Monday 8 December 2014

Predatory publishing: when scientific quality gets in the way of a good business model

Science progresses because it is open to scrutiny. For findings to be accepted, they must pass peer-review and must be presented to other scientists for them to question, refute, or confirm. Publication in a scientific journal (and presentation at conferences) is key to this process. However, the number of journals and conferences have increased massively over the last 10 -20 years, and many of them are not the real thing – so called ‘predatory’ publishing and predatory conferences have sprung up everywhere. The problem with this is that there is no clear line between what is real and what is fake.