Predatory journals find prey in Russia

Analysis of Russian publications in journals no longer indexed in Scopus

(Sep 2015)

57 journals will no longer be indexed in Scopus in 2015 due to their non-ethical behavior

view the list (Excel)

These journals and/or their publishers(for 50 of 57 jrls, except 7 owned

by 1 Finland-based publisher)

are already in the Beall’s list,(Lists of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly OA

publishers / standalone journals we mentioned earlier (in Russian)

After this discovery we decided to check all these journals and their publishers in the Beall’s list. Here is what we’ve got!

Firstly, we wanted to check: how often Russian authors have been published in those journals ANDdid their papers get any citations and from whom?

Data is obtained from Scopus, the findings are original, though not published in any academic journal. Full text (in Russian) is here www.

2,536 articles published in 57 jnrls, predominantly in 2013-14

Russian authors have been sending little to none of their papers to these journals in 2010-12

94% of those paperswere published

only in 4 journal titles

JUST 4 JOURNALS SEDUCED THE AUTHORS IN 114 RUSSIAN CITIES

Advances in Environmental Biology

113 papers

World Applied Sciences Journal

1,162 papers

Middle East Journal of Scientific Research

473 papers

Life Sciences Journal

643 papers

That many papers/city

In 2014 # of Russian papers published in those 4 journals

exceeded 25% of their total annual volume

REMARKABLE FEATURES

Self-citation:

18,5% of papers in the list cite other works the same list

Colleagues engagement:

12% papers have an author with

at least 3 publications in these journals

You may say, “Ah, predatory-shmedatory,

who actually cares, if papers are in Scopus database

and get cited!”

RIGHT! LET’S TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT CITATIONS. WHO CITED THEM?

88% of citations are in the potential predatory journals (what’s that?1)3% of citations are from top-5 publishing journals2

1. Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers / journals2. Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, Wolters Kluwer Health

42 23 103 43 titles

50% 38% 9% articles

pubisher is in the Beall’s list other publisher

In the Beall’s list, but journals are no longer indexed in Scopus top-5 global publishers

In other words,

Articles of Russian authors in potential predatory journals

are ~ 20 times more actively cited

in potential predatory journals, than in top-5 publishers journals

WHO CITED THE RESEARCH PAPERS OF RUSSIAN AUTHORS?

95% of citations are made... … by Russian authors

8 : 1 1 : 2 1 : 6

New wave “publishing” countriesPakistan, India, China,Iran, Jordan,Malaysia, Indonesia,...

Eastern Europe countriesCzech Republic, Slovakia,Poland, Slovenia,Hungary, Serbia….

Big Publishers countries US, UK,Germany, Japan,Netherlands, Italy,...

Citation by non-Russian authors: presence of an author from EE doubled the chances for non-predatory journal. Citing by anyone from

“new wave publishing country” made 8 to 1 chances for predatory journal (grey). Green - probability of non-predatory journal.

PRO-RUSSIAN POTENTIAL PREDATORY PUBLISHERSWith max # of citations for the Russian papers from 57 journals

12 publishers from potential predatory list, who published >85% of papers with citations. Journals are no longer indexed in Scopus.

PUBLISHER COUNTRY ARTICLES TITLES

Russian papers (2010-14) from these 57 journals, no longer indexed by Scopus

(95% Pakistan, India, Jordan, China)

were actively cited in 2014-2015 (95% by Russian authors)

by other journals that yet have not faced any actions from Scopus

(call it “predatory migration”?)

e.g. Just 2 publishers, reg. in Italy & Canada, have published in 2014-2015 as many as ⅙ of citations for all Russian papers from initial 57 journals (639=329 + 310)

While Scopus warns about those who behave badly few years ago 1,

Jeffrey Beall (author of “potential predatory list”)

warns about many of those who deserve reprimand today

(even in Russia2)

1. Titles indexed in Scopus: Check before you publish2. Another Open-Access Innovation: Article Brokers

OUR FAIL-SAFE STRATEGY TO CHOOSE A SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL

✓ indexed in Scopus

✓ published for 5+ years

✓ annual volumes have no drastic jumps & falls

✓ journal is not multidisciplinary

✓ journal web site has a clear language for publication charges

✓ journal and its publishers are not in Beall's list

✓ Publisher’s country deserves your trust

5 “YES” will make a good job 4 U

www.eco-vector.com

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ONE PARTNER FOR ALL NEEDSwww.eco-vector.com

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