Toutloff, L. (2019, March 20). Cabells Predatory Report Criteria v 1.1. Cabells. https://blog.cabells.com/2019/03/20/predatoryreport-criteria-v1-1/
The following criteria are considered are considered SEVERE:
- Integrity
- The same article appears in more than one journal.
- Hijacked journal (defined as a fraudulent website created to look like a legitimate academic journal for the purpose of offering academics the opportunity to rapidly publish their research for a fee).
- Information received from the journal does not match the journal’s website.
- The journal or publisher claims to be a non-profit when it is actually a for-profit company.
- The owner/Editor of the journal or publisher falsely claims academic positions or qualifications.
- The journal is associated with a conference that has been identified as predatory.
- The journal gives a fake ISSN.
- Peer Review
- No editor or editorial board listed on the journal’s website at all.
- Editors do not actually exist or are deceased.
- The journal includes scholars on an editorial board without their knowledge or permission.
- Evident data that little to no peer review is being done and the journal claims to be “peer reviewed.”
- Publication Practices
- The journal publishes papers that are not academic at all, e.g. essays by laypeople or obvious pseudo-science.
- No articles are published or the archives are missing issues and/or articles.
- Falsely claims indexing in well-known databases (especially SCOPUS, DOAJ, JCR, and Cabells).
- Falsely claims universities or other organizations as partners or sponsors.
- Machine-generated or other “sting” abstracts or papers are accepted.
- Indexing & Metrics
- The journal uses misleading metrics (i.e., metrics with the words “impact factor” that are not the Clarivate Analytics Impact Factor).
- Fees
- The journal offers options for researchers to prepay APCs for future articles.
- The journal states there is an APC or another fee but does not give information on the amount or gives conflicting information.
- The journal or publisher offers membership to receive discounts on APCs but does not give information on how to become a member and/or on the membership fees.
- The author must pay APC or publication fee before submitting the article (specifically calls the fee a publication fee, not a submission fee).
- The journal does not indicate that there are any fees associated with publication, review, submission, etc. but the author is charged a fee after submitting a manuscript.