An expose in Science earlier this month (Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?) highlights the risk to researchers posed by predatory publishers. These are questionable publishers seeking to take advantage of the open access business model by charging large fees whilst failing to meet various ethical standards – such as not identifying an editorial board, using editors names without authorization or demonstrating a lack of transparency in publishing operations.

What can be done to avoid predatory publishers?

This is an ongoing problem for open access communities neatly summarized in the Guardian but Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at University of Colorado, has made available Bealll’s List of predatory publishers and has compiled criteria for identifying predatory publishers. This at least provides a guide for researchers keen to publish open access.

Peter Lund