When you meet engineering academics at a conference, it's interesting to ask them about predatory publishing. They may spill the beans about occasions when they've been approached by 'predatory' journal owners, often using poor English and offers that sound too good to be true, one insider at the IET says. In engineering, those who are tempted by such offers may consider speed-to-publication as one of the top baits that fishy journals use these days to offer open-access publishing at a price.
Light-speed publishing can only be offered because such journals fail to respect scientific integrity, ethics and a thorough peer-review process. Experts and guardians of scientific publishing argue it makes these journals dangerous and blemishes the hard-earned reputation of science.
New data reviewed by E&T now sheds more light on a seedy element's impact on our sector. The findings place engineering among the top domains of predatory journals...