Academic Publishing Guide for Faculty and Researchers

McCrostie, J. (2018). Predatory conferences: A case of academic cannibalism. International Higher Education, 2(93), 6-8.  

Predatory journals, predatory publishers, and predatory conferences exploit the academic need to publish by offering fake, or poor quality, opportunities to publish, present, and serve as an editor.

The primary goal of these predatory enterprises is to make money, they do not care about the quality of the work produced, and they make false claims regarding the process, the quality, and the accessibility of the works they "publish".

Below are resources that you can use to help you in the fight against predatory publishers, predatory journals, and predatory conferences.

Examine the publications website and look for these signs that may indicate a predatory journal:

The journal title is very similar to that of a reputable journal. Some predatory journal "hijack" titles or are too similar to well-regarded titles.

The journal may include the name of a western country although it is based elsewhere.

The journal focus is not clear or combines subject areas not traditionally found together.

The publisher's website or articles have multipile grammatical or spelling errors. 

The editor or board members should be listed; check their credentials at their claimed affiliated institutions.

The journal is not easily located in libraries; check WorldCat.

The journal is not indexed or only found in few databases. 

The publisher guarantees rapid, peer-reviewed publication if a processing fee is submitted.

Impact factors are fake and the journal is not listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals or other reputable lists. 

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology: WASET

WASET plans conferences for more than a decade into the future at many international locations. Go the website and open any location to find the various topics to be presented at that conference - at least 50 choices on the same dates at the same location. Look at the program for more clues to the quality of these conferences. (One conference on clinical psychology highlighted selected papers on the construction industry in South Africa and a study in wind power control.) A Google search will turn up stories from those who have been duped by this organization. 

OMICS International

Another organization that appears to schedule several conferences in one location at the same time, specializing in medical, pharma, engineering, science, technology and business. Their event organizer, https://www.conferenceseries.com/, touts that they offer over 3000 conferences, symposia and workshops. They also publish journals based on conference papers. A suspicious journal: "The International Journal of Biomedical Data Mining is a scholarly open access, peer-reviewed, and fully refereed journal" and lists a sample article's suspiciously rapid publication dates: 

Received date: February 08, 2014; Accepted date: February 11, 2014; Published date: February 14, 2014