Abstract

Objective: Predatory publishers and so-called hijacked or fraudulent journals, are threats to the quality of published articles and waste valuable research and manuscripts when scholars and authors submit and publish their works in these journals. Background: The aim of the paper is to point out the problem, causes and consequences of predatory publishing, characteristics and features of predatory publishers and fraudulent or fake journals and how to prevent and avoid publishing in such journals. Methods: Exploring the web blog of Jeffrey Beall and debate about Beall’s list of predatory publishers and journals and review of the relevant published literature, as well as personal experience and observations of the author. Results: Jeffrey Beall, an American librarian and library scientist from Denver, University of Colorado, has drawn attention to “predatory open access publishing” and created widely known Beall’s lists of potentially predatory publishers and open-access predatory journals publishing submitted manuscripts promptly without the reviewing process and with a high rate of publication fee. The debate initiated by Jeffrey Beall is continuing in the scientific community with increased number of authors and published articles on this still unresolved issue in the last about 10 years. The features of fraudulent or fake journals, threats and consequences are discussed as well. Conclusion: Increasing awareness in the scientific community is essential how to differentiate trustworthy-reliable journals and predatory ones and to avoid predatory journals. Continuous education of authors about predatory publishers and journals, both the existing and the newly-emerging wave of scholars, must be the purpose and the imperative of the academic community. In order to protect the peer review process, the academic and scientific community must set the criteria for scientific advancement by not recognizing and valuing the articles published in the predatory journals.

Key words: predatory publishers, fraudulent journals, hijacked journals, open access.