India leads in maximum number of Bogus journals!

India not only publishes the maximum number of predatory or bogus journals but also has the maximum contributions to them, says a study after analyzing 3,300 papers published between September 2015 to February 2016. The study has been published in the journal, Current Science.

What is a predatory or bogus journal?

Predatory journals are are more focussed on the article processing fees.They trick authors into submitting papers, rarely peer-review manuscripts( get the papers reviewed by a panel of experts in the particular field), and thus allow repetitive,sub-standard papers (even those that contain plagiarised content and falsified and fabricated data) to be published.

Researchers from highly prestigious institutes publishing in these bogus journals

Researchers from ICAR, CSIR, and ICMR labs, and national institutes such as IITs and NITs too published papers in such junk journals. Of the 11 per cent publications from national institutes, ICAR institutes( Indian Council of Agricultural Research) has the most number of publications in predatory journals (17 per cent). It was closely followed by CSIR labs at 15 per cent, NITs (11 per cent), IITs (9 per cent) and ICMR (6 per cent).

Of the 480 researchers who responded to a questionnaire, 20 per cent said that they were unaware that their paper was published in a predatory journal, 10 per cent said they knowingly published papers in these journals and the remaining 70 per cent were not willing to answer the question.

Publish or perish is now “publish any junk in bogus journals.” A dangerous trend which negates the very idea of research.