TABLE 5.
Distribution of inclusion criteria across three levels of verifiability
| List, topic, or concept (no.) | No. (%) verified when verifiability was: |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy (one source required) |
Intermediate (several sources required) |
Difficult (subjective judgment required) |
|
| Lists (n = 198) | |||
| DOAJ (n = 40) | 31 (77) | 4 (10) | 5 (13) |
| Cabell’s whitelist (n = 38) | 18 (47) | 8 (21) | 12 (31) |
| Beall’s list (n = 57) | 18 (31) | 25 (43) | 14 (24) |
| Cabell’s blacklist (n = 63) | 22 (35) | 30 (48) | 11 (17) |
| Total | 89 (45) | 67 (34) | 42 (21) |
| Topics | |||
| Peer review (n = 23) | 7 (30) | 3 (13) | 13 (57) |
| Editorial services (n = 36) | 14 (39) | 10 (28) | 12 (33) |
| Business practices (n = 59) | 23 (39) | 27 (46) | 9 (15) |
| Policy (n = 24) | 21 (88) | 3 (14) | |
| Publishing, archiving, and access (n = 28) | 9 (32) | 12 (43) | 7 (14) |
| Indexing and metrics (n = 15) | 4 (15) | 11 (73) | |
| Website (n = 13) | 11 (84) | 1 (8) | 1 (8) |
| Concepts | |||
| Transparency (n = 54) | 48 (88) | 4 (8) | 2 (4) |
| Professional standards (n = 51) | 24 (47) | 23 (43) | 5 (10) |
| Ethics (n = 46) | 7 (15) | 31 (67) | 8 (18) |
| Peer review and other services (n = 47) | 10 (21) | 10 (21) | 27 (48) |