Department of Neurosurgery, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India.
Department of Neurosurgery, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2021 Jan;163(1):1-8. doi: 10.1007/s00701-020-04546-9. Epub 2020 Aug 26.
Scientific research can offer the joy of discovery. For many graduating neurosurgeons, often, a seminar, class, or instructional module is their first and only formal exposure to the world of conducting research responsibly, to write down and report the results of such research. The pressure to publish scientific research is high, but any young neurosurgeon who is unaware of how predatory publishers operate can get duped by it and can lose their valuable and hard-fought research. Hence, we have attempted to provide an overview of all potentially predatory neurosurgery publications and provide some "red flags" to recognize them.
A suspected list of predatory publications was collected via a thorough review of the Neurosurgery journals listed in 4 major so-called blacklists, i.e., Beall's list, Manca's list, Cabell's blacklist, and Strinzel blacklist and then cross-referenced with UGC CARE whitelist to remove any potential legitimate journals. All journals with a scope of the Neurosurgery publication were searched using terms in the search bar: "Neurosurgery", "Neuroanatomy", "Neuropathology", and "Neurological disorder/disease". Since all predatory journals claim to be open access, all possible types of open access journals on Scimago were also searched, and thus a comparison was possible in terms of publication cost and number of legitimate open access journals when compared with predatory ones. In addition, methodologies by which these journals penetrate legitimate indexes like PubMed was investigated.
A total of 46 predatory journals were found and were enlisted along with their publishers and web addresses. Sixty of the 360 Neurosurgery journals listed on Scimago were open access and the fee for the predatory journals was substantially lower (< $150) when compared with legitimate journals ($900-$3000). Six types of open access types exist while a total of 26 red flags in 7 stages of publication can be found in predatory journals. These journals have penetrated indexes by having similar names to legitimate journals and by publishing articles with external funding which mandate their indexing.
These 46 journals were defined as predatory by 4 major blacklists, and none of them was found in the UGC Care white list. They also fulfill the 26 red-flags that define a predatory journal. The blacklist detailed here may become redundant; hence "whenever in doubt" regarding a journal with "red-flags", the authors are advised to refer to whitelists to be on the safer side. Publishing in predatory journals leads to not only loss of valuable research but also discredits a researcher among his peers and can be hindrance in career progression. Some journals are even indexed on PubMed, and they have sophisticated webpages and high-quality online presentations.
科学研究可以带来发现的乐趣。对于许多即将毕业的神经外科医生来说，通常情况下，研讨会、课程或教学模块是他们第一次也是唯一一次正式接触负责任地进行研究的世界，记录和报告此类研究的结果。发表科学研究的压力很大，但任何不了解掠夺性出版商运作方式的年轻神经外科医生都可能被其欺骗，并失去他们宝贵而艰难获得的研究成果。因此，我们试图提供所有潜在掠夺性神经外科出版物的概述，并提供一些“警示标志”来识别它们。
通过彻底审查 4 个主要所谓黑名单中的神经外科期刊，即 Beall's 清单、Manca's 清单、Cabell's 黑名单和 Strinzel 黑名单，收集了一份可疑的掠夺性出版物清单，然后与 UGC CARE 白名单交叉引用，以删除任何潜在的合法期刊。使用搜索栏中的以下术语搜索所有具有神经外科出版范围的期刊：“神经外科”、“神经解剖学”、“神经病理学”和“神经障碍/疾病”。由于所有掠夺性期刊都声称是开放获取的，因此还在 Scimago 上搜索了所有可能类型的开放获取期刊，因此可以在出版成本和与掠夺性期刊相比的合法开放获取期刊数量方面进行比较。此外，还调查了这些期刊渗透到 PubMed 等合法索引的方法。
共发现 46 种掠夺性期刊，并列出了它们的出版商和网址。Scimago 上列出的 360 种神经外科期刊中有 60 种是开放获取的，掠夺性期刊的费用要低得多（<150 美元），而合法期刊的费用则在 900-3000 美元之间。有六种类型的开放获取类型，而在掠夺性期刊中可以发现 7 个阶段的出版中有 26 个红色标志。这些期刊通过具有类似名称的合法期刊和通过外部资金出版的文章来渗透索引，这些文章要求对其进行索引。
这 46 种期刊被 4 个主要黑名单定义为掠夺性期刊，而它们在 UGC Care 白名单中都没有找到。它们也符合定义掠夺性期刊的 26 个红色标志。这里详细列出的黑名单可能会变得多余；因此，对于带有“红色标志”的期刊，作者应在“怀疑时”参考白名单，以确保安全。在掠夺性期刊上发表不仅会导致宝贵的研究成果丢失，还会使研究人员在同行中名誉扫地，并阻碍职业发展。一些期刊甚至在 PubMed 上有索引，它们有复杂的网页和高质量的在线演示。
