing journals to a minimum, because these problems cannot be eradicated by any known methods and mechanisms. And there are many reasons for that.

Then, in 2013, at the meeting of EASE Council and journal's editors in Split (Croatia), I made one statement: that the job of an editor is difficult, stressful, arduous, and expensive. If you are a journal editor, your loved ones protest and hate you (because you steal the time you need to devote to them), some authors of articles (because we often do not accept their articles for publication), some of our contributors (because they hate this type of work), etc. The practice has caused me this feelings and impressions for attitude of others.

Let me elaborate and comment the mentioned two main problems in science and publishing, with main focus (emphasis) to predatory publishers and journals:

a) Plagiarism is probably the greatest problem in the academic community, especially in the Balkan region, which is not possible to solve it by Editors of the journals and academic institutions which are responsible for avoiding it in the practice as recommended by the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE) and other associations and bodies. In the Chapter 19 I authored in the book "A Guide to the Scientific Career" ( 25 ) I concluded that even we can check and detect online every submitted paper via computer system (by Plagiarism Checker(s) and a few other ICT types of equipment as help to us during editing papers, this problem is fully unsolvable.

Plagiarism is the most common way to compromise the academic integrity of the author. It is defined as illegal trespassing spiritual property that includes any use of other people's ideas, opinions or theories, either literally, or paraphrased, which does not mention the author and source of information ( 26 - 31 ). It is assumed that the most cited person in the academic community, scholars, and experts who have published their research results in one of the journals indexed in the references of the world-renowned databases and whose articles are available for assessment of their scientific validity through their representation in the form of abstracts or full article on the website of these on-line databases ( 3 - 6 ).

COPE Guidelines for prevention and dealing with plagiarism ( 32 ) are based on the ICMJE criteria ( 33 ), as well as guidelines and recommendations of other associations and documents, such as EASE ( 34 ), Council of Science Editors ( 35 ), "Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Journals" ( 23 ), etc.

b) Predatory in publishing is also very serious and somehow neglected problem in the scientific community worldwide without proper guidelines and approach for preventing and solving it ( 36 - 40 ). A special case for analysis is the role and significance of the effects of the List of Predatory Journals by American librarian Jeffrey Beall, whose "List of Potential Predatory journals" is cited by many authors, "based on his criteria that none of the world's scientific and academic institutions have analyzed or accredited, but which could be officially used" ( 41 , 42 ).

The Beall’s list has provoked a storm of outrage among thousands of publishers and editors of journals, who have been put in a position to be scientifically belittled by his criteria and list, and many authors to avoid them as potential journals in which to publish their articles. The authors which are quoting Beall and his list did not use a scientific method of meta-analyzing articles from his list in which they could confirm Beall's assessments and the content and quality of articles from the list of predatory journals ( 9 , 39 , 41 ).

An illustrative article by Refat Aljumili on a serious and critical approach has revealed what we have stated in this article: "The story of „Beall's List" started probably in early or late 2010 when a guy called Jeffrey Beall – a librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado, in Denver, Colorado – came up with a blog „Scholarly Open Access", as well as a list of questionable journals and publishers, or as Jeffrey Beall likes to call it „Potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers", and gave himself the right to ward academic scholarly publication" ( 41 ).

Shortly after this list was established, Jeffrey Beall added many open-access publishers to it and continued to update it regularly – by adding to the list and removing from it - and introduced many authors and researchers to the assumption that Open Access Journals (OAJ) are essentially "Predatory publishers and low-quality journals" ( 9 , 41 ).

Beall's background and intentions in particular came away believing that "Beall's list" is a recognized authority in evaluating scholarly journals ( 9 , 42 ). "Well, the truth is "Beall's list" has no affiliation to any governing body or organization accredited to scholarly publishing, and has no legal or academic value. If you follow some of Beall's work on his blog, and it makes no sense whatsoever!

His official web blog exposed the truth about Jeffrey Beall, particularly Walt Crawford's 2014 article "The Sad Case of Jeffrey Beall - Case and Insights", which provides a very detailed history about OAJs and directly addresses some of the broader issues with "Beall's list" ( 9 , 42 ).

Additionally, as an example and argument, we can present a few cases in our practice, who can prove my statement: A case of Hatixhe-Latifi Pupovci and Taulant Muka (both cases presented in power presentation and deposited on www.avicenapublisher.org ( 43 ), were publisher explained the un-ethical behavior of them, but who causes Beall's decision about putting Avicena's name on his list ( Figure 1 ).

Another case is presented in Figure 2 , where the falsified Memo of Medical Archives journal by somebody without reasons why and for what purpose. We still research reasons and who have done it.

