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Predatory journals are spurious scientific outlets that charge fees for editorial and publishing services that they do not provide. Their lack of quality assurance of published articles increases the risk that unreliable research is published and thus jeopardizes the integrity and credibility of research as a whole. There is increasing awareness of the risks associated with predatory publishing, but efforts to address this situation are hampered by the lack of a clear definition of predatory outlets. Blacklists of predatory journals and whitelists of legitimate journals have been developed but not comprehensively examined. By systematically analyzing these lists, this study provides insights into their utility and delineates the different notions of quality and legitimacy in scholarly publishing used. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relevant concepts and provides a starting point for the development of a robust definition of predatory journals. We aimed to develop an in-depth understanding of quality criteria for scholarly journals by analyzing journals and publishers indexed in blacklists of predatory journals and whitelists of legitimate journals and the lists’ inclusion criteria. To quantify content overlaps between blacklists and whitelists, we employed the Jaro-Winkler string metric. To identify topics addressed by the lists’ inclusion criteria and to derive their concepts, we conducted qualitative coding. We included two blacklists (Beall’s and Cabells Scholarly Analytics’) and two whitelists (the Directory of Open Access Journals’ and Cabells Scholarly Analytics’). The number of journals per list ranged from 1,404 to 12,357, and the number of publishers ranged from 473 to 5,638. Seventy-two journals and 42 publishers were included in both a blacklist and a whitelist. Seven themes were identified in the inclusion criteria: (i) peer review; (ii) editorial services; (iii) policy; (iv) business practices; (v) publishing, archiving, and access; (vi) website; and (vii) indexing and metrics. Business practices accounted for almost half of the blacklists’ criteria, whereas whitelists gave more emphasis to criteria related to policy. Criteria could be allocated to four concepts: (i) transparency, (ii) ethics, (iii) professional standards, and (iv) peer review and other services. Whitelists gave most weight to transparency. Blacklists focused on ethics and professional standards. Whitelist criteria were easier to verify than those used in blacklists. Both types gave little emphasis to quality of peer review. Overall, the results show that there is overlap of journals and publishers between blacklists and whitelists. Lists differ in their criteria for quality and the weight given to different dimensions of quality. Aspects that are central but difficult to verify receive little attention. IMPORTANCE Predatory journals are spurious scientific outlets that charge fees for editorial and publishing services that they do not provide. Their lack of quality assurance of published articles increases the risk that unreliable research is published and thus jeopardizes the integrity and credibility of research as a whole. There is increasing awareness of the risks associated with predatory publishing, but efforts to address this situation are hampered by the lack of a clear definition of predatory outlets. Blacklists of predatory journals and whitelists of legitimate journals have been developed but not comprehensively examined. By systematically analyzing these lists, this study provides insights into their utility and delineates the different notions of quality and legitimacy in scholarly publishing used. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relevant concepts and provides a starting point for the development of a robust definition of predatory journals.

The Journal Impact Factor is often used as a proxy measure for journal quality, but the empirical evidence is scarce. In particular, it is unclear how peer review characteristics for a journal relate to its impact factor. We analysed 10,000 peer review reports submitted to 1,644 biomedical journals with impact factors ranging from 0.21 to 74.7. Two researchers hand-coded sentences using categories of content related to the thoroughness of the review ( Materials and Methods , Presentation and Reporting , Results and Discussion , Importance and Relevance ) and helpfulness ( Suggestion and Solution , Examples , Praise , Criticism ). We fine-tuned and validated transformer machine learning language models to classify sentences. We then examined the association between the number and percentage of sentences addressing different content categories and 10 groups defined by the Journal Impact Factor . The median length of reviews increased with higher impact factor, from 185 words (group 1) to 387 words (group 10). The percentage of sentences addressing Materials and Methods was greater in the highest Journal Impact Factor journals than in the lowest Journal Impact Factor group. The results for Presentation and Reporting went in the opposite direction, with the highest Journal Impact Factor journals giving less emphasis to such content. For helpfulness, reviews for higher impact factor journals devoted relatively less attention to Suggestion and Solution than lower impact factor journals. In conclusion, peer review in journals with higher impact factors tends to be more thorough, particularly in addressing study methods while giving relatively less emphasis to presentation or suggesting solutions. Differences were modest and variability high, indicating that the Journal Impact Factor is a bad predictor of the quality of peer review of an individual manuscript.

