Journal hijacking and fraudulent journal sites are becoming an increasing problem for journal authors, publishers and readers. Publishing scams aim to exploit researchers, promising quick publication but charging excessive publication fees. These sites can often be a clone of an established journal, set up to extract fees from unsuspecting authors.
Publishers are becoming more increasingly aware of the problem and have taken steps to combat this new trend. Scopus academic database had 67 hijacked journals on its database by 2023 (Challenges posed by hijacked journals in Scopus – Abalkina – 2024 – Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology – Wiley Online Library ) To help alleviate this problem, Scopus removed URLs to all journal homepages that it indexes, although the problem persists (Retraction Watch, 2023 Elsevier’s Scopus deletes journal links following revelations of hijacked indexed journals – Retraction Watch)
Many authors and readers are unaware of this practice and the following resources might be useful to consider.
Evaluating journals:
- Hijacked Journal Checker (Retraction Watch), aims to maintain and up to date list of hijacked journals.
- Journal Whitelists, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), are also useful resources for checking and evaluating journals.
- Think Check Submit provides a checklist for safely publishing journal articles and books/chapters: Identify trusted publishers for your research • Think. Check. Submit. (thinkchecksubmit.org)
Support from your library:
- Open Access publishing: Open Access : Information Services , Aberystwyth University
- Aberystwyth Research Portal, Aberystwyth University’s institutional repository
- Explore the Researchers LibGuide
- Stay informed: Keep up to date via our Academic Engagement blog
Contact us: librarians@aber.ac.uk