Predatory Journals: Revisiting Beall’s Research

Abstract

Between 2009 and 2012, Jeffrey Beall analyzed 18 publishers, which were publishing 1328 journals. He classified all but one of the publishers as predatory. In this paper we look again at these publishers to see what has changed since that initial analysis. We focus on the same 18 publishers so that we have a direct comparison with Beall’s original analysis. One publisher has been acquired by Sage (the publisher no longer exists) and another has been acquired by Taylor & Francis (the publisher still retains its identity). Three of the publishers can no longer be found and, of the thirteen that remain, they now publish 1650 journals, an increase of 24.25% over the 1328 journals being published when Beall carried out his analysis. Other ways of carrying out this analysis, could put this increase as high as 50.14%. The increase in the number of journals being published, by fewer publishers, suggests that the problem of predatory publishing is getting worse, although this may be largely due to mega-predatory publishers which have dramatically increased the number of journals they now publish, when compared to ten years ago. Unlike Beall, rather than classifying the publishers as predatory (or not), we classify them into four categories, using data which is publicly available, rather than making a subjective decision. Two publishers are classified as category 1 (the most reputable). One journal is in category 2, four in category 3 and six in category 4.