A psychological perspective towards understanding the objective and subjective gray zones in predatory publishing

Abstract

A continued lack of clarity persists because academics, policymakers, and other interested parties are unable to clearly define what is a “predatory” journal or publisher, and a potentially wide gray zone exists there. In this perspective, we argue that journals should be evaluated on a continuum, and not just in two shades, black and white. Since evaluations about what might constitute “predatory” are made by humans, the psychological decision-making system that determines them may induce biases. Considering such human psychological characteristics might shed light on the deterministic criteria that have been used, and continue to be used, to classify a journal or publisher as “predatory”, and perhaps, bring additional clarity to this discussion. Better methods of journal evaluation can be obtained when the factors that polarize journal evaluations are identified. As one example, we need to move away from simply using whitelists and blacklists and educate individual researchers about how to evaluate journals. This paper serves as an educational tool by providing more clarity about the “gray” publishing zone, and argues that currently available qualitative and quantitative systems should be fused to deterministically appreciate the zonation of white, gray and black journals, so as to possibly reduce or eliminate the influence of cognitive or “perception” bias from the “predatory” publishing debate.

Editorial actions taken to reduce publishing references from predatory sources: A case study

“…However, this has not been an easy or successful endeavour for many reasons. Additionally, any singular authority, software, or list could run the risk of acting as a relatively unquestioned gatekeeper of what are ‘legitimate’ scholarly works and, thus, knowledge (Cukier, Helal, et al, 2020; Strinzel et al, 2019; Yamada & Teixeira da Silva, 2022).…”

Academia Should Stop Using Beall’s Lists and Review Their Use in Previous Studies

“…We believe that academia is in a current state of "limbo" or adjustment with respect to the issue of "predatory" publishing. Moreover, not wanting to recognize that there is a body of journals and publishers that might display some unscholarly or imperfect properties, but not necessarily predatory ones, leaves a gray zone of incorrectly characterized or mischaracterized journals and publishers [29,49]. This gray zone is complicated by the ability of some potentially predatory entities to rebrand, change hands, or modify names [50].…”

Can the principle of the ‘right to be forgotten’ be applied to academic publishing? Probe from the perspective of personal rights, archival science, open science and post‐publication peer review

“…While the use of unflattering, altered (e.g., deep fake) or doctored images, especially those that are used in a demeaning manner (e.g., revenge porn) are subject to RTBF (Causey, 2021), would photographs of individuals who are profiled during PPPR constitute data objects that are subject to RTBF if they are used to unfairly profile the individual? A culture of stigmatization may arise when errors, faults, weaknesses, misconduct, poor publishing practices by editors, journals and publishers, and other ‘undesirable’ aspects of academic publishing are constantly highlighted in public, as occurred at a prominent blog and on blacklists by the US librarian Jeffrey Beall related to ‘predatory’ OA publishing, which likely carried classification errors due to the grey zone of this area of scholarly publishing (Yamada & Teixeira da Silva, 2022). That blog and blacklisting caused some who were profiled to object to that listing, essentially expressing a form of RTBF; that is, the desire (whether valid or justified) to be deleted, or forgotten, merely because of the negative association with that blog, or the stigmatization (personal, cultural, organizational, etc.)…”