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Predatory publishers are considered bad for science and science communication because they are repositories for bogus research, cited by other authors. These unprincipled publishers exploit the open-access (OA) model by falsifying the process of peer-review. Their motivation is to procure evaluation and publication fees (Shen & Björk, 2015; Masic, 2017; Beall, 2015). Publishers with unknown headquarters locations, sending spam emails, calling for papers, compromising peer review, and oversight plagiarized context are defacing the landscape of scholarly communication.
There are several strategies and techniques employed by predatory journals that give them false respect, which entraps young and early career researchers who are enthusiastic about publishing quickly for their educational benefits. Falling into the trap of predatory publishers is a colossal loss of various types of resources. Furthermore, it also results in the loss of research that could have resulted in the progression of the science.
Moreover, not only the early stage but the reputed researchers also publish in fraudulent journals for the development of their resumes and curriculum vitae, increase the numbers of their publications for obtaining jobs, finance additional studies, and qualify for grants and promotions across various academic careers (Duc., Thong., & Masic, 2020).
Though a good score of scientists tries their best to publish their work in quality journals indexed in high repute databases with striking metrics, several predatory journals slither in the trustworthy repositories, like PubMed, PubMed Central, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, and Web of Science. Here starts the troublesome phenomenon in academia, which is of significant concern.
The predatory journals have been observed to give an imprint of being associated with reputed databases like Web of Science (WoS) or Scopus. A parallel race run by a contemporaneous industry is that of predatory metrics, false indexing databases, and conferences designed to capitalize on similar opportunities is a concerning issue. Predatory databases copy names authorized by the mainstream sites like Index Scientific Journals, using the acronym ISI to match the actual ISI WoS. Therefore, a journal claims to be listed in ISI but refers to the pay-per-listing site rather than the actual site. Citation metrics by these databases are drawn through Google Scholar and have undefined/unexplained methods. The fee is the only factor for the inclusion of a journal in these predatory platforms. An additional fee is an indication of adhering a false ‘Impact Factor’ to the journals that claim these databases and present themselves as indexed in significant and valuable scientific databases.
Other manifestations of trickery and distraction, or ingenuousness, are evident from the fact that the journals present ResearchGate and Mendeley as indexing databases or claim Thomson Reuter Researcher IDs, Scopus Researcher IDs, and ORCID accounts as a characteristic of a journal. Thus, it is essential to identify low-quality journals that creep in the reputed databases and the journals that have adopted a mechanism to get indexed by counterfeit indexing databases and present these databases as an excellent base to trap the authors.