A psychological perspective towards understanding the objective and subjective gray zones in predatory publishing

Yuki Yamada () and Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva ()
Additional contact information
Yuki Yamada: Kyushu University
Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva: Independent researcher

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2022, vol. 56, issue 6, No 9, 4075-4087

Abstract: Abstract A continued lack of clarity persists because academics, policymakers, and other interested parties are unable to clearly define what is a “predatory” journal or publisher, and a potentially wide gray zone exists there. In this perspective, we argue that journals should be evaluated on a continuum, and not just in two shades, black and white. Since evaluations about what might constitute “predatory” are made by humans, the psychological decision-making system that determines them may induce biases. Considering such human psychological characteristics might shed light on the deterministic criteria that have been used, and continue to be used, to classify a journal or publisher as “predatory”, and perhaps, bring additional clarity to this discussion. Better methods of journal evaluation can be obtained when the factors that polarize journal evaluations are identified. As one example, we need to move away from simply using whitelists and blacklists and educate individual researchers about how to evaluate journals. This paper serves as an educational tool by providing more clarity about the “gray” publishing zone, and argues that currently available qualitative and quantitative systems should be fused to deterministically appreciate the zonation of white, gray and black journals, so as to possibly reduce or eliminate the influence of cognitive or “perception” bias from the “predatory” publishing debate.

Keywords: Academic and scholarly communication; Cognitive bias; Blacklists; Decision making; False discovery rate; Open access; Quality; Whitelists (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-021-01307-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:56:y:2022:i:6:d:10.1007_s11135-021-01307-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11135-021-01307-3

Access Statistics for this article

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi

More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().