TY - JOUR
T1 - A qualitative content analysis of watchlists vs safelists
T2 - How do they address the issue of predatory publishing?
AU - Koerber, Amy
AU - Starkey, Jesse C.
AU - Ardon-Dryer, Karin
AU - Cummins, R. Glenn
AU - Eko, Lyombe
AU - Kee, Kerk F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Predatory journals and publishers are a growing concern in the scholarly publishing arena. As one type of attempt to address this increasingly important issue, numerous individuals, associations, and companies have begun curating journal watchlists or journal safelists. This study uses a qualitative content analysis to explore the inclusion/exclusion criteria stated by scholarly publishing journal watchlists and safelists to better understand the content of these lists, as well as the larger controversies that continue to surround the phenomenon that has come to be known as predatory publishing. Four watchlists and ten safelists were analyzed through an examination of their published mission statements and inclusion/exclusion criteria. Notable differences that emerged include the remaining influence of librarian Jeffrey Beall in the watchlists, and the explicit disavowal of his methods for the safelists, along with a growing recognition that the “list” approach may not fully address systemic aspects of predatory publishing that go beyond the individual author's ethical decision-making agency.
AB - Predatory journals and publishers are a growing concern in the scholarly publishing arena. As one type of attempt to address this increasingly important issue, numerous individuals, associations, and companies have begun curating journal watchlists or journal safelists. This study uses a qualitative content analysis to explore the inclusion/exclusion criteria stated by scholarly publishing journal watchlists and safelists to better understand the content of these lists, as well as the larger controversies that continue to surround the phenomenon that has come to be known as predatory publishing. Four watchlists and ten safelists were analyzed through an examination of their published mission statements and inclusion/exclusion criteria. Notable differences that emerged include the remaining influence of librarian Jeffrey Beall in the watchlists, and the explicit disavowal of his methods for the safelists, along with a growing recognition that the “list” approach may not fully address systemic aspects of predatory publishing that go beyond the individual author's ethical decision-making agency.
KW - Beall's list
KW - Jeffrey Beall
KW - Predatory publishing
KW - Publishing ethics
KW - Scholarly publishing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090351555&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102236
DO - 10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102236
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090351555
VL - 46
JO - Journal of Academic Librarianship
JF - Journal of Academic Librarianship
SN - 0099-1333
IS - 6
M1 - 102236
ER -