Predatory journals

Predatory journals exploit the Open Access publishing model. Most open access journals - including high-quality journals - charge the author a fee ("Article Processing Charge" or APC) to support publication and peer-review costs. Predatory journals exist only to collect article processing fees from authors: every article submitted, with payment, is published. There is no legitimate peer review.

If you're being asked to pay an Article Processing Fee/Charge to publish in a journal you're not familiar with, do some research to confirm that it is a legitimate, high-quality open access journal.

Consult the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which provides a list of legitimate open access journals. If you still can't find a satisfactory answer, you will need to assess the legitimacy of the journal yourself. Here are some useful resources to guide you:

(UBC's journal assessment page, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License)

CARL how to assess journal infographic

Contact the Office of Scholarly Communication if you have questions on any of these areas or have further suggestions for development.

From Thinkchecksubmit.org, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.