Research report: Beware of scientific scams! Hints to avoid predatory publishing in biological journals

Their editorial lays out the business model behind these profit-making machines, the telltale signs that give them away, and the reforms needed to stop the spread of fake science. The rise of predatory publishing is closely tied to the history of scientific publishing itself. For centuries, journals distributed in print were financed by subscriptions, annual fees paid to learned societies, or article processing charges borne by authors.

The popularisation of the internet transformed this landscape, introducing new revenue streams in which readers pay to download papers and authors or their institutions pay the full cost of making articles freely available as open access. Predatory publishers are defined by their willingness to publish articles, books and book chapters without submitting them to rigorous peer review, among other unethical practices. They provide no information about their peer review protocols and show no concern for scientific, bibliographic or ethical standards; their interest lies exclusively in the money received from authors.

Acceptance rates are extremely high, making the quality of their publications dubious at best. Aware that many researchers suffer under a publish-or-perish culture that prioritises quantity over quality, these operators target scientists who feel pressured to stand out in an intensely competitive academic market and who come to perceive predatory journals as a fast route to recognition, often without understanding the negative consequences that will follow. The scale of the problem has prompted various countermeasures.

The most famous is Beall's List, created in 2008 by Jeffrey Beall and maintained until 2017, which catalogued more than 900 potentially dishonest journals and publishers. Such lists must be used with caution, however, because they cannot keep pace with a rapidly growing market and some journals may be incorrectly classified. To address these limitations, open automated detection systems have emerged, including the Academic Journal Predatory Checking System, which allows anyone to search for information about a journal and determine whether it behaves suspiciously.

Even these tools can make inaccurate judgments, so critical thinking remains essential. Researchers in biology are now squarely in the crosshairs. A common tactic is the mass electronic invitation, often generated by harvesting the email addresses of corresponding authors from the internet and from conference abstracts.

The supposed editors behind these messages frequently flatter recipients, stressing that their work is sound and has already passed the scrutiny of an editorial board, requiring only the payment of a fee to be published with no further peer review. Invitations to join editorial boards are also frequent; rather than editing anything, the recruited scientists serve as poster boys, lending their names to the journal's website to attract unsuspecting authors. Nomenclature offers one of the clearest warning signs.

Predatory biological journals tend to adopt names closely resembling those of established, credible publications, often beginning with phrases such as American Journal, Brazilian Journal, International Journal, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Entomology or Scientific Journal. They are generally absent from the Directory of Open Access Journals and are not indexed in major bibliometric databases such as Google Scholar, Scielo, Scopus and Web of Science, for the simple reason that they fail to meet inclusion criteria. Consulting these databases before responding to any invitation is usually enough to expose the scam.

The websites of predatory journals reveal further red flags: they often devote more space to soliciting manuscripts than to showcasing published papers, display fake impact factors unusually high for an obscure journal launched only a few years ago, provide little information about the editorial board, carry a fake International Standard Serial Number, lack transparency about scope, retraction policy and copyright transfer, and offer vague contact details that omit the journal's office address. Crucially, not every journal missing from the major databases is predatory; new journals are unranked in their first year, and small, honest journals with good reputations, often run by postgraduate programmes at renowned universities, may simply not be indexed. Advisers, supervisors and senior colleagues can help judge an invitation, and attention should focus not only on citation metrics but on the editorial board, ISSN, contact information and institutional relationships.

The scams extend well beyond journals. Researchers also receive invitations to publish books and book chapters with fake International Standard Book Numbers and dubious editorial boards, alongside a flood of solicitations to predatory meetings such as online conferences, symposia, workshops and lectures. These events typically have confusing websites and are never linked to a university or postgraduate programme.

In Brazil, the problem even reaches official ranking systems: the Qualis/CAPES list, which ranks journals for postgraduate evaluation, inevitably includes some predatory journals among the huge number constantly assessed, and the authors argue that a system to purge them from rankings is urgently needed. The consequences cascade through science and society. Paper mills can be hired to produce articles through plagiarism and the indiscriminate use of artificial intelligence, and these fabricated papers often end up in predatory journals.

Beyond technical errors, such publications can compile biased data that later feed meta-analytical reviews, steering the scientific community in the wrong direction on topics of public interest. For academia, the worst outcomes include the spread of erroneous information, facilitated plagiarism, wasted public funds, and the appointment of researchers on the basis of curricula padded with doubtful publications. Combating this industry, the authors argue, demands collaboration at institutional and governmental levels rather than isolated individual efforts.

Governments should create regulatory agencies that carefully and systematically evaluate the activities of scientific publishers, auditing entire publication protocols, and funding agencies should require that publication fees be paid only to publishers adhering to internationally recognised transparency and ethical rules. The academic community also needs to re-examine its values and incentives so that quality is prioritised over quantity, and researchers must agree on a shared definition of predatory publishing and its typical signs. Such a definition would provide a reference point for research, guide coherent interventions, and improve public policy in favour of global health, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

Subject of Research: Predatory publishing practices in biological sciences and strategies for detecting and avoiding them

Article Title: Beware of scientific scams! Hints to avoid predatory publishing in biological journals

Article References: Pereira, C. C., Mello, M. A. R., Negreiros, D., Figueiredo, J. C. G., Kenedy-Siqueira, W., Maia, L. R., Fernandes, S., Fernandes, G. F. C., Ponce de Leon, A., Ashworth, L., Oki, Y., de Castro, G. C., Aguilar, R., Fearnside, P. M., & Fernandes, G. W. (2023). Beware of scientific scams! Hints to avoid predatory publishing in biological journals. Neotropical Biology and Conservation, 18(2), 97-105. https://doi.org/10.3897/neotropical.18.e108887

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/neotropical.18.e108887

Keywords: predatory publishing, open access, peer review, academic integrity, Biology, scientific misconduct, paper mills, Beall's List, fake journals, academic publishing, misinformation, research ethics