Librarians
Please contact an expert librarian from the library staff list
For general inquiries:
Tel: 08-6461111/2
Email: yaatz@bgu.ac.il
Mail: P.O.Box 653, Beer-sheva 8410501, Israel
Predatory Journals:
Scientific journals that misrepresent and allow articles to be published without peer review and quality control. On the surface, they look reliable, but in practice they advertise without filtering procedures, for a fee. Publications in "predatory" journals are not considered academically reliable.
:Cloned Journals
Journals imitating the names, trademark and ISSN numbers of legitimate journals. In contrast to "predatory" journals, they are a mirror image of well-known journals and thus their strength is to contact researchers and publish academic research with significant content. In addition, researchers may be tempted and even pay for open access publication out of confidence that their work is going to be published in a recognized journal.
Predatory Journals are characterized with:
Missing/misleading information about treatment fees
Fabricated and unrecognized indexes and metrics
Sending spam messages for submitting articles or for peer-reviewing articles on topics that don't relate to the researcher's field of study.
Problematic design of the website, often accompanied by spelling errors and low-quality images.
Names of editors are fake or untraceable.
The journals usually cover many unrelated research topics.
The name of the journal is similar to well-known journals
The submission of articles is done via email and not via a secure website
There is no information about the preservation of the digital content
The journal does not have an ISSN or DOI for the article
Cloned Journals are characterized with:
Fake/misleading bibliometric indices will be used to entice researchers to publish in them
Articles will be published in less than 24 hours and sometimes within an hour after receiving payment
The payment for advertising is usually by unsecured or unaccepted methods in the field (for example: money transfer via channels such as Western Union, PayUMoney, etc.)
There is no reliable contact information on the journal's website. There is no detail on their editorial team
International names of journals are cut, copied and pasted without their consent as well as their official email IDs
Use of publisher trademarks such as: Elsevier, Clarivate, CrossRef, Emerald, etc
If one or more warning signs are found, the journal should be treated as "predatory"/"cloned"
CABELLS - a database that allows you to search for journals suspected of being "predators". The database examines open access journals against 60 different criteria.
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journa) - A database containing a list of publishers and journals authorized to publish in open access.
UlrichsWeb - a database for searching reliable academic journals.
Think Check submit - a tool that helps researchers identify reliable journals and publishers through a variety of practical tools and resources.
COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) - a database that provides accurate and up-to-date information on academic journals for the publication of academic research in various fields.
SHERPA ROMEO - Information about the publishers' policy on open access publishing and the journal's copyright policy.
JournalGuide - a tool that allows you to search by name of a journal or publisher. If the name does not appear, this is a warning about the reliability of the journal or publisher.
Web of Science SCOPUS Journal Citation Report - Reliable databases. If the Journal/publisher is indexed in one of these databases, that is a good sign.
Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) - A community that has established criteria for safe and reliable open access publishing.
de-listed journals - a list of journals that were removed from the WOS core collection and lost their IMPACT FACTOR index.
UGC- Cloned Journals - List of fake ("cloned") academic journals imitating the names, trademark, ISSN numbers of legitimate journals.
Journal Quality List - a tool that presents 10 quality indicators about journals in the fields of: economics, finance, accounting, management and marketing.
Characteristics of "predatory" conferences
"Predatory" conferences exploit and profit from researchers who try to present their research at international conferences. The "predatory" conferences are characterized by careless organization and low academic quality without peer review of the research submitted for examination. Conference organizers make money by charging extremely high registration fees. Sometimes, after registration and payment, the conference is "cancelled" but the registration fee is not refunded.
If one or more warning signs are found, the conference should be considered "predatory"
A tool that examines the quality of the conferences from an academic point of view and the integrity of the organizations and people who stand .behind the organization of the conference
The tool allows a quick check by a variety of indicators.