Open Access provides opportunities but beware of predatory journals

From subscription to article processing costs

The publishing of journals is big business. Nearly all articles are published by commercial parties. With the worldwide development towards Open Access, the business model publishers use to generate income has changed. Readers no longer pay subscription costs for reading articles that were previously behind a paywall.

Publishers have therefore developed new earning models. For example, they started to charge researchers a fee for publishing in their journal, the so-called article processing charges (APCs). With this, the costs shifted from the ‘rear’ (subscription prices) to the ‘front’ (publication costs).

To prevent individual researchers having to bear the costs, Dutch universities concluded so-called transformative agreements (links to a Dutch webpage) with various publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley and Springer. Through these agreements, knowledge institutions pay publishers so that their researchers can publish Open Access articles in these publishers’ journals. NWO-I and its institutes participate in several of these agreements, including that with Elsevier.

The emergence of new journals

Group leader Wim Noorduin (AMOLF), member of the Open Access Advisory Panel, says that the emergence of APCs had two effects: “A large range of new journals appeared because, after all, each journal offered a chance to generate income. And it also expanded the publishing landscape. Some journals, such as Nature, have an immense impact. You need to pay more than 10,000 euro in APCs to publish an article in these journals. At the other end of the spectrum are journals with an Impact factor of virtually zero that offer researchers the chance to publish for 1000 euro. Publishers want to see as many publications as possible because then they can earn more.”

Predatory journals

Librarians and Open Access Advisory Panel members Daan van Loon (NIOZ) and Vera Sarkol (CWI) warn of the predators in the publishing landscape: “There are journals in certain research fields or communities that do everything according to proper rules. In such cases, it is logical that publishers charge APCs to cover the costs incurred. However, the profit motive of some publishers leads to excesses. This is what we mean by predatory journals: journals where publishers misuse the Open Access model for the sole purpose of earning money. They ask for considerable APCs without providing thorough editorial services or peer reviews. The shorter an editing process is, the cheaper a publication is for a publisher.”

Young researchers are vulnerable

“These journals are usually very aggressive in approaching young researchers who then – under the pressure to publish – are lured into publishing an article with them. Many dishonest practices occur: editors who are bribed to permit a poor article to be published, peer review committees that are not made up of experts, fake news and the plagiarism of articles using AI, publishers that use false names for journals, peer reviewers who are pressurised, et cetera. Regrettably, we cannot use more positive words to describe what is happening. Our task is to follow the developments as well as possible and to advise our researchers about journals and APCs.”

Money not spent on research

“Together with my PhDs, I look carefully at ‘where are the people who we’d like to read our articles’”, continues Wim. “With this approach, I’m less likely to end up with predatory journals.” For Egbert Westerhof, head of the Department of Fusion Energy at DIFFER, predatory journals are not much of a problem; in his discipline, most relevance is accorded to renowned journals. However, Wim and Egbert both take part in the advisory panel because they hold the view that the system is becoming increasingly perverse and that NWO-I needs to take action against this: “The money you pay for APCs is money not spent on research. That was, of course, already the case with subscriptions, but now, but now the costs are rising exponentially.”

Open Access Advisory Panel at NWO-I

The Open Access Advisory Panel tries to make NWO-I researchers aware of the pitfalls and informs them about the best routes for publishing their research. The panel also provides input for the NWO-I policy and strategy with respect to publishing and reading scientific articles. Vera says: “We believe that everybody should make an effort to make the system healthier.”

Coming up soon: how do you choose the best route for Open Access publishing?

Pitfalls clearly exist when it comes to the Open Access publishing of scientific articles. So, which route can you best take? And what does that mean for the people at NWO-I? Inside NWO-I will soon publish a follow-up article with tips on how to avoid the pitfalls and what the best routes in Open Access publishing are.

Questions

Do you have questions about predatory journals or Open Access publishing? Then please contact your librarian or, if your institute does not have a librarian, Ella Bosch from the NWO-I office.

What is Open Access publishing? A publication is defined as ‘Open Access’ if there are no financial, legal or technical obstacles to obtaining access to the article. In other words, everybody can read, download, copy, disseminate, print, and search for information, for instance, for use in education or in another manner within the legal agreements. NWO understands publications to include scholarly papers and conference proceedings, monographs and book chapters. Separate criteria apply to book publications. Currently, a large proportion of Dutch articles are either published Open Access or shared via freely accessible repositories.

Text: Anita van Stel

Newsletter Inside NWO-I, October 2024
You can find the archive of the newsletter Inside NWO-I on the NWO-I website.