extent of South African authored articles in predatory journals

Abstract

We present a first estimate of the extent of predatory publishing amongst South African academics. This estimate is based on an analysis of all South African authored papers that qualified for subsidy over the period 2005 to 2014. The analysis shows that 4246 South African papers were published in 48 journals which we re-classified (refining Beall’s classification) as either being probably or possibly predatory. A breakdown of these papers by year shows that the greatest increase in predatory publishing has occurred since 2011. Results are also presented of the distribution of these papers by individual university and scientific field. We conclude with some suggestions about predatory publishing and its pervasive consequence for our trust in science and how this should be addressed by the major stakeholders in the South African higher education system.

Do not feed the predators

“…They made use of the publication data that South African universities annually submit to the DHET. Our study differentiates itself from the Mouton and Valentine (2017) study that is, admittedly, much more extensive. First, we go into more detail in our study.…”

“…The analysis of the articles published in these journals shows that the problem of publication in predatory journals by South African affiliated academics in economic and management sciences is serious (728 articles over three and a half years is a high number). This can be compared to the Mouton and Valentine (2017) results of 4246 predatory articles over the ten years to 2014 for all academic disciplines in South Africa. It is important for the South African academic system to understand from which institutions the articles in the predatory journals come.…”

“…We did augment the predatory classification by Beall with relevant information from other sources (such as the ABDC, the DOAJ, Scopus and Mouton & Valentine (2017)) which also indicated that these journals are suspect. We expect that these predatory journals, because of deficient peer review and copy editing processes, will present evidence of low-quality publishing.…”

“…To this end, we have compiled and analysed a dataset of 728 articles with South African affiliated authors, published in the five most popular predatory journals in economic and management sciences for the period 2013 to mid-2016. We identified journals as predatory by their inclusion on the nowwithdrawn Beall's list (Beall, 2016), as done in a number of other studies (Bagues, Sylos-Labini & Zionovyeva, 2016;Mouton & Valentine, 2017;Pyne, 2017;Wallace & Perri, 2016). Beall is widely acknowledged as a leading authority on predatory publishers (Berger & Cirasella, 2015:132;Butler, 2013).…”

“…In economics, Wallace and Perri (2016) found that 124 authors registered on the Research Papers in Economics archives (RePEc) were publishing in predatory journals in 2015. In South Africa, Mouton and Valentine (2017) investigated the extent of publishing in predatory journals across all academic disciplines for the period 2005 to 2014. They made use of the publication data that South African universities annually submit to the DHET.…”