ObjectivesTo describe and compare the characteristics of scholars who reviewed for predatory or legitimate journals in terms of their sociodemographic characteristics and reviewing and publishing behaviour.DesignLinkage of random samples of predatory journals and legitimate journals of the Cabells Scholarly Analytics’ journal lists with the Publons database, employing the Jaro-Winkler string metric. Descriptive analysis of sociodemographic characteristics and reviewing and publishing behaviour of scholars for whom reviews were found in the Publons database.SettingPeer review of journal articles.ParticipantsReviewers who submitted peer review reports to Publons.MeasurementsNumbers of reviews for predatory journals and legitimate journals per reviewer. Academic age of reviewers, the total number of reviews, number of publications and number of reviews and publications per year.ResultsAnalyses included 183 743 unique reviews submitted to Publons by 19 598 reviewers. Six thousand and seventy-seven reviews were for 1160 predatory journals (3.31% of all reviews) and 177 666 reviews for 6403 legitimate journals (96.69%). Most scholars never submitted reviews for predatory journals (90.0% of all scholars); few scholars (7.6%) reviewed occasionally or rarely (1.9%) for predatory journals. Very few scholars submitted reviews predominantly or exclusively for predatory journals (0.26% and 0.35%, respectively). The latter groups of scholars were of younger academic age and had fewer publications and reviews than the first groups. Regions with the highest shares of predatory reviews were sub-Saharan Africa (21.8% reviews for predatory journals), Middle East and North Africa (13.9%) and South Asia (7.0%), followed by North America (2.1%), Latin America and the Caribbean (2.1%), Europe and Central Asia (1.9%) and East Asia and the Pacific (1.5%).ConclusionTo tackle predatory journals, universities, funders and publishers need to consider the entire research workflow and educate reviewers on concepts of quality and legitimacy in scholarly publishing.

Cabells Scholarly Analytics informed us that the blacklist of predatory journals (now called Predatory Reports [ accessed 2 December 2018]) that we downloaded at the end of 2018 and used for our analysis had been amended to correct several internal errors. TABLE 1 Journals and publishers erroneously included in Cabells Predatory Reports (formerly Cabells blacklist) in December 2018 and included in Table 3 of our original paper Journal Publisher Information in Table 3 of original paper Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health Regional Institute of Health and Family Welfare Journal included in Beall’s list, DOAJ, and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Publisher included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Advances in Language and Literary Studies Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Atlas Journal of Biology Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) ICTACT Journal on Communication Technology ICTACT Journals Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Publisher included in DOAJ, Beall’s list, and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) ICTACT Journal on Image and Video Processing ICTACT Journals Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Publisher included in DOAJ, Beall’s list, and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) ICTACT Journal on Soft Computing ICTACT Journals Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Publisher included in DOAJ, Beall’s list, and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Journal of Men’s Health The Dougmar Group Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Publisher included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Leonardo Electronic Journal of Practices and Technologies AcademicDirect Publishing House Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Publisher included in DOAJ, Beall’s list, and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Leonardo Journal of Sciences AcademicDirect Publishing House Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports Publisher included in DOAJ, Beall’s list, and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) Journal of Baltic Science Education Journal included in DOAJ and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) i-manager Publications Publisher included in Journalytics (Cabells whitelist) and Predatory Reports (Cabells blacklist) The amendments made to the Cabells December 2018 blacklist do not alter the interpretation of our study. [...]the status of a journal or publisher can change over time.

Background: Scopus is a leading bibliometric database. It contains a large part of the articles cited in peer-reviewed publications . The journals included in Scopus are periodically re-evaluated to ensure they meet indexing criteria and some journals might be discontinued for 'publication concerns'. Previously published articles may remain indexed and can be cited. Their metrics have yet to be studied. This study aimed  to evaluate the main features and metrics of journals discontinued from Scopus for publication concerns, before and after their discontinuation, and to determine the extent of predatory journals among the discontinued journals. Methods: We surveyed the list of discontinued journals from Scopus (July 2019). Data regarding metrics, citations and indexing were extracted from Scopus or other scientific databases, for the journals discontinued for publication concerns.  Results: A total of 317 journals were evaluated. Ninety-three percent of the journals (294/317) declared they published using an Open Access model. The subject areas with the greatest number of discontinued journals were  Medicine (52/317; 16%),  Agriculture and Biological Science (34/317; 11%), and  Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (31/317; 10%). The mean number of citations per year after discontinuation was significantly higher than before (median of difference 16.89 citations, p<0.0001), and so was the number of citations per document (median of difference 0.42 citations, p<0.0001). Twenty-two percent (72/317) were included in the Cabell's blacklist. The DOAJ currently included only 9 journals while 61 were previously included and discontinued, most for 'suspected editorial misconduct by the publisher'. Conclusions: Journals discontinued for 'publication concerns' continue to be cited despite discontinuation and predatory behaviour seemed common. These citations may influence scholars' metrics prompting artificial career advancements, bonus systems and promotion. Countermeasures should be taken urgently to ensure the reliability of Scopus metrics for the purpose of scientific assessment of scholarly publishing at both journal- and author-level.

