A non-technical summary of predatory journals and the impact they could have on the patient community

Source: Centre for Journalology http://www.ohri.ca/journalology/oss-patients-and-public

This section may be useful to the public, patients, and to journalists trying to better understand predatory journals.

What is a predatory journal?

When a researcher finishes a study, they aim to publish their research findings in an academic journal. There are many legitimate academic journals, but some journals are not legitimate. These ‘fake journals’ are called predatory journals. Predatory journals don’t operate according to best practices for publishing. They may not provide peer review (in which other experts in the field review the work before publication) or may provide inadequate peer review. They also may not be indexed or archived (stored in databases) to ensure their content is accessible and preserved, and they may publish ethically questionable work. This means that the expected ‘checks’ that legitimate journals do may not be present at predatory journals.

Some predatory journals ‘stand alone’, meaning the journal is published independently by itself. Other predatory journals are produced by a publisher – in this case predatory publishers may own and publish articles from multiple independent predatory journals.

Read more and watch the explanatory videos at http://www.ohri.ca/journalology/oss-patients-and-public

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