Additional examples are a few another cases - the journals from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) accepted for indexing in the Scopus database as unprofessional and unethical examples. The journal "Folia Medica Facultatis Medicinae Universitatis Saraeviensis" ( 44 ), which was also accepted to Scopus several years ago without serious evaluation (re-established after more than 20 years of break). It is stated that its last issue is printed in March 2019, and the journal is signed as a Croatian journal that belongs to the University of Zagreb (Croatia). But the journal is published in Sarajevo (B&H), and its h-index is 1 ( 45 ). Other examples of mistakes of Scopus are two journals from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Acta Medica Academica (AMA) ( http://ama.ba/index.php/ama/about ) and Medicina Academica Mostariensia (MAM) ( https://lnss-bosnia-herzegovina.libguides.com/c.php?g=669777&p=4819669 )), which Scopus accepted for indexing without checking when they have been founded, what was the name when journal started with printing, when stopped to print it and when re-started with a new name without mentioning breaking continuity of printing. AMA was printed almost 40 years as an Annual of Academy of Sciences and Arts of BiH and MAM is printing as a supplement of Psychiatria Danubina (the publisher is Medicinska Naklada, Zagreb, founded in 2013). The same case is new established Journal of Science, Arts and Religion (founded in 2021), which is published as a supplement of Psychiatria Danubina journal (Medicinska naklada, Zagreb, and in Impressum of the journal is written that journal is indexed in the same databases as Psychiatria Danubina ( https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=toc&id_broj=20451&lang=en ). Both of mentioned journals are out of scope of Psychiatria Danubina journal. There are a lot of similar examples in other countries, but nobody analyzed the current problems.

But, the Scopus expert's evaluation team rejected Medical Archives and Materia Socio-Medica journals to include them in the Scopus database because Publisher Avicena is on Beall's list. The same situation is with the WoS evaluation team. A lot of other journal's cases "suffering" as consequences of following opinion/assessment of bibliographer's expert Beall's standards about the state of him - who is the predator.

2. THE REAL AND FINAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT VARIOUS CONSEQUENCES PREDATORY CAN PRODUCE

Furthermore, in the last 10 years, with exponential progression, both invited and uninvited, informed and uninformed, those with experience and those without it in this scientific sphere, have embarked on various debates about predation - about the problem that reminds us by e-mail messages from predatory publishers and journals in our inboxes we are receiving almost every day. We get PDF versions of the published publications of various authors around the world, who think about predation and give their criticisms and "judgments", very often unsubstantiated and inaccurate, and rely on the now well-known "Beall's list" of predator's publishers and journals.

I have taken it upon myself to express my opinion and judgment in this Editorial on the occasion of a recent debate initiated by a group of authors.

I believe, as well as my close associates in this journal, that both in the previously cited articles, are somewhat right, but above all their debate pointed to a key problem - that Beal's list is not transparent enough. Jeffrey Beall, the librarian by academic basic activity (Ph.D. in the field of librarianship), has taken upon himself the responsibility to (and only it/he) to make a list of predators of journal publishers according to some of his criteria and standards. In his superficial opinion and without proper analysis and evidence, he put publishers on some kind of "black list", not thinking about consequences, that these publishers do other jobs and make a living from those jobs. And the harm he caused in manner ruined those jobs by tarnishing their name. And he has not been adequately sanctioned for such behavior so far. On the contrary, quoting his views and actions, the mentioned authors give him formality as if they were in order and, by God (Beall), allow the public to settle accounts with publishers and editors based on them. On the other hand, it is clear that Springer, as a publisher, is trying to hide the fact that it is a predatory organization, at least when it comes to Frontiers.

An open debate is going on in 2021 about a published paper by two Polish authors in the following dynamics:

• On Feb. 7, 2021, Vít Macháček và Martin Srholec from Charles University published this paper "Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences" in Scientometrics ( 46 );
• A day later, Nature comments about this news that Scopus has stopped adding content from most of the flagged titles, but the analysis highlights how poor-quality science is infiltrating literature ( 47 );
• On 6/5, Fred Fenter, Editor of Frontiers publisher requested Scientometrics to retract that paper due to mention about 29 journals of Frontiers ( 48 );
• On 19/5, the authors of the paper, Martin Srholec and Vít Macháček, sent a letter of response to the Editor-in-Chief of Scientometrics, Wolfgang Glänzel ( 49 );
• After that, Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of Scientometrics send this paper for post-publication review.
• On 12/7, the authors of the paper, Vít Macháček và Martin Srholec, replied to reviewer's comments ( 50 );
• On 17/8, EIC of Scientometrics decided to retract this paper ( 51 );
• The Editor of Scientometrics is Ismael Rafols, from Leiden University, The Netherlands, decided to resign against this EIC's decision;
• On 9/9, another editor of Scientometrics, Cassidy Sugimoto, from Georgia University (USA), (President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics) requested to withdraw the decision of retraction as this paper was corrected;
• The EIC of Scientometrics Fred Fenter kept silent and did not reply to any comment;
• Many comments related to this paper are favoring authors. They doubted that Springer hold the stock of Frontiers and they needed to retract this paper to save Frontiers. Both of the authors strongly disagree with the retraction, because there is no credible academic justification for it ( 52 ).

