title: Publishing Ethics and Predatory Practices: A Dilemma for All Stakeholders of Science Communication.
abstract: Publishing scholarly articles in traditional and newly-launched journals is a responsible task, requiring diligence from authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers. The current generation of scientific authors has ample opportunities for publicizing their research. However, they have to selectively target journals and publish in compliance with the established norms of publishing ethics. Over the past few years, numerous illegitimate or predatory journals have emerged in most fields of science. By exploiting gold Open Access publishing, these journals paved the way for low-quality articles that threatened to change the landscape of evidence-based science. Authors, reviewers, editors, established publishers, and learned associations should be informed about predatory publishing practices and contribute to the trustworthiness of scholarly publications. In line with this, there have been several attempts to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate journals by blacklisting unethical journals (the Jeffrey Beall's list), issuing a statement on transparency and best publishing practices (the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association's and other global organizations' draft document), and tightening the indexing criteria by the Directory of Open Access Journals. None of these measures alone turned to be sufficient. All stakeholders of science communication should be aware of multiple facets of unethical practices and publish well-checked and evidence-based articles.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Rheumatology and Research and Development, Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust (Teaching Trust of the University of Birmingham, UK), Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley, West Midlands, UK.
authors.forename: Armen Yuri
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Gasparyan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Biology and Microbiology, South Kazakhstan State Pharmaceutical Academy, Shymkent, Kazakhstan.
authors.forename: Marlen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yessirkepov
authors.affiliation: Department of Technologies of Trade and Public Catering, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Krasnodar Branch, Krasnodar, Russian Federation.
authors.forename: Svetlana N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Diyanova
authors.affiliation: Departments of Rheumatology and Research and Development, Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust (Teaching Trust of the University of Birmingham, UK), Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley, West Midlands, UK. ; Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: George D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Kitas
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D030881:Disclosure / Q000941:ethics*; D032984:Ethics, Research; D005607:Fraud / Q000941:ethics*; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000941:ethics*; D066209:Medical Writing; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000941:ethics; D011643:Publishing / Q000941:ethics*; D012586:Science / Q000941:ethics*
keywords: Periodicals as Topic; Publishing Ethics; Quality Control; Research Management; Science Communication