Page 23 - IDEA Study 2 2017 Predatory journals in Scopus

Large countries

Figure 4 provides results for the largest countries given by population. Several
important countries that deserve closer scrutiny but have not made it into
the previous comparisons are included, most notably China and Brazil. Furthermore,
comparing all these countries on the same scale clearly shows the immense
differences in the propensity to predatory publishing across the globe. Besides
the aforementioned Congo (Dem. Rep.)6, which has no predatory results, the tail end
of this ranking contains predominantly developed countries. At the opposite end
of the spectrum are exclusively developing countries.

It is revealing to compare the two largest countries. India is heavily affected, while
China does not seem to be fertile ground for the predators. Shen and Björk (2015)
found that more than a quarter of predatory publishers are in fact based in India,
which gives indigenous authors a “home field” advantage. It is then hardly surprising
that the problem of predatory publishing has reached such proportions there.
On the other hand we must not forget the caveat already mentioned above that the
data predominantly covers journals published in English. English is an official
language in India, while in China not only is the language different, but the writing
system too; thus local problems with the predatory model of publication may largely
escape our attention.

Anyway, let us not be deceived by the proportional indicator. Even in China
predatory publishing is extensive, though not so bad in proportion to the total
publication output. In fact, however, in absolute terms the number of indexed
predatory documents was very similar in China and India, at around 30 thousand
each. Put together, these two countries account for 35.7% of the world total.
The next, in absolute terms, is the USA, with almost 15 thousand documents and
a 8.2% share globally; thus even in countries at the top of the technology ladder,
there is a large number of researchers who are willing to pay to have their work
published in predatory journals. If we add the fourth largest victim, South Korea,
with a 6.1% share, then if combined these countries account for as much as half
of the world total.

6 Congo (Dem. Rep.) is with almost 75 million inhabitants the fourth largest country in Africa and
nineteenth largest in the world. Out of only 141 documents in Scopus by authors from this country
during the three year period under consideration, none was associated with predatory journals or
publishers.

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