We think that – to take a side with any of them in this debate will not contribute anything, on the contrary, it can do more harm. Such zealots are ready for any lawsuits and other methods of inflicting harm on anyone who tells them something that does not suit them.

As the ResearchGate team stated, the decision by Elsevier and ACS to simply remove content "is disappointing to the entire research community, not just because of the loss to science and researchers, but because there is a better way. Publishers such as Springer Nature and Wiley are working with us to explore the opportunities that openness unlocks for all actors in the scholarly publishing ecosystem, with the researcher at the center. Specifically, through ( 1 ) content syndication program, these publishers have placed their content on ResearchGate (not taken it away) and made it seamlessly available to eligible researchers". "This drives the consumption of content, reaches new audiences, and makes discovery and access easier for the researcher. This is the path for a brighter future in science" ( 1 ).

3. PREDATORY IN SCIENCE EDITING - FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

Namely, predation in publishing is mostly a consequence, not a cause. Predation arose because there was a complete formalization in official science, or only points of published papers are important for getting a job at universities and elsewhere. Few people wonder what is written in these articles. Since this is the case, and a job at a university or institute means a good salary and social influence, through which additional money can be earned, every year more and more cunning and immoral people, with published papers by predatory publishers and journals, go to universities and institutes, who do not choose the means to achieve that goal (money and influence). They are not interested in science or profession, only money, and influence, in a word, the POWER. To achieve that as soon as possible, they are ready for anything, and to invest (especially other people's money, for example in college) just to get to the credits, which they will later charge heavily. Predatory journals have only emerged due to high demand, or a large number of such authors described in this text.

Publishing, which is not predatory officially, is present in the Balkans, and some previously known publishers failed only because they traded publications, and in much darker ways than paying with money. There are many (which are just the tip of the iceberg) predatory practices, false reviews, "friendly" reviews, commissioned works from the pharmaceutical industry, etc., just as in reputable journals.

One of perhaps the most realistic and key solutions could be a GLOBAL appeal to the only possible thing that can save science from this horde of cunning liars and thieves IS its their complete separation from money and social influence.

How to achieve this perhaps utopian goal is neither easy nor a job for one individual or institution, but an invitation to all well-meaning scientists, especially those with editorial experience, to create standards and guidelines on how this problem can be solved or even aleviated globally - perhaps step by step.

4. CONCLUSION

The story of "Beall's List" induced and spoiled a lot of matters in the science editing area. Since 2010, this list has disavowed many authors and discouraged them from possibly applying their article to a journal to which they would potentially send an article for publication, but the "Beall's List" discourages them from deciding yes or no.

Many under-informed authors on predation in scientific publishing - who have probably never edited or published journals in their careers, scientific, academic or otherwise, with their analyzes, very often unfounded on real facts, which was one of the reasons for some journal or publisher found on the "Beall's List", undermine the author's doubts about their decisions, when it comes to where, when and to whom to send an article with the results of their study.

The most important fact is that Editors and reviewers of the submitted papers to some journals need to approach the evaluation of manuscripts submitted to journals with higher responsibility. Editors and reviewers should not reject articles without arguments, nor accept articles without checking that the submitted articles are written following the appropriate elements of the methodology that guarantee impartiality and proper application of statistics, all in order to reach the scientific truth in medicine. Besides, looking/checking is journal potentially deposited on Beall's list.

Regarding Copyright rules and necessary documents which every author and co-authors need to signed and deposit during the submission of their papers on the websites of the journals, publishers and authors have different opinions: that their upload does not qualify as infringement. Some have variously stated that their content was the subject of a rights buyout and is now open access, the content has passed its embargo period, or the content cannot be restricted because it is a government-created work. Others have an opinion that they never signed copyright transfer agreements and that therefore they still own their works. But, if we want to miss problems like it was described in this text, the author must strictly follow rules of IJCME, EASE, COPE, Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Journals and sign all necessary documents which will prove that the presented content and results written in the submitted paper are legal and fully protected with appropriate bodies in academic or scientific institutions were author work and executed their investigation and research.

Acknowledgments:

I thank academicians Doncho Donev, Slobodan Jankovic and Muharem Zildzic for critical review of the text before sending it to the print.

Author’s contribution:

Author was involved in all steps of preparation this article, including final proofreading:

Conflict of interest:

None declared.

Financial support and sponsorship:

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What do we mean by the term 'predatory publisher'?

So-called predatory publishers are a growing phenomenon in the world of academic publishing. There is no one standard definition of what constitutes a predatory publisher but generally they are those publishers who charge a fee for the publication of material without providing the publication services an author would expect such as peer review and editing. Missing out on these important steps can undermine the final product and perpetuates bad research in general and exploits the Open Access publishing model.

