What is Poor Academic Activity?
Journals (or conferences) where the adoption/selection of presented research papers are done through a procedure that is hard to be accepted by the academic community.
It refers to a hijacked or predatory journals that operates the presentation or screening process poorly due to its focus being on commercial purposes (i.e., income from participation fee, etc.) rather than academic development.
Types of Poor Academic Journals
| Type | Definition |
|---|---|
| Hijacked Journals (Hijacked Journals) | Journals that mislead researchers by using names that are similar to famous, prestigious journals. |
| Predatory Journals (Predatory Journals) | Journals that accepts all kinds of academic papers, as long as they receive money. |
| Mass Publication Journals | Academic Journals that receives and publishes papers in mass quantities in a single issue, just because they are listed in Scopus or SCI. |
Main Characteristics of Poor Academic Journals / Conferences
| Characteristics | Poor Journals | Poor Academic Conference |
|---|---|---|
| Make sure to send the manuscript after checking whether the peer review process is ‘too simple’ perfunctory. Check if the journal is ‘guaranteeing’ the publication of your paper. | In the case of a ‘normal’ academic conference, the peer review process is never skipped. However, in the case of a poor academic conference, they tend to accept all papers without any peer review. | |
| If the journal is encouraging you to send your paper via e-mail, it is highly likely that it will be fall into the category of a ‘Poor Journal’. | If the conference attempts to promote their event by claiming that ‘world-class scholars’ are going to participate in their event, or if they are telling you that they will publish your paper in their journal, or if they are sending e-mails to encourage your participation, please re-think about your participation in the conference | |
| You cannot gain accurate information about the judging/publishing cost in the main homepage of the journal. | While ‘normal’ conferences focus on specific academic fields, poor conferences tend to accept papers across a wide range of academic disciplines. | |
| The name, affiliation, position, etc. of the management are not clearly stated (or even falsely stated) | If a person with an unclear identity and affiliation, or an organization with an unclear operating entity encourages your participation via e-mail, it has a high possibility of being a poor conference/journal. |
Source: [NRF] Research Ethics for Up-and-coming Researchers p.52
