Avoid Predatory Publishers
Predatory Publishers
The open access publication model creates new financial flows (publication fees or APC) that some "publishers" try to exploit by creating pseudo-scientific journals with a pompous title (International Journal of...) and by canvassing authors by email with the promise of totally fictitious impact factors.
Manuscript proofreading and editing processes are generally non-existent and the document sent by the author is put online as is, without any verification. These "publishers" are only interested in collecting APCs.
OMICS international and the Turkish company WASET (World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology) which publish dozens of journals and organise hundreds of conferences are examples of predatory publishing companies.
The Library has subscribed to a directory listing predatory journals and publishers, but unfortunately it is not exhaustive. Should you find the journal that is soliciting you to publish an article on this list, drop it immediately. See : Cabells Predatory Reports.
Dubious publisherS
Between the predatory publishers and the serious scientific publishers there is a grey area where a fringe of the publishing world evolves under the term dubious publishers. These publishers are not necessarily scammers, but often small actors who are unwilling, or unable, to meet all the quality standards that an academic has a right to expect from their publisher.
For example, new PhDs from universities often receive email advertisements to produce a book based on their thesis. These publishing houses, such as Editions universitaires européennes (EUE), Presses académiques francophones (PAF) or LAMBERT Academic Publishing (LAP), offer the author an exclusive contract for the online publication of their thesis, as well as sometimes a share of the sales over a certain number of copies.
The risks for the author are very low, as are the profits. It is important to know that these publishing houses simply put the PDF provided by the author on Amazon, without doing any editorial work. Moreover, specific conditions in the contract limit the royalties paid to authors (minimum threshold, payment in the form of vouchers on the publisher's platform, etc.). So these are not really fraudulent practices, but at least dubious promises. See also the Blogus operandi post (in french).
Publish an article and avoid problems?
It is up to you to choose which journal to publish your research in. To help you ask the right questions to assess the risks and avoid scams, follow the advice of http://thinkchecksubmit.org/
The Indian website https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/apps1/home/index lists non-publishing journals in which authors are invited to publish. This is a controlled list, but obviously not exhaustive.
Check if the journal has been hijacked: Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker. (or https://beallslist.net/hijacked-journals/)
Other actions
The Library has subscribed to a directory of predatory titles/publishers at Cabell's: Cabell's Journals Blacklist - https://app.cabells.com/academic?search&only=predatoryreports
In contrast, there is a directory of serious journals (whitelist), such as the Directory of Open Access Journal - https://doaj.org.
Another initiative asks authors to evaluate the journals in which they have published an article. This self-assessment by authors, provided that the number of votes is sufficient, is a very interesting approach: see QOAM.
The Retraction Watch site closely follows all cases related to fraud, omissions or weaknesses in the scientific content publishing system: http://retractionwatch.com/