Predatory publishers typically contact potential authors directly via email to offer their services and encourage publication with many starting to branch out into offering academic conferences . To the researcher eager to make an impact with their work these can seem like very tempting offers but they often come with little academic reward.

Are they really a problem?

It depends on the motivations for publishing. Traditionally these include enhancing the reputation and visibility of the author and securing recognition for the work that has been done. Predatory publishers rarely enhance reputations and in extreme cases may result in lasting damage. Even if the individual research is sound there is little to be gained by having it sit alongside research that is substandard or even wrong. Publishing with these publishers often entails signing away copyright which means that authors lose the right to publish elsewhere.

However, there is an argument that these publishing models fulfil a genuine need as different reward systems leading to different behaviours.

Checklist of things to watch out for

For those concerned about the issue of predatory publishing there are number of factors that can be used to assess an individual publisher. Please note : none of these factors should be taken in isolation but used alongside good judgement.

• Association membership – if a journal claims to be supporting Open Access then check if it is a member of either the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA) or the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) . It’s also worth checking if they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) which maintains a code of conduct for publishers.
• Transparency  – a good publisher will be open about their practices with contact information and a mission statement easily found on their website. Check the sending address of any emails carefully and look for spelling or grammatical mistakes but be aware of cultural differences that may explain overly formal language. Exercise caution if the publisher appears to focus on a huge range of topics as this may indicate a for-profit rather than for-research approach
• Indexing – appearing in typical indexes and databases for their associated discipline is a good sign for a publisher. However remember that there may be perfectly valid reasons why a particular journal is not indexed such as being very niche or new. Authors could also try searching for other titles from the same publisher to overcome this problem.
• Quality of previous publications – assessing previous output from the publisher in question may give an idea of the academic quality of the publication. Check for basic mistakes in spelling or grammar in the work which may indicate a lack of peer review.
• Fees – any author fees should be clearly explained prior to publication and be easily accessible to potential authors. Be wary of any ‘hidden’ fees which are raised during the publication process.
• Copyright – if the publisher claims to operate under an Open Access model then check whether a Creative Commons of other type of open licence is being applied. The publisher should also be upfront about the rights the author will retain after publication. It is the author’s responsibility to check that these don’t conflict with any funder mandates.
• Peer review - the process of the individual journal should be clearly highlighted and guidelines for both authors and reviewers should be easily accessible. Beware of the promise of fast peer review periods as this may indicate a less than through process.
• Editorial board – members should be listed, along with a named Editor in Chief. Authors should consider if the names mentioned are recognised experts in the field the publisher is covering. It may also be worth checking the web presence of some members to see if their membership is mentioned elsewhere.
• Website quality – check if the website looks professional but be aware of cultural differences. What may look sophisticated to someone from a large UK university may be out of reach of a smaller publisher in another country.

Above all - trust your judgement!

If something doesn’t feel right with the publisher then further investigation is needed. Think of the publishing process as you would online shopping and exercise similar levels of caution – if an online store looks unreliable you are less likely to give them your credit card details until you have investigated further.

Further help and resources

The following websites will help to make you to make an informed decision on where to publish:

Think, Check, Submit

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA)

As part of Open Access week the OSC gave a webinar on How to Spot a Predatory Publisher . The recording can be accessed here .

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Predatory Publishing: Home

• Evaluating Predatory Journals
• Predatory vs. Legitimate
• Predatory Conferences
• Protecting Yourself
• Jeffrey Beall

Predatory Publishing Defined!

Until recently, there was no generally agreed-upon definition of predatory publishing. In April of 2019, a group of 43 participants from 10 countries met to create a definition of predatory publishing. Participants included publishing society members, research funders, policymakers, academic institutions, libraries, patients, and caregivers who engage in research.

"Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices."

Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., Cobey, K. D., Bryson, G. L., Cukier, S., Allen, K., ... & Ciro, J. B. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Science (576)7786. 210-212.

What is Predatory Publishing?

Predatory publishers use the open access publishing model for their own profit.

“Predatory” publishers solicit articles from faculty and researchers with the intention of exploiting authors who need to publish their research findings in order to meet promotion and tenure or grant funding requirements. These publishers collect extravagant fees from authors without providing the peer review services that legitimate journals provide prior to publishing papers.

Predatory publishers share common characteristics:

• Ultimate goal is to make money - not to publish scholarly research
• Use deception to appear legitimate
• Make false claims about services offered (peer review)
• Unethical business practices
• Exploit the need for academics to publish
• No concern for the quality of work published
• Do not follow accepted scholarly publishing best practices

How Predatory Publishing Works

Since the open access publishing model covers publishing costs by collecting fees from authors (rather than from readers or subscribers), predatory publishers pretend to operate legitimate open access journals and convince authors to submit manuscripts for publication with the promise of speedy peer-review. In most cases, no peer-review process actually exists. Some predatory publishers often target novice faculty members who face pressure to publish and are less familiar with traditional publishing business practices.

Predatory publishers may also promise low article processing fees. However, once an article is "published," the publisher will invoice the author a much larger price than originally quoted. Once an article is published, authors have very little recourse.

Common Tactics of Predatory Publishers

• Establishing an online presence with web pages filled with bogus journals.  On the surface, many of these websites appear to be legitimate. However, closer scrutiny reveals the articles to be plagiarized, completely fake, or promoting unsound science that would not have been published in more mainstream journals.
• Advertising a bogus impact factor  on their website and in emails to prospective authors. They can also list editors for their journals who either did not agree to be an editor or use fake names to populate the editorial board.
• Advertising expedited peer review  to get your article published quicker.
• Soliciting you to edit  a special theme issue in your area of research. They use this as a way to convince you to recruit your colleagues.
• Engaging in questionable business practices  such as charging exorbitant author publishing fees or failing to disclose the cost of publication fees to potential authors.  

Why Predatory Publishing is Harmful

When you decide to publish your article with a legitimate publisher, they will provide services such as peer-review, archiving, and discovery services that enable others to find your work easily, and copyright protection. Predatory journals do not provide such services.

The dangers of publishing in a predatory journal can include:

• establishes the validity of the research
• prevents falsified work from being accepted and published
• allows authors to revise and improve papers before publication

Predatory publishers often publish papers that have not gone through any peer-review process.

• ​ Your Work   Could Disappear:  Legitimate publishers are committed to preserving your published work. Predatory publishers are focused on making money, and do not care about preserving the articles they "publish." Papers published in predatory journals could disappear from the journal's website at any time. This makes it difficult to prove that your paper was ever published in a said journal when applying for promotion or tenure.
• Your Work Will be Difficult to Find:  Predatory publishers often claim to be indexed in popular databases such as Scopus, PubMed, or Web of Science when they are not indexed in these resources. Fortunately, it is easy to double-check this claim by doing a simple search for the journal in these databases. You can also check UlrichsWeb for indexing information.
• Harmful to Reputation : Publishing in a predatory journal can hurt your reputation and the reputation of your institution. Publishing in predatory journals can also be harmful to your career advancement.

Library Liaison

Predatory Publishing Check-Up Service

If you've been approached by a publisher as an author or editor and are concerned it may be predatory, email Ruth Bueter, Associate Director of Library Operations ( [email protected] ).

Priority is given to requests submitted by members of the GW community.

Use of this Guide

This guide is intended to provide information about predatory publishing and is intended as a guide only. Deciding where to publish is solely the responsibility of individual authors. 

Deceptive Publishing Article

• Deceptive Publishing Anderson, R. OSI Issue Briefs, March 2019.

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Beall's List

of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers

​Potential predatory scholarly open‑access publishers

Instructions : first, find the journal’s publisher – it is usually written at the bottom of the journal’s webpage or in the “About” section. Then simply enter the publisher’s name or its URL in the search box above. If the journal does not have a publisher use the  Standalone Journals  list. All journals published by a predatory publisher are potentially predatory unless stated otherwise.

Excluded – decide after reading

• Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)  – I decided not to include MDPI on the list itself. However, I would urge anyone that wants to publish with this publisher to thoroughly  read this wiki article detailing their possible ethical/publishing problems, and a recent article discussing their growth.

Useful pages

​List of journals falsely claiming to be indexed by DOAJ

DOAJ: Journals added and removed

Nonrecommended medical periodicals

Retraction Watch

Flaky Academic Journals Blog

List of scholarly publishing stings​

Conferences

Questionable conferences [ archive ]

How to avoid predatory conferences

Flaky Academic Conferences Blog

Evaluating journals

Journal Evaluation Tool

JCR Master Journal List

DOAJ Journal Search

Think Check Submit

Original description by J. Beall

This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers. We recommend that scholars read the available reviews, assessments and descriptions provided here, and then decide for themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors or on editorial boards. In a few cases, non-open access publishers whose practices match those of predatory publishers have been added to the list as well. The criteria for determining predatory publishers are  here .​ We hope that tenure and promotion committees can also decide for themselves how importantly or not to rate articles published in these journals in the context of their own institutional standards and/or geocultural locus.  We emphasize that journal publishers and journals change in their business and editorial practices over time. This list is kept up-to-date to the best extent possible but may not reflect sudden, unreported, or unknown enhancements.

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Predatory publishing practices: what researchers should know before submitting their manuscript

Predatory publishing is currently a critical problem for researchers, particularly with the continuous rise of online journals and the increasing challenge of distinguishing between journals that can be trusted and those which should be avoided. This article begins by providing an overview of predatory publishing, focusing specifically on its definition and impacts and the prevailing predatory practices current in scientific publications. Next, the article discusses how researchers can avoid publishing with predatory publishers. We recommend that researchers do not rely solely on watchlists, rather that they develop their own skills to enable them to detect predatory practices. Finally, the article provides some practical recommendations and resources for researchers to use to assess journals as publishing venues.

