What Are the Blacklisted Journals?
Invalid journals are journals that have an online site and a specific ISSN number. Blacklisted journals use online site and an ISSN number to publish articles. Currently, these journals becomes invalid for reasons such as:
Printing too many articles in one issue
Short-term refereeing
Publishing articles unrelated to the scope of the journal
From the date that the Ministry of Science or the Ministry of Health or other organizations declared them invalid, there is no privilege to publish articles in them. These journals are included in the list of blacklisted journals.
The analytics company Cabells in Beaumont, Texas, maintains a blacklist and lists suspicious signs that mark a suspect publication. The inclusion of fictional or dead editors, and poor spelling are suspicious signs.
Criteria to appear on an approved list might be more practical: as a minimum, journals should list their profit or non-profit status clearly. They should list editors who are aware they are editors. Journals should use basic technology to detect plagiarism. They must carry out due diligence to ensure that, if reviewers suggested by the author are employed, exist, are competent in the field, and are the ones being contacted.
What Are Fake Journals?
Fake journals are different from invalid journals. Therefore, these two groups of journals are mentioned in separate lists.
Fake journals have a fake site and ISSN. When an article is printed on the declared site, the article does not go online. The articles are published online in sub-sites, or the entire journal does not publish online articles. The articles are only published as copyright.
Reasons for Not Issuing a List of Valid Journals
All the lists published until today were only blacklisted journals or fake journals. No list of white or valid journals has ever been issued. The reason for not issuing a list of valid journals is the difficulty of reviewing journals and the large number of journals. There are millions of journals in every field of practice, and no organization can review them all. It is assumed that all journals in the world are valid unless their names are declared fake or invalid in the published lists.
It is possible that the name of a journal is not on any list and the author sends his article to that journal and that journal is declared invalid and fake after a while. In this case, if the journal is declared invalid, that article will be dealt with based on the date of entry into the list of invalid journals. But if the journal is fake, all articles from the first printed issue to the last one will be invalid.
Important Tips for Reviewing the Blacklisted Journals
The list of invalid or fake journals is continuously updated. The criteria for measuring and evaluating the validity of journals is the latest version of this information. Because, for example, for any reason, a journal that has been evaluated as invalid can request to receive an ISSN and be included in the list of valid journals after correcting the conditions.
Keep this very important point in mind that a journal that is included in the list of invalid journals will be invalid from that date on. As a result, people who have submitted their articles to the acceptance or publication stage before entering the journal to a blacklist can complete the graduation process without any problems. They can also benefit from the privileges of publishing their articles. The criterion is applied for the time when the journal is blacklisted.
How Can You Recognize Black-Listed Journals?
A few years ago, the Scholarly Open Access website listed journals and publishers presumed to be bad, a ‘black list’. You can recognize invalid journals by checking this blacklist. You should go to the Scholarly Open Access website and see whether the journal is listed or not. Although the site is not functional anymore, it is possible to view its cached contents through an Internet archive – the Wayback machine.
What Are Whitelisted Journals?
Think, Check, Submit campaign includes a list of considerations for prospective authors to think about and check on when selecting a journal to submit to. The campaign has broad support from biomedical publishers and encourages authors to check whether a journal is affiliated with recognized industry initiatives, including whether open access journals are vetted through the Directory of Open Access Journals, a ‘white-list’.
Some scientists say a better approach is to produce lists of approved journals or whitelisted journals. That does solve some problems; for example, in logistical terms, it is easier to maintain. Instead of trying to track down every newly emerging predatory journal, the burden is on the journals to prove themselves. It does not generate the same stigma as bans, and thus allows reputations to be redeemed.
What Are Predatory Journals?
Predatory journals put no effort into vetting papers and exist only to collect money that scientists pay to get their research published.
Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, started a list in 2008 of journals he claimed were dubious, which grew to more than 1,000 titles. You can see Beall’s list of potential predatory journals and publishers by clicking here.
Most scientists and scientific policymakers would agree that it is good to condemn predatory journals. But it can be difficult to distinguish them from the ones that operate in good faith. Journals might have published some poor-quality or fraudulent research because of different reasons such as:
Shortcuts in editorial decision-making due to a lack of resources
Being deceived by scientists
Lapses in judgment
Although many researchers supported Beall, others criticized his list due to a lack of clear standards. Listing such journals would risk denigrating some good research. The list was taken down in January 2017, but there have been new incarnations.