Tip of the Month August: Predatory Publishing

Word has gotten around that one can earn a lot of money with scientific articles. Publishers, who exploit this and charge the authors for services that they do not provide or only to a lesser degree, are known as Predatory Publishers.

Their dubious business practices mean that the promised quality check does not take place and the quality of the articles does not matter for publication. Also false statements such as faked or invented impact factors or invented members of the Editorial Board can be found.

Serious publishers and their journals, on the other hand, are subject to quality control through peer review. These articles go through the editorial process and are finally published in a neat layout.
To make sure that your own, high-quality article does not end up alongside questionable studies in a dubious magazine, there are a number of possibilities to check the journal intended for publication, e.g. with the initiative Think-Check-Submit or the checklist of the University Library Maastricht.