• scholarly publishing
• predatory publishing
• deceptive journals
• publishing ethics
• questionable publishers

Definition of predatory publishing

The term ‘predatory’ publishing was initially introduced by American librarian Jeffrey Beall, who created and maintained a free list of ‘potential, possible, or probable predatory publishers and journals’. 1 This list was widely used and discussed among research communities even though it received criticism for its subjective evaluation criteria and the damage caused to the reputation of open access (OA) publishing. People have long been misled into believing that predatory publishing is unique to OA journals, while predatory behaviours could be seen among traditional commercial publishers as well. 2 Predatory journals are also known as dubious, deceptive, or fake journals. However, concerns about academic fraud are not limited to predatory practice committed by publishers through predation on researchers but also include individual research misconduct engaged by a researcher or researchers which can take various forms, namely, falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. Recently, a rising threat posed by the activities of ‘paper mills’, where organizations offer scholarly papers, authorship or other deceptive academic products for sale, has worsened the situation. This article specifically concentrates on predatory publishers and journals. It contributes to the current literature on this topic by providing recommendations on how to self-detect predatory journals curated from the authors’ many years of practical experience in assessing the quality of OA journals. The recommendation also includes a list of available resources that researchers can use for selecting a journal for their research.

Efforts to define what constitutes predatory journals and publishers continue in academic articles and public discussions but, at the time of writing, there remains a lack of general agreement on these definitions by key stakeholders. This article will use an international consensus definition published in the journal Nature that helps to cover this gap. 3 Predatory journals and publishers are defined as ‘entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices’. 4 It is acknowledged that the dynamic nature of predatory behaviours has made it challenging to distinguish a predatory journal from a journal that is poorly resourced. 5 The relatively low costs of setting up electronic journals made possible by digital technologies has also increased the number of online journals, albeit with many of them lacking editorial rigour. Some journals judged to be suspicious may fail to comply with good editorial and publishing practices due to limited budget and resources and do not necessarily have the intent to deceive authors.

The impact of predatory publishing

Predatory publishing is a global threat, with every country experiencing it at different levels. A study identified the extent of predatory journals in the Brazilian journal ranking system using Beall’s list, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scimago Journal and Country Rank (SJR) and Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and indicated that while there was an exponential growth, it only represented a small proportion. 6 By contrast, in India predatory publishing has been widespread, 7 and the University Grants Commission-Consortium for Research and Academic Ethics, popularly known as UGC-CARE, list was launched in 2018 to combat this menace. 8 Earlier studies indicate that early career researchers from developing countries are assumed to be the largest contributors to predatory journals, 9 however, recent empirical evidence found that articles in such journals are authored by researchers from all levels of academic experience and not limited to early career researchers. 10

These predatory journals corrupt the scholarly record, posing a threat to the credibility and integrity of scientific research. They also tarnish the authority of researchers who may have publications in such journals and naively remain unaware of their ill-reputed practices. On the other hand, authors may be wilfully publishing in these illegitimate journals, especially in regions where research assessment is based on quantity rather than quality, because publishing in them is an easy way to get your research published quickly with little or no scrutiny. 11 Retractions from such journals are difficult, with authors and their institutions permanently linked to predatory publishers, damaging their future career prospects. 12 Predatory publishing also creates a dent in research funding, with resources and money being wasted on research outputs that bear no value to science or society. According to one study, 60% of articles published in predatory journals receive no citations over the five-year period following publication, compared to only 9% in journals listed in the Scopus index. 13 On the contrary ‘junk’ science may be cited by other studies, generating information that is misleading and harmful in some cases. Avidan and Shapiro found an article published in a medical journal that references a study including fabricated research data. 14 The implications of such research built on fraudulent publications are huge.

Predatory outfits have been quick to reinvent themselves to evade detection. A gloomy consequence is the recent emergence of academic paper mills practising large scale fraud with sophisticated techniques to manipulate the content of the article. 15

A list of prevailing predatory practices in scholarly publishing

In the past, predatory journals could be identified by obvious cues such as poor language, badly designed websites, exaggerated claims of their indexing status and the prominent display of their ‘citation metrics’ either fabricated or presented with an intent to mislead authors. A popular strategy is to portray a journal as an international title and/or with a multidisciplinary scope promising quick review and publication in the hope of luring authors under pressure to publish in an international journal. Of course, more evidence about article quality, the legitimacy of the editorial board, reputation and transparency of the publisher and review process is required before labelling a publisher as predatory.

