Predatory Publishing

1. Choose the journal in which you will publish with care and consideration.

2. If the journal claims to be indexed in Web of Science, Scopus or other databases, check this information. Open access journals can be checked in the Directory of Open Access Journals. 

3. Draw on the experience of your colleagues and professional communities. Try typing the journal name + "predatory" or "scam journal" etc. into Google - you can find other scientists' experiences on various blogs or discussion forums.

4. Check if Jeffrey Beall has listed the journal in his List of Predatory Journals. 

5. Check the journal's website for signs of predation, as listed below.

6. Do not respond to unsolicited emails (spam) inviting you to publish or serve on the editorial board of a journal you have not encountered before.

7. If you are unsure, ask the University Library for advice: contact Mgr. Veronika Kolínová.

Indexing in databases, metrics 

• Provides false information about Impact Factor or indexing in databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest, etc.
• Provides fictitious metrics (Universal Impact Factor, Global Impact Factor, General Impact Factor, etc.).
• May have a fake ISSN.

Name of the journal

• The journal's name is very similar to some of the established journals in the field.
• The journal's name is generic (World Journal of xxx, International Journal of xxx).

Website, content and archive of the journal

• There are grammatical and spelling errors on the website.
• The website is aimed primarily at authors, not readers.
• The journal has a general thematic focus, publishing articles unrelated to the field.
• The articles are too general or unprofessional or show signs of plagiarism.
• Publishers publish a large number of journals but have a low number of articles in their archives.
• There is often a need for more information on how articles are digitally preserved.

Contacts

• They do not provide sufficient contact details (generic addresses like @gmail.com or @yahoo.com, no personalised email to the editor-in-chief, or only a contact form).
• The contact address is P.O.BOX or the publisher's address does not exist.

Editorial Board

• The editorial board lists well-known scientists who don't know about it or who disagree with it. 
• The editorial board is the same for more than one journal of a publishing house.
• There are fictitious persons on the editorial board.

Peer review process

• Information about the review process is incomplete or missing.
• The review process is not taking place at all or is only fictitious / vague / suspiciously fast / dubious etc.  
• Easily and quickly publish any paper, there are almost no barriers to publication.  
• They do not adhere to publication standards.

Article Processing Charges

• Information on the amount of the publication fee (APC) is not provided or is incomplete / unclear / difficult to find, etc.
• Publication fees are suspiciously low. They may even offer discounts.

Copyright

• They don't have a clear copyright policy.
• They claim to support open access but retain the copyright of the published article or not mentioning copyright at all.

Aggressive approaching of potential authors

• They indiscriminately, intrusively and even aggressively address potential authors - contributors and reviewers - via e-mail.

Did you submit an article and then find out it was a predatory journal?

If the paper is accepted, you will unfortunately lose your results and work. You cannot publish the same thing again and elsewhere. Contact the journal's publisher and ask for your article to be retracted.

Have you been asked to review a paper (without your prior consent)?

You are under no obligation to review a paper unless you have voluntarily agreed to do so. Contact the journal/publisher and inform them that you do not wish to review the paper and ask them not to contact you again. You should mark the email address as spam.

Has your name been misused?

Your name may appear on the list of editors/editorial board/reviewers etc. without your permission. Contact the journal/publisher and insist that they remove your name not only from the website but also from any material in which your name might appear. Mark the email address as spam.

Beware of reputable magazines as well, as there have been cases where their identities have been stolen. 

Fraudulent websites can be very primitive (simple copy) or, on the other hand, appear very credible (e.g. the fake Wulfenia website). 

For more information on identity theft cases and a list of other "hijacked" journals, see the List of "hijacked" journals (available only through the Internet Archive as of January 2017).

Predatory conferences (bogus conferences or predatory meetings) masquerade as legitimate scientific conferences. Their purpose is only to profit from registration fees, without any qualitative benefit to the scientific community.

After the registration fee is paid, the conference either does not take place at all or has of inadequate quality (poor organization, changes in the program, missing presenters, overly general presentations, etc.). 

Characteristics of predatory conferences: 

• they are supposed to be held in tourist attraction destinations;
• they have generic words in their name such as global, international, etc.;
• invitations are spams; they contain errors and typos;
• invitations are sent from a public email account, e.g. Gmail, without affiliation to the institution; 
• the conference topic does not match your research area;
• a large number of thematic areas that are not related;
• programme information is unclear and/or is changed frequently;
• important deadlines changes (conference dates, registration, abstract submission).

Think-Check-Submit  (a simple checklist that researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or a publisher)

Think-Check-Attend (a simple checklist that helps researchers identify legitimate conferences and avoid predatory conferences)

Jeffrey Beall's List (personal blog closed in January 2017, content available via Internet Archive)

UNESCO Open Science Toolkit: Identifying predatory academic journals and conferences