Predator -predatory publishing

Abstract

In previous articles, we have covered different aspects of publishing ethics. We will explore this further by introducing real and specific cases in publication ethics that were presented to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 1 ) and discussed by its council members, with a full translated version in Japanese to increase understanding. The topic of this first case is predatory publishing. Predatory publishing refers to open access journals which actively solicit manuscripts and charge publication fees with little or no peer review and editorial services purely for their own profit 2 ). Although this unethical phenomenon has attracted much attention, many researchers are still quite unaware of the problem and are unable to distinguish between a predatory and legitimate journal 3 ), such as in the case presented here to COPE.