To avoid confusing a predatory journal with a legitimate journal, researchers must gain sufficient awareness of these predatory practices, and practise diligence before submitting their research for publication. Some of these known predatory publishing practices are listed below:

• Retconning Recognized predatory publishers rebrand themselves and offer the same titles under a different name. For example, OMICS, a predatory publisher and conference organizer, has other publishing brands like Hilaris, ImedPub and Longdom. 16
• Publishing bootlegged articles These publishers republish or plagiarize articles from legitimate journals and pass them off as original work. This also includes fabricating archives by copying articles and changing the dates to make them look as though they were published earlier. 17
• Hijacked journals These are duplicate websites or illegal ‘clones’ of a legitimate journal, including print journals, with the purpose of misleading authors to believe they are the authentic journal and collect author charges. 18
• Questionable conferences Many journals, especially those that conceal their business models, run sham conferences. Authors are lured to present at conferences held in international destinations and conference fees are collected in exchange for promised publication of their presentation. Conference organizers and committee members may often be found on the journal’s editorial board, implying little or no peer review due to the conflict of interest. 19
• Selling authorship These publishers not only sell articles that may have been already accepted but also offer co-authorship to these articles. Authors are promised publication in legitimate journals cited in coveted indexes. 20

How can researchers avoid predatory publishing venues?

When it comes to detecting predatory publishing, the first response from researchers may be to choose a watchlist where they can find quick and easy answers. The purpose of designing a watchlist or similar is to register deceptive and dubious publishers and journals, however, this remains a controversial activity which continues to receive some criticisms such as lack of reliability and transparency on the common scientific criteria used to determine predatory journals as well as vulnerability of such a list to personal bias. 21 In fact, there is no single watchlist that can guarantee identification of all the existing journals.

Due to these limitations, it is of critical importance for researchers to go beyond checking watchlists and to develop their own skills to self-detect predatory practices, such as those championed by the Think. Check. Submit initiative. 22 Researchers are also encouraged to acquaint themselves with trusted resources, such as the DOAJ, a global index of fully OA scholarly journals across all disciplines and languages that is freely accessible to everyone. It receives and reviews an average of 800 applications from OA journals every month and in 2022 only 26% of the journals that applied were accepted into the index. The DOAJ is committed to combating predatory publishing practices and engages an expert team of reviewers to keep the index free from predatory publishers, helping to protect researchers from becoming trapped by such publishers. 23 These rigorous standards have made the DOAJ a reliable, de facto source of quality OA journals for not just the scientific community but for anyone wishing to access credible information. In fact, listing journals in the DOAJ makes them compliant with funder initiatives such as Plan S 24 in Europe and the electronic journal collection in Latin America, SciELo-Chile. 25

So far, many frameworks are available to detect predatory journals. A systematic review by Cukier et al. identified a large number of checklists published in the past eight years but stressed that very few are evidence-based. 26 With little or no empirical evidence, the usefulness of some checklists can be questioned, and they may not provide a definite answer if the journal is predatory.

Table 1 presents some practical recommendations derived from the authors’ professional experience in evaluating OA journals and publishers, which can serve as a reference point for researchers when they choose a journal to submit their manuscript to. To prevent predatory publishers from using these recommendations to evade detection, the authors have refrained from a full discussion.

Recommendations

Other resources available to researchers

This section will summarize an additional list of resources available to further assist researchers in making the best decision for their research. Some could also be used by librarians when they make a recommendation to researchers on how to select the right journal.

The university or research institute specific guidelines or checklists

Many university libraries and librarians offer their researchers guidelines or a checklist for reference to help them understand and identify predatory publishers, for example, the Be iNFORMEd checklist from Duke University’s medical centre library 27 to assess the quality of a journal and the listing of Open Access Journal Quality Indicators developed by two librarians from the Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Libraries 28 to evaluate open access publications.

Tools from other industry organizations

• The DOAJ 29 maintains a list of journals that falsely claim to be in the DOAJ
• Retraction Watch 30 provides an updated list of hijacked journals
• Think. Check. Submit 31 is a tool for researchers to identify presumed legitimate publications
• Think. Check. Attend 32 is a tool that guides researchers to choose whether an academic conference can be trusted to attend and submit their abstracts to
• Latindex 33 a regional indexing database in Latin America, creates guidelines for local researchers to avoid publications in predatory journals
• B!SON 34 is a journal recommender tool using DOAJ metadata to give researchers a list of suitable OA journals for their publication based on thematic relevance.

Other reading materials

• The 2022 version of COPE’s Committee on Publication Ethics’ principles of transparency and best practices that elaborates the best publishing and editing standards for scholarly publishers and editors to conform to 35
• The latest report from the Interacademy Partnership (IAP) on combating predatory academic journals and conferences available in seven languages 36
• An e-book titled The Predator Effect: Understanding the Past, Present and Future of Deceptive Academic Journals authored by Simon Linacre 37
• COPE’s discussion document on predatory publishing covering introduction to and potential solutions to counter this issue. 38

Abbreviations and Acronyms

A list of the abbreviations and acronyms used in this and other Insight s articles can be accessed here – click on the URL below and then select the ‘full list of industry A&As’ link: http://www.uksg.org/publications#aa .

