Fake Science & PRedatory Publishers

Read More about it:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/10/predatory-publishers-the-journals-who-churn-out-fake-science

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ky45y/hundreds-of-researchers-from-harvard-yale-and-stanford-were-published-in-fake-academic-journals

what does this all mean?

What they illuminated is that there are no standards, peer review processes, or requirements at all to submit and publish an article through some of these open access publishers. These publishers are predatory in that they make money off of these articles through the many conferences they hold throughout the world, and in that they prey on naïve scholars who would rather not jump through all the hoops of traditionally paywalled publishers. 

Traditionally paywalled publishers are generally only accessible to paying subscribers, contributors, and Universities. These are extremely trustworthy, but unfortunately for us non-affiliated citizens of the general public, we'll have to look to open access resources (unless we pay).

It should be noted, that just because some Open Access Publishers are illegitimate and predatory, it does not mean they all are. In fact, it's quite the opposite, there is a great wealth of Open Access Publishers to glean articles and journals from.

Legit Publishers

It is vastly less complicated to use well known and legitimate publishers than to muck about in the weeds trying to verify if a journal or article is legitimate or not. Better to start with a super well known and legitimate publisher right from the start

Directory of Open Access Journals

"To find a good quality Open Access journal article, we recommend the Directory of Open Access Journals. This is an index of quality Open Access journals vetted by an international team of volunteers. Journal requirements, peer review systems, APC costs, and editorial board information are visible on each entry. Look for journals with the DOAJ Seal - these adhere to the highest standards for Open Access publications" (University of Pittsburg Library System). 

Simply click the radio button for "articles" and search for your subject.

How To Identify Predatory Publishing

Okay, so you've chosen the hard way. Instead of starting with a legitimate open access publisher, you want to try and see if the one you are using is legitimate or not. See the University of Pittsburg Library System's steps 1 & 2. It details precisely what you would need to do far more eloquently that I could describe here.

IS My specific article legit?

You found an article and you want to verify if it is legitimate or not. In addition to the steps described above, there is a tool you can use to quickly check the legitimacy of your article with.

predatory-publishing.com provides a tool that allows you to check if a journal is recognized by ISSN, COPE or DOAJ. 

To use the tool you you go to their tool website and "...provide the ISSN as part of the URL. That is; https://predatory-publishing.com/ISSNCheck/?issn=nnnn-mmmm, where "nnnn-mmmm" is an ISSN."

Final Notes

• Non-Western publication houses are NOT automatically predatory, despite some evaluative sites listing geographic publication as criteria. Go through these steps with all publishers, regardless of origin.

• English grammar errors on publisher or journal websites are also not an immediate indication of predatory publishing, but when examining humanities or social sciences journals that originate in English, it might be a warning sign.

• Badly designed websites are also not necessarily an immediate indication of predatory behavior, as long as they do not restrict you from getting essential publisher information. 

• Don't worry if the journal doesn't appear to be in every single one of these databases, but do be concerned if it seems to absent from most or all of them.

• Sometimes new or smaller journals are not fully indexed, but it is still safe to be wary.

Additional Reading

6 tips to help you detect fake science news (theconversation.com)

Pro-Science - Media Bias Fact Check
MediaBiasFactCheck has a wonderful section of legitimate science focused websites. It can make research far less painful.