Table 1.
List of red flag signs that point toward a journal being a predatory journal
| Name | Aspect | List of red flag signs |
|---|---|---|
| S | Submission website and process | Name of the publisher appears unfamiliar |
| Particulars of journal webpage: Poorly maintained, not updated, technical glitches | ||
| Date of creation, name of the editor/editorial board, and their contact details may not be displayed. In its place, there may be a gallery of a collection of photographs of people with their names and place of work without any contact details. Many of these people will be found to be researchers in unrelated specialties on searching online. | ||
| Sometimes, paramedical researchers are listed as reviewers and editors of medical journals. Genuine open access journals generally do not have such galleries of photographs | ||
| Contact details absent, nonaffiliated email or weblinks, for e.g., @yahoo.com, @gmail.com. Phone numbers may be displayed but are not reachable or not in service | ||
| Language errors or grammatical mistakes | ||
| Name of website includes 3rd party names like name of the domain merchant | ||
| Instructions of submission and author guidelines vague and brief with margin for error | ||
| Rules for referencing lax and vague | ||
| Declarations of adherence to ethical standards missing along with promotion of ethical clearance, permissions, and declarations of conflicts of authors | ||
| Emails to authors soliciting articles are a red flag sign. Often the emails refer to a previous work of the author on an unrelated topic while inviting submissions for another field. Sometimes, the previous works like case reports or commentaries will be referred to as cutting edge original research in these soliciting emails | ||
| Language of the soliciting email is flowery and flattering | ||
| Quality of images in the webpage will be bad and pixelated or unrelated to the topics purportedly covered in the journal | ||
| Submission process does ask for title page, cover page, tables, etc., to be submitted separately and the author may be asked to just email the document as a single file, allowing for a large margin of error | ||
| Does not ask for ORCID or Researcher ID | ||
| Details of retraction policies absent | ||
| A | Affiliations and specialties | Affiliation to any regional, national, or international society missing |
| Name of the journal may be very similar to that of an established journal | ||
| Articles published will be pertaining to multiple specialties without well-defined aims and objectives | ||
| Topics may deal with even paramedical, veterinary, or even nonmedical areas of research such as zoology and botany and sometimes even economics, engineering, and fine arts | ||
| Address, contact details, and particulars of the affiliated society, if mentioned, are not clear and verifiable | ||
| Phone numbers, WhatsApp numbers, fax numbers given as modes of contact are red flag signs | ||
| F | Fees | APCs are too less. Usually, APCs of genuine open access journals are more than 1500 USD, while those of predatory journals are usually around 100-500 USD |
| Time-bound discounts and offers on APCs | ||
| Variation of fees with regards to type of article and timeframe of submission | ||
| Transparency of payment process absent. | ||
| Payment gateways using 3rd party applications and websites | ||
| Retraction fees, fees for the reproduction of colored images are not mentioned | ||
| E | Editions and availability | Either print or online editions or both are not available |
| Archives absent or not arranged into editions and issues. If present, then missing proper table of contents and editorials | ||
| There is no arrangement of the articles in a particular order or into subgroups such as original articles, review articles, and case reports | ||
| Very few articles in each issue are a red flag sign | ||
| The pages of the articles are missing page numbers | ||
| The language of the articles will be showing errors of grammar, syntax, and typesetting | ||
| i | Indexing | Not indexed in Medline, Embase, WOS, ESCI |
| Claims to be indexed in no specific academic databases such as Google scholar, Publons, and YouTube | ||
| M | Metrics | Not included in Scimago, journal rankings, journal citation reports, DOAJ |
| Thomson Reuters impact factor not displayed | ||
| Sham indexes like Copernicus factor may be displayed | ||
| Very high impact factor displayed is a red flag sign | ||
| A | Access | Type of open access not mentioned |
| P | Publication and peer review | Time taken to publication is promised to be very short |
| Review of articles in the archives would show short and almost identical time taken from submission to final publication, usually around 3-4 weeks, unlike genuine open access journals which usually take a longer time due to the genuine peer review process | ||
| Poor quality of peer review - comments on the subject with critical appraisal missing or acceptance at the first submission without any changes advised | ||
| Updates about review process - whether emails, SMS, or WhatsApp updates | ||
| Permission for copyright not mandatory | ||
| Quality of reproduction of text, typesetting, and images would be poor | ||
| Ahead of print articles may not be available |
APCs=Amount of article processing charges, DOAJ=Directory of Open Access Journals