Competing interests

The authors have declared no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

11 October 2023. This article was updated to correct the authors’ affiliations.

Jeffrey Beall, “Predatory Publishers Are Corrupting Open Access,” Nature 489 (September 12, 2012): 179, https://www.nature.com/articles/489179a (accessed 23 August 2023); Andrew Silver, “Controversial Website that Lists ‘Predatory’ Publishers Shuts Down,” Nature (January 18, 2017), https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.21328 (accessed 23 August 2023).  

Gonzalo Marco-Cuenca, José Antonio Salvador-Oliván, and Rosario Arquero-Avilés, “Fraud in Scientific Publications in the European Union. an Analysis through Their Retractions,” Scientometrics 126, no. 6 (2021): 5143–64, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03977-0 (accessed 23 August 2023).  

Agnes Grudniewicz et al., “Predatory Journals: No Definition, No Defence.” Nature 576, no. 7786 (2019): 210–12, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03759-y (accessed 23 August 2023).  

Grudniewicz et al., “Predatory Journals.”  

Marcelo S. Perlin, Takeyoshi Imasato, and Denis Borenstein. “Is Predatory Publishing a Real Threat? Evidence from a Large Database Study,” Scientometrics 116, no. 1 (2018): 255–73, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2750-6 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Subhra Priyadarshini, “India Tops Submissions in Predatory Journals.” Nature News , (September 6, 2017), https://www.nature.com/articles/nindia.2017.115 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

“Home,” Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (UGC-Care), University Grants Commission, https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/apps1/home/index (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Jingfeng Xia et al., “WHO Publishes in ‘Predatory’ Journals?” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 66, no. 7 (2014): 1406–17, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23265 (accessed 24 August 2023); W.E. Nwagwu, “Open Access in the Developing Regions: Situating the Altercations About Predatory Publishing / L’accès libre dans les régions en voie de développement : Situation de la controverse concernant les pratiques d’édition déloyales,” Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 40, no. 1 (2016): 58–80, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/611577 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Sefika Mertkan, Gulen Onurkan Aliusta, and Nilgun Suphi, “Profile of Authors Publishing in ‘Predatory’ Journals and Causal Factors behind Their Decision: A Systematic Review,” Research Evaluation 30, no. 4 (2021) 470–483, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvab032 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Nicole Shu Ling Yeo-Teh and Bor Luen Tang, “Wilfully Submitting to and Publishing in Predatory Journals - a Covert Form of Research Misconduct?,” Biochemia medica 31, no. 3 (2021): 395–402, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11613/bm.2021.030201 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Ricardo Jorge Dinis-Oliveira, “Predatory Journals and Meetings in Forensic Sciences: What Every Expert Needs to Know about This ‘Parasitic’ Publishing Model,” Forensic Sciences Research 6, no. 4 (2021): 303–9, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/20961790.2021.1989548 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Bo-Christer Björk, Sari Kanto-Karvonen, and J. Tuomas Harviainen. “How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited,” ArXiv , (2019), https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1912/1912.10228.pdf (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Alexander Avidan, and Joel Shapiro, “Citation of Studies by Research Fraudsters in Medical Journals,” British Journal of Anaesthesia 130, no. 3 (2023), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2022.11.022 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Anna Abalkina and Dorothy V. M. Bishop, “Paper Mills: A Novel Form of Publishing Malpractice Affecting Psychology,” PsyArXiv Preprints , (September 5, 2022), DOI: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2yf8z (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Kyle Siler et al., “Predatory Publishers’ Latest Scam: Bootlegged and Rebranded Papers,” Nature 598, no. 7882 (2021): 563–65, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02906-8 (accessed 24 August 2023).  

Siler et al., “Predatory Publishers’ Latest Scam.”  

Varun G. Menon, “Hijacked Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them,” Clarivate (blog) , July 20, 2021, https://clarivate.com/blog/hijacked-journals-what-they-are-and-how-to-avoid-them/ (accessed 24 August 2023).  

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• 11 March 2020

Hundreds of scientists have peer-reviewed for predatory journals

• Richard Van Noorden

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Hundreds of scientists who post their peer-review activity on the website Publons say they’ve reviewed papers for journals termed ‘predatory’ — although they might not know it. An analysis of the site has found that it hosts at least 6,000 records of reviews for more than 1,000 predatory journals. The researchers who review most for these titles tend to be young, inexperienced and affiliated with institutions in low-income nations in Africa and the Middle East, according to the study , posted to the bioRxiv preprint server on 11 March.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00709-x

Severin, A. et al. Preprint on BioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.09.983155 (2020).

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