In this interview with the European Science-Media Hub, David Moher defines predatory journals.
“Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritise self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices. Generally speaking, they are journals that don’t follow best practice. Sadly, this can also apply to the so-called ‘legitimate’ journals”
You may be wondering why I have included this quote in a post about paper mills. The terms ‘predatory publishing’ and ‘paper mills’ are sometimes used interchangeably. In this post, I briefly explain how predatory publishers and paper mills differ from each other and relate to legitimate publishing. The emphasis, however, is on how legitimate publisher practices can allow paper mills to flourish.
What is the difference between paper mills, predatory journals and legitimate publishing?
The image shows ‘legitimate publishing’ as having stated standards, in the form of policies and quality control measures, at the publisher, journal and manuscript level. Predatory publishers are separate entities that may have stated standards but do not uphold them. They have no quality control measures. Predatory journals and publishers exploit the open access publishing model and will publish anything for a fee.
I propose that any practice that prioritises self-interest at the expense of scholarship is a predatory practice including when it occurs in a legitimate publisher.
Paper mills are entities that bypass or exploit poor quality control measures in legitimate journals, again to ensure the publication of manuscripts in exchange for a fee. Such manuscripts may be partly or entirely fabricated. There may be additional activities such as selling authorship of those manuscripts.
Paper mills will target any vulnerability in a legitimate journal and this includes practices that are below best practice standards.
What are poor quality control measures in legitimate publishers and how do paper mills exploit them?
Inadvertent vulnerabilities
These are inadvertent weaknesses in a process. My very first experience of a paper mill (almost ten years ago!) was one where the journal allowed authors to suggest experts as potential peer reviewers of their work. The authors were able to input contact emails for these people on submission. This feature was intended to help editors with the peer review process but it was exploited by third party agencies who input fabricated emails. The editors used these emails to invite the suggested peer reviewers. By doing this, they inadvertently allowed third parties to take control of the peer review process and submit fabricated reports.
This is an example where part of a process which was intended to improve the efficiency of peer review inadvertently became a serious vulnerability to attack by a paper mill.
Weak policies and practices or the absence of a policy
When discovered, paper mills have often been operating in a journal for some time because they are good at identifying how to run without being noticed. They know when there won’t be close scrutiny of the content of a manuscript. For example, once a manuscript has cleared the peer review process and moves on to the production stage, it is possible that no one other than the authors will look at the content of a manuscript. This allows authors who have paid for authorship to be added unchallenged. To prevent this, policies and practices are needed to control authorship changes.
Other examples of policies and practices to consider are:
- Requiring the submission of original data for certain types of figures.
- Having very strict criteria for considering narrative literature reviews which are very easy to fabricate using GAI writing tools.
- Informing editors about paper mills and how to spot them.
- Maintaining oversight of guest editors.
- Agreeing on a code of conduct with your journal editors (see my previous post on this).
What are questionable practices and misconduct in legitimate journals?
Questionable practices
These are practices that set up conflicts for editors and hinder their adherence to editorial standards. They may positively encourage bad practice. An example is a contractual requirement to publish a certain number of articles in a journal, a special issue, collection or supplement without including any caveats about maintaining research integrity standards.
Similarly, actively tolerating lower standards (such as only requiring one peer reviewer) for submissions to special issues, collections or supplements is a questionable practice.
Publisher misconduct
Researchers, editors and peer reviewers are expected to adhere to and uphold certain editorial and integrity standards. Intentionally failing to do so is misconduct. If legitimate publishers are to judge themselves against the same standards (which they should), they too must accept the concept of publisher misconduct.
Publisher misconduct includes actively ignoring concerns about articles showing signs of paper mill activity because of the potential negative impact any action might have on the reputation or revenue of the affected journal or publisher. Not acting to address known vulnerabilities or poor practices and processes is another example. To clarify, this does not include perceived delays in taking action when concerns are raised. When a journal or publisher is targeted by a paper mill, it can take months, if not years to investigate the issue and correct the published record. Externally, this can be perceived as inaction. However, investigating and resolving an attack by a paper mill is a hugely time-consuming and challenging undertaking. That, in itself, can be exploited by paper mills.
Paper mills can exploit predatory practices in legitimate journals. If you are a publisher who is not taking action to adhere to best practices or retract paper mill content, ask yourself whether this is because of concerns about reputation or revenue. If it is, consider whether this is a predatory practice that you should address.
How do you ‘paper mill proof’ your journals?
Regardless of your publishing model, undertake an honest examination of your policies, processes and practices. Commit to change those that are weak, vulnerable, questionable and possibly predatory. Accept that there will be a short term impact on reputation and revenue.
Of course, to achieve this, there needs to be a broad investment in and prioritisation of research integrity across all aspects of the publishing process that is recognised as essential rather than ‘nice to have’.
I hope this post has helped to clarify the difference between paper mills, predatory journals and legitimate publishing, and the interplay between the three.
I also hope it has given you some ideas on how to ‘paper mill proof’ your journals.
You can download the figure here
The image and text for this blog post were created without the use of generative AI writing tools.