ERRATUM Volume 10, no. 3, e00411-19, 2019, https://doi:10.1128/mBio.00411-19. Table 3 should have appeared as shown here. TABLE 3 List of names of journals and publishers included in a blacklist and a whitelista Journal/publisher (ISSN) Journals included in Beall’s list, the DOAJ, and Cabell’s blacklist     Ecoforum (2344-2174)     European Chemical Bulletin (2063-5346)     Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health (2277-9604)     International Archives of Medicine (1755-7682)     International Journal of Mosquito Research (2348-7941)     Journal of New Sciences (2286-5314) Journals included in Beall’s list, the DOAJ, and Cabell’s whitelist     International Journal of Nanomedicine (1178-2013) Journals included in Beall’s list and the DOAJ     Archives of Clinical and Experimental Surgery (2146-8133)     Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease (2222-1808)     Australasian Medical Journal (1836-1935)     Canadian Journal of Biotechnology (2560-8304)     Cumhuriyet Science Journal (1300-1949)     Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas) (0103-166)     Indian Journal of Advances in Chemical Science (2320-0928)     International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences (2313-3724)     International Journal of Advances in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (2347-2529)     International Journal of Business and Social Research (2164-2540)     International Journal of Development and Sustainability (2186-8662)     International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (2356-5926)     International Journal of Pediatrics (2345-5047)     International Journal of Physiotherapy (2349-5987)     International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies (2148-9378)     International Journal of Science Culture and Sport (2148-1148)     International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities (2248-9010)     Journal of Advanced Veterinary and Animal Research (2311-7710)     Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences (2071-7024)     Journal of Arts and Humanities (2167-9045)     Journal of Clinical and Analytical Medicine (1309-0720)     Journal of Coastal Life Medicine (2309-5288)     Journal of Evidence Based Medicine and Healthcare (2349-2562)     Journal of HerbMed Pharmacology (2345-5004)     Journal of IMAB (1312-773X)     Journal of Intercultural Ethnopharmacology (2146-8397)     Journal of Media Critiques (2056-9793)     Jundishapur Journal of Health Sciences (2252-021X)     Junior Scientific Researcher (2458-0341)     Mediterranean Journal of Chemistry (2028-3997)     Mediterranean Journal of Modeling and Simulation (2335-1357)     OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development (1923-6654)     Progress in Physics (1555-5534)     Tropical Plant Research (2349-1183) Journals included in Cabell’s blacklist and the DOAJ     Advances in Bioscience and Clinical Medicine (2203-1413)     Advances in Language and Literary Studies (2203-4714)     Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems (2415-6698)     Atlas Journal of Biology (2158-9151)     Global Journal of Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases (2309-3374)     Global Journal of Geriatrics Nursing (2309-303X)     Global Journal of Hospital Administration (2309-3609)     Global Journal of Integrated Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine (2308-6025)     Global Journal of Nursing Research (2309-2963)     Global Journal of Psychological Research (2330-913X)     Global Journal of Traditional Medicine (2308-5665)     ICTACT Journal on Communication Technology (0976-0091)     ICTACT Journal on Image and Video Processing (0976-9099)     ICTACT Journal on Soft Computing (0976-6561)     International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature (2200-3592)     International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies (2202-9451)     International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies (2202-9478)     International Journal of Pharmacological Research (2277-3312)     Journal of Education in New Century (2372-6539)     Journal of Men’s Health (1875-6859)     Journal of Proteins and Proteomics (0975-8151)     Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (1690-4524)     Leonardo Electronic Journal of Practices and Technologies (1583-1078)     Leonardo Journal of Sciences (1583-0233)     Open Journal for Educational Research (2560-5313)     Open Journal for Sociological Studies (2560-5283)     Problems of Management in the 21st Century (2029-6932)     BJ Kines-National Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences (2231-6140)     Journal of Baltic Science Education (1648-3898)     Problems of Education in the 21st Century (1822-7864)     Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century (2029-8587) Publishers included in Beall’s list, the DOAJ, and Cabell’s blacklist     Academia Publishing     AcademicDirect Publishing House     Atlas Publishing, LP     Australian International Academic Centre     ICTACT Journals     Insight Medical Publishing (OMICS International)     International Institute of Informatics and Systemics     Scholar Science Journals     Scientia Socialis     New Century Science Press Publishers included in Cabell’s blacklist and Cabell’s whitelist     i-manager publications Publishers included in Beall’s list and the DOAJ     AgiAl Publishing House     Eurasian Publications     Herald Scholarly Open Access     Hilaris     Ivy Union Publishing     Longdom Publishing     PiscoMed Publishing     Scholarly Research Publisher     Science and Education Centre of North America     Scientia Ricerca     Elewa BioSciences     International Foundation for Research and Development (IFRD)     International Academy of Ecology and Environmental Sciences     Smart Science & Technology LLC     EconJournals     Science Park Research Organization and Counselling LTD     Applied Science Innovations Private Limited     Frontiers Media S.A.     NobleResearch Publishers Publishers included in Cabell’s blacklist and the DOAJ     B J Medical College     Innovative Journal Solutions     International Medical Society     The Dougmar Publishing Group, Inc.     Academy of Business and Retail Management     Center for Open Access in Science     Deuton-X Ltd.     Association of Educational and Cultural Cooperation Suceava from Stefan cel Mare Universit     Regional Institute of Health and Family Welfare     ASTES Publishers     Sunblo Learning Center     Serials Publications/International Science Press a Data are as of December 2018.

