Statement from COPE Officers
COPE believes that authors and institutions should treat lists of predatory (or fake) journals with the same degree of scrutiny as they do with the journals themselves. Lists that are not transparent about criteria used should not be relied on. Moreover, such lists may perpetuate systemic bias and include journals with limited resources but which are legitimate journals with the best intentions.
COPE supports the use of Think.Check.Submit. A simple checklist authors can use before submitting research to a journal. Think.Check.Submit. asks the author questions aligned with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, a set of criteria used by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME when assessing journals which apply for membership of their organisations. Many predatory journals and publishers do not fulfil these criteria.
COPE’s Predatory Publishing discussion document expands on how authors, reviewers, editors and institutions can identify predatory journals.
Related resources
- Think.Check.Submit.
- Predatory Publishing, COPE discussion document
- Avoiding predatory publishers, guest article