Predatory journals

Here is the lesson plan for the Predatory Journals WebQuest, for use by teachers to help guide the learning process.

This Predatory Journals WebQuest was designed to introduce learners to the complex landscape of scholarly and open access publishing and some of the major issues therein. The advent of the internet and the open access movement has allowed us to share scholarly work around the globe faster and more efficiently than ever before. However, those same benefits have allowed fraudulent and unscrupulous groups to publish "research" that is fake, inaccurate, blatantly biased, and often designed solely for profit rather than for edification. As learners complete this WebQuest, they will explore these issues and be able to determine for themselves what constitutes predatory publishing practices and how to identify and avoid predatory journals while still engaging in the rich body of research coming from the global scholarly community.

Anyone can post anything on the internet. It is important for everyone to be able to critically evaluate the information they are finding online in order to determine which sources are appropriate for their research and learning. It is also important to realize that money does not determine quality - scholarly resources that exist behind a paywall may not, in fact, be scholarly, and those that are available for free (through open access) are not necessarily "bad" or predatory just for being open access.

This WebQuest was designed for adult learners in a graduate-level library and information sciences program. It would be appropriate for anyone with some or minimal experience in academic research and scholarly publishing who is looking to learn more.

It is assumed that learners are already familiar with Web browsers, navigating the internet, conducting independent research, and the difference between "scholarly" versus other types of resources.

As a result of completing this WebQuest, the learner will be able to: describe what scholarly publishing is, including the open access movement; define what "predatory" journals/publishing means; have a set of criteria by which they can judge any resource they find to determine whether its practices are predatory or not; and be able to synthesize and explain the concepts of scholarly and predatory publishing to others and assist colleagues in determining whether a journal or publisher is predatory.

This WebQuest directly addresses the standards outlined in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education. It specifically addresses the following parts of the framework:

• Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
  • "Information resources reflect their creators’ expertise and credibility, and are evaluated based on the information need and the context in which the information will be used. Authority is constructed in that various communities may recognize different types of authority. It is contextual in that the information need may help to determine the level of authority required." (page 4)
• Research as Inquiry
  • "Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field." (page 7)
• Scholarship as Conversation
  • "Communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals engage in sustained discourse with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of varied perspectives and interpretations." (page 8)

Learners will produce a visual presentation of their understanding of the landscape of scholarly publishing and what constitutes predatory practices. This product will be assessed according to the rubric found on the Evaluation page of this website.