Deceptive publishers (also commonly referred to as “predatory journals”) are for-profit entities that purport to publish high quality academic research, but who do not follow accepted scholarly publishing best practices. Their ultimate goal is to make money, not publish quality research. Being associated with a deceptive publisher can lead to financial loss as a result of inappropriate fees, or be harmful to your reputation and that of your institution, even possibly impeding promotion and tenure.
While there is no single criterion that points to whether or not a publication is legitimate, consult the following checklist to identity some of the typical practices used by deceptive publishers.
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Let the researchers and students in your department know about this checklist. Download posters here:
Need further guidance or support?
- Talk to your supervisor and colleagues
- Consult your Liaison Librarian
- Email scholarly.communications@library.utoronto.ca
Other helpful resources to consult:
- Think. Check. Submit
- How to Assess a Journal (CARL)
- Ulrich's Web (This U of T licensed resource include detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals)
- Think. Check. Attend (specifically developed for conferences)
- Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE)
- Research Impact & Researcher Identity guide (The University of Toronto Libraries)
This checklist was created by the Division of the Vice President, Research and Innovation and the University of Toronto Libraries. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.