The Pressure to Publish More and the Scope of Predatory Publishing Activities.
This article overviews unethical publishing practices in connection with the pressure to publish more. Both open-access and subscription publishing models can be abused by 'predatory' authors, editors, and publishing outlets. Relevant examples of 'prolific' scholars are viewed through the prism of the violation of ethical authorship in established journals and indiscriminately boosting publication records elsewhere. The instances of ethical transgressions by brokering editorial agencies and agents, operating predominantly in non-Anglophone countries, are presented to raise awareness of predatory activities. The scheme of predatory publishing activities is presented, and several measures are proposed to tackle the issue of predatory publishing. The awareness campaigns by professional societies, consultations with information facilitators, implementation of the criteria of best target journals, and crediting of scholars with use of integrative citation metrics, such as the h-index, are believed to make a difference.
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. a.gasparyan@gmail.com.
Armen Yuri
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8749-6018
AY
Gasparyan
South Kazakhstan State Pharmaceutical Academy, Shymkent, Kazakhstan.
Bekaidar
B
Nurmashev
Department of Marketing and Trade Deals, Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russian Federation.
Alexander A
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8505-7345
AA
Voronov
Department of Statistics and Econometrics, Stavropol State Agrarian University, Stavropol, Russian Federation.
Alexey N
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1244-4755
AN
Gerasimov
Department of Economics and Organization of Production, Industrial University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russian Federation.
Anna M
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3893-6392
AM
Koroleva
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, UK.
George D
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0828-6176
GD
Kitas
D001319:Authorship; D011643:Publishing / Q000941:ethics*; D015871:Scientific Misconduct / Q000941:ethics
Authorship; Best Target Journals; Citation Metrics; Open Access; Predatory Publishing; Professional Societies