Not all journals are the same
In recent years, the line between "predatory" journals and high-quality paid "open access" journals has been becoming increasingly blurred. Some journals, which are also part of the Web of Science database, publish a large number of articles that are more for profit, and the review process may be weak or even insufficient. Recognizing a journal with questionable publishing practices can be difficult, even impossible for a beginner in the field of science.
The basic warning signals for authors can be the following:
- The high numbers of articles that the journal publishes per year. This can be easily found out, for example, via the interface from Scopus - SJR Scimago Journal & Country Rank: https://www.scimagojr.com/index.php
- A high proportion of self-citations of the given journal (self-citations are listed in the same interface)
- High publication fees
- A fast review process that the journal advertises (a review process shorter than 1 month is suspicious)
- A high number of "special issues" that can be found typically on the pages of the given journal
For example, the publisher MDPI, which owns several journals each of which publishes thousands of articles a year, has a bad reputation. We recommend you to read the article by doc. Daniel Munich “Sustainability: to není lecjaký časopis“ (“Sustainability: That’s Not Just Any Journal“), which writes about one of these journals. In addition, the article will provide you with further tips on how to identify a journal with questionable publishing practices.
David Šmahel, department head IRTIS
