Predatory journals and conferences - researchers beware!

Many researchers - often times young and from the developing world, and at times even experienced ones from the developed  world- have fallen prey to fraudsters who have gotten them  to pay for publications that have no peer review or for a conferences that unfortunately carries no merit. This  phenomenon is growingly pervasive, and sadly, by the time  a researcher falls prey to such phishing schemes, it can  get too late. At times, the reputation of victim-researcher gets tarnished, due to the fact that professional agencies  expect researchers to be closely guarded about where they  are disseminating their results.  

If you are a researcher at the earlier phase of your career, you may find the following pointers relevant and useful:  

(a) conferences that do not offer publications or/and those  that are run by professional societies (eg. MRS) are safe and okay.

(b) journals offering open access by bypassing peer review  and by charging (often times prohibitively) are almost always   fraudulent. 

(c) emails that shower lofty praise on you or those that  publish 'any thing' and in ' any format' are to be seen with  suspicion. 

(d) open access journals that offer peer review in 

keeping with standard practice are okay. In fact now  some standard journals (eg. RSC Advances from the Royal  Society have gone this way). The key is to have an acceptable  'peer review'. 

(e) fraudulent and predatory journals and conferences are  to be avoided at all cost, to safe guard your own reputation  and that of your institutions / lab / group.

(f) predatory journals are ever increasing, for the obvious  reason that we live in times wherein the number of people  entering research is growing globally. Hence while there  exists no comprehensive list of such journals, the following  links can offer you information, which can help you develop good judgment regarding this. 

All the very best to you, publish well, stay safe!!  

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Relevant information is available here: 

http://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2017/10/04/to-catch-a-predatory-publisher/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open-access_publishing

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_conference

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