Scholarly publishing threatened

How many invitations did you receive last week to publish your latest research data in a journal with a name very similar to those of our classic scientific journals? The reason for this generosity must be the high chance of cheating researchers so that they pay article processing charges. These journals have been denominated ‘predatory journals’ and have interested a Canadian librarian, Charles Beall, to a very high extent. The so-called ‘Beall’s list of predatory journals’ has become widely recognized (1), and today it contains more than 1000 titles. Since the number of ‘invitations’ seems to increase constantly there must be some authors that are accepting these offers. This might also be one reason for why traditional scientific journals have been facing decreasing numbers of submissions for a while. So when such offers appear in your inbox, do consult this Beall’s list. If indeed, which most often is the case, you find the journal on that list, you should forget about submitting anything to them. There is a great risk that besides losing some money you will also lose control of your manuscript. It might just disappear in cyber space or be blocked/lost in a production process that goes on forever.