Predatory publishers: Implications for pharmacy practice and practitioners

Predatory publishing and its implications

Predatory publishing involves counterfeit publishers who exploit the author-pays model of open-access publishing, publishing journals that might appear legitimate but in fact are not authentic scholarly journals.^1-3 They solicit papers using abundant spam emails, but they fail to carry out honest peer reviews. Instead, they seek to publish as many papers as possible, pocketing the payments they charge to submitting authors.

Peer review is the coin of the realm of science, and because predatory journals either carry out a fake peer review or are negligent at managing it, they often publish science that has not been properly vetted. And because research is cumulative, unscientific papers pollute the pool of published science (and evidence), threatening future research and making it difficult for clinicians to wade through the evidence.

Predatory publishing in pharmacy

Predatory publishers often focus their work in the biomedical sciences, for researchers in these fields often have research grants. Researchers can use such grants to cover author fees paid to open-access publishers, and predatory publishers are well aware of this. Many large predatory publishers exclusively publish medical journals, typically having at least one journal in each medical specialty, including pharmacy.³

There are dozens or perhaps hundreds of predatory or otherwise low-quality pharmacy journals, and journals in related fields, including nonscientific journals on Ayurveda and other alternative medicine fields. No precise census of predatory pharmacy journals exists at this time. A few other medical fields, such as nursing, have closely studied predatory publishing in their specialties.⁴

Implications for pharmacy and pharmacy practice

For practitioners

Pharmacists’ scope of practice is expanding, and as such, pharmacists need regular access to up-to-date, high-quality evidence. Community pharmacists are particularly vulnerable to the problem of poor quality or fabricated evidence from predatory journals because they often practise in isolation, have limited access to academic libraries and may not have the time and/or skills to look into the evidence in depth. We recommend vetting new information from such sources thoroughly by assessing the quality of the information and its source before using the information to make any clinical decisions. Table 1 gives some pointers on how to spot a predatory journal.

Table 1.

Characteristics of predatory journals and publishers²

General	Scope of the journal is inappropriately broad or does not align with its content.
	Name and/or design of the journal mimics that of established publishers.
	Name of the journal does not accurately reflect its origin (e.g., publisher, editor and/or affiliates do not relate to Canada, despite being named a “Canadian” journal).
	Ownership, management and/or editorial teams of the journal are unclear, vague or misleading.
	Vague contact information, often unclear or misrepresentation of the journal’s headquarters (e.g., through the use of addresses that are actually mail drops in the United Kingdom or United States).
	Journal articles and/or websites contain serious formatting or editing errors or do not follow industry standards.
	Journal is not included and/or fakes being included in journal whitelists (e.g., Directory of Open Access Journals, MEDLINE).
	Journal uses falsified publishing standards and bibliometrics (e.g., International Standard Serial Numbers, impact factors). Beware of large improvements in impact factors over a short period of time.
For academics	Publisher sends spam emails to solicit article submissions, peer review and/or conference attendance (often with adulatory language about your previous work).
	Publisher advertises promises of rapid publication and/or unusually quick peer review that is ultimately low quality or pretend.
	Deception about publication fees and opportunities to edit your work once submitted.
	Does not openly discuss or relinquishes copyright privileges regarding your work.
For clinicians	Scientific evidence and discussion presented in the journal are consistently of low quality, due to a poor peer-review process.

Fake or misleading data

With the lack of a bona fide peer review process, predatory journals often publish manuscripts containing low-quality or even counterfeit science. This has serious implications for pharmacists and other health care practitioners, as it taints the evidence base used to drive therapeutic decisions. In particular, many complementary and alternative medicines are paraded around as if they were authentic and efficacious and are pushed through these dubious journals by individuals and companies with a monetary vested interest. Once published, it becomes very difficult for practitioners to know what is valid and what is not.¹

For pharmacy academics

Pharmacists in research and academic roles experience immense pressure to publish their work. Publication may be a necessity for professional advancement² or a requirement of a research funder. This pressure can lead to researchers publishing their work in predatory journals—whether inadvertently or otherwise. It has been known for researchers to submit work to a journal only to see it published immediately, without peer review, and then to receive an unexpected invoice for a publishing fee (effectively taking their work hostage).¹

Researchers in non-English-speaking countries are particularly vulnerable to predatory journals. There are strong institutional pressures for them to publish in international journals, and they may not have the English literacy necessary to identify predatory publishers when submitting their research.⁵ A previous study identified that three-quarters of authors in predatory journals are from Asia and Africa,⁶ and even the top universities in these regions are not exempt. Tokyo University, Japan’s most prestigious university, has the highest number of publications in predatory journals across Japan, which caused quite the controversy within the country in 2015.⁷

At present, there are only a small number of truly scholarly pharmacy journals, and there is a concern that the proliferation of predatory publishing in our subject area threatens to dilute the influence of these established journals. Table 1 gives some advice for academics on how to spot a predatory journal.

What this means for CPJ

In an increasingly competitive publishing world, CPJ will continue our high standards for peer review. We do not charge fees to authors for publishing—those costs are borne by CPhA—and all CPhA associate members have unlimited free access to the journal contents in print and online. We will continue our focus on high-quality evidence for pharmacy practice, implementation science and a better understanding of practice change.■