Page 33 - IDEA Study 2 2017 Predatory journals in Scopus

It goes without saying that the five most suspect journals maintain a very low SJR
index, which probably ranks them close to the bottom in their respective fields.
It seems fair to question whether their peer review process complies
with the standards and whether the authors, by paying for open access, are indeed
not actually buying the right to publish as such. It is hard to understand why so many
authors based in the Czech Republic would rush to publish in these journals, if not
for squeezing "coffee-grinder" points out of thin air, which in turn grants them
research funding that far exceeds the publication fees. It will be interesting to see
how much the propensity of Czech authors to publish in these journals drops, after
the "coffee grinder" system is abandoned.
Nevertheless, it is also fair to acknowledge that some journals on Beall's lists may not
be any more problematic than journals of similarly low quality, if not equally
predatory, published in the Czech Republic that are indexed in Scopus but financed
by methods other than paid open-access. For example, rogue research institutions
can use the "coffee grinder" money to finance journals, the primary objective
of which is not to communicate research results but in turn to generate "coffee
grinder" points for themselves. Scopus may find it difficult to tell the difference
between genuine local journals and schemes like these. Arguably, the difference
between low quality, irrelevant and fake research is often thin and hard to prove
with the benefit of doubt, especially in social sciences and related disciplines.
At the end of the day, it does not matter whether money earmarked for research is
diverted using predatory journals or else. In any case that money is not being spent
effectively.

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