Sunday 5 January 2014

Academic Malfeasance : Bogus and Fake Journals


Assalamualaikum and Hello to everyone:

With regards to the mounting pressure and demand to publish papers in international journals, it is frequently alluring for researchers and academicians to take the straight possible way to get their paper published. One of the quickest and easiest ways is to send those papers to fly-by-night on-line journals which are administered and controlled by unprincipled and dishonest publishers around the world who run their journals like commercial business entities. Desolately, the key stimulus of these publishers is not to choose papers based on the academic criterion, but to get as many as papers published in order to capitalize on their revenue.

Recently there are thousands of fake and bogus journals available on-line  It is admittedly hard, particularly for academicians and junior researchers like me, to always be able to assess the legality or authenticity of potential publication venues, especially when it comes to open-access journal publications, which are likely to charge publication fees. I have done some reading on this matter and I would encourage everyone too read vigilantly the content of any journal before proceed with publication./payment. In general, bogus or fake journals will have the following features:

1. very high publication regularity which is more than four issues annually.
2. high publication fees (in the range if USD250-USD1000) per paper. 
3. towering acceptance rate. Normally the mainstream journals be likely to have an acceptance rate in the region of 30%. 
4. the editorial board made up of ambiguous members where some of the journals will even list well-known academicians and researchers devoid of their knowledge. 
5. questionable and dubious quality of published papers for example non-standard handling of language, obvious methodological flaws etc.
6. rapid or quick reviewing of submitted papers. Normal range of reviewing process between two and six months, with longer wait times being common.
7. bring to light speedy turnaround time and promise authors quick review and publication of their manuscripts.

As a conclusion, with fake or bogus journals, what happens is that your paper might be accepted and published often devoid of any due review procedure. The individual who decides on the fate of your journal paper is nobody other than the editor, or worse, an editorial staff member. I won’t be flabbergasted that the decision to accept or publish your paper is perhaps based only on whether or not you have paid the publication fees. 

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