Predatory Publishing
The Medical University of Vienna places great importance in the scientific accomplishments of its researchers, whereby the quality and visibility of publications and conference papers is a central focus. With the development of electronic media and Open Access, there has been an influx of dubious journals and conferences which have in recent times been termed “predatory publishing” or “fake journals”/”fake conferences”.
Several publishers and journals apply untrustworthy business models attempting to make authors pay for services which have not been provided. These models do not provide quality control (peer reviews) or reliable long-term availability of articles. In some cases, renowned scientists are named as editors without their permission.
These publications do not aim to publish high-quality research, but instead try to maximize their profits by distributing a large number of articles with the lowest possible effort.
Aside from financial damage, using these offers can lead to:
- inadequate quality control
- low visibility and retrievability of articles
- no guaranteed long-term availability of articles
- risks for your scientific career (risk of damaging your own scientific reputation/risk of damaging your university’s reputation)
- support of illegitimate business models and practices
- uncertain reliability of research results
Recognizing untrustworthy journals can be difficult. In many cases, „fake journals“ use very similiar names to established journals, which can lead to confusion. Other deceptive methods include citing an Impact Factor (even though the journal is not ISI indexed) or dubious metrics (i.e. General Impact Factor).
The website “Think. Check. Submit.“ can help you find suitable journals for the publication of your research:
Similarly, “Think. Check. Attend.“ provides information on avoiding “fake conferences“:
Contact
Contact persons for detailed analyses of journals
Mag.a Caroline Reitbrecht und Mag. Marian Miehl MSc
To avoid publications in “fake journals”, the Medical University of Vienna has established contractual agreements with various publishers, making it possible for MedUni Vienna members to publish their research free of charge or with reduced APCs in more than 6.500 renowned journals via Open Access publishing.
Conditions: the corresponding author has to provide their MedUni Vienna email address as well as citing the Medical University of Vienna as their affiliation.
Please note: