Profiting from the paradigm shift in scholarly journal publishing: the case of predatory publishers

Abstract

The Southwest Respiratory and Critical Care Chronicles 2020;8(35):1–5 1Medicine and public policyProting from the paradigm shift in scholarly journal publishing: The case of predatory publishersLyombe Eko PhD, Amy Koerber PhDCorresponding author: Amy KoerberContact Information: Amy.Koerber@ttu.eduDOI:In December 2019, the well-known scientic jour-nal Nature published an article entitled, “Predatory journals: no denition, no defence.”1 The collaborative effort, which was co-authored by a record 35 authors from scientic, technical, and medical publishers around the world, was illustrated by an eye-catching piece of art based on the primeval myth of deceptive appearances —a sinister-looking wolf in sheep’s cloth-ing. In the illustration, the “clothing” that the wolf uses as its camouage is an open academic journal with a sheep on its cover. That article raised the alarm about a phenomenon that the researchers, who represented elds of research, education, libraries, publishing, and research funding, consider a “global threat.”1