Academic CVs are ubiquitous and play an integral role in the assessment of researchers. They define and portray what activities and achievements are considered important in the scientific system. Developing their content and structure beyond the traditional, publication-focused CV has the potential to make research careers more diverse and their assessment fairer and more transparent. This comment presents ten ways to further develop the content and structure of academic CVs. The recommendations are inspired by a workshop of the CV Harmonization Group (H-Group), a joint initiative between researchers on research, academic data infrastructure organizations, and representatives from >15 funding organizations. The proposed improvements aim at inspiring development and innovation in academic CVs for funding agencies and hiring committees.

Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed a definition of predatory publishing that can protect scholarship. It took 12 hours of discussion, 18 questions and 3 rounds to reach. Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed a definition of predatory publishing that can protect scholarship. It took 12 hours of discussion, 18 questions and 3 rounds to reach.

Peer review is essential to the research lifecycle, yet the contents of grant peer review reports remain underexplored. Our study addresses this gap by developing a pipeline to systematically analyze these reports using natural language processing and machine learning. We define 12 categories relevant to funding agencies, create an annotation codebook, fine-tune and validate transformer models, and apply these classifiers to a novel text corpus consisting of 1.6 million sentences from 47,522 grant peer review reports submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation. This work has critical implications for the academic community. It provides novel insights into the content of grant peer review reports and openly available tools to enhance transparency, fairness, and consistency in grant evaluation. Our findings also highlight differences between journal and grant peer reviews, while the developed framework enables funding agencies and researchers to refine practices, fostering a more trustworthy and efficient evaluation process.

Background. Despite growing awareness of predatory publishing and research on its market characteristics, the defining attributes of fraudulent journals remain controversial. We aimed to develop a better understanding of quality criteria for scholarly journals by analysing journals and publishers indexed in blacklists of predatory journals and whitelists of legitimate journals and the lists’ inclusion criteria. Methods. We searched for blacklists and whitelists in early 2018. Lists that included journals across disciplines were eligible. We used a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. To quantify overlaps between lists in terms of indexed journals and publishers we employed the Jaro-Winkler string metric and Venn diagrams. To identify topics addressed by the lists’ inclusion criteria and to derive their broader conceptual categories, we used a qualitative coding approach. Results. Two blacklists (Beall’s and Cabell’s) and two whitelists (DOAJ and Cabell’s) were eligible. The number of journals per list ranged from 1404 to 12357 and the number of publishers from 473 to 5638. Seventy-three journals and 42 publishers were included both in a blacklist and whitelist. A total of 198 inclusion criteria were examined. Seven thematic themes were identified: (i) peer review, (ii) editorial services, (iii) policy, (iv) business practices, (v) publishing, archiving and access, (vi) website and (vii) indexing and metrics. Business practices accounted for almost half of blacklists’ criteria, whereas whitelists gave more emphasis to criteria related to policy and guidelines. Criteria were grouped into four broad concepts: (i) transparency, (ii) ethics, (iii) professional standards and (iv) peer review and other services. Whitelists gave more weight to transparency whereas blacklists focused on ethics and professional standards. The criteria included in whitelists were easier to verify than those used in blacklists. Both types of list gave relatively little emphasis to the quality of peer review. Conclusions. There is overlap between journals and publishers included in blacklists and whitelists. Blacklists and whitelists differ in their criteria for quality and the weight given to different dimensions of quality. Aspects that are central but difficult to verify receive insufficient attention.