Early career researchers and predatory journals during the Covid-19 pandemic. An international analysis

Abstract

Around 170 early career researchers (ECRs) from 8 countries were interviewed about the whole range of their scholarly communication attitudes/behaviours during pandemic times and this paper analyses what they said about predatory journals in a wide range of scholarly communication contexts. Because of the delicacy of the topic there was just one question exclusively directed at predatory journals, which asked about policies rather than actions, which yielded nevertheless wide-ranging comments on the topic. ECRs also volunteered information on predatory journals in another half dozen questions, most notably including one on questionable research practices. The source of data was mainly the final interview of three undertaken, with some comparisons made to rounds one and two. Findings disclose the existence of a whole raft of formal and informal assessment policies/coded that direct ECRs to legitimate journals and away from predatory ones. Despite being junior, ECRs are very accultured to the criteria of what is considered as prestige and quality and believe predatory publishing is not even conceivable. They are far more concerned about low-quality research, preprints and borderline ‘grey’ journals. The pandemic has increased the level of questionable practices and low-quality research, but predatory journals were only singled out by a relatively small number of ECRs.

How Supervisors Can Support Doctoral Students to Publish and Not Perish in Academia

“…Linked to this necessity to publish may be students being targeted by so-called "predatory publishers" [78,79] and, more recently, those in the "Grey" publishing market [80]. More senior academics will likely be familiar with such unsolicited approaches and understand the implications of publishing papers in these journals.…”

How Metric-Based Performance Evaluation Systems Fuel the Growth of Questionable Publications?

“…Despite the ongoing debate on questionable publishing covering issues related to predatory journal lists, 'grey publishing' indicating publications not in questionable journals but of low quality, and the role of big commercial publishers in this matter (Nicholas et al, 2023;Oviedo-García, 2021), it is important to note that the initial data of this study is derived solely from Beall's and Cabell's lists. This constitutes the primary limitation of our study, and it is imperative to acknowledge this aspect.…”