TY - JOUR
T1 - Keep calm and carry on
T2 - moral panic, predatory publishers, peer review, and the emperor’s new clothes
AU - Houghton, Frank
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Medical Library Association. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - The moral panic over the impact of so-called predatory publishers continues unabated. It is important, however, to resist the urge to simply join in this crusade without pausing to examine the assumptions upon which such concerns are based. It is often assumed that established journals are almost sacrosanct, and that their quality, secured by peer review, is established. It is also routinely presumed that such journals are immune to the lure of easy money in return for publication. Rather than looking at the deficits that may be apparent in the practices and products of predatory publishers, this commentary invites you to explore the weaknesses that have been exposed in traditional academic journals but are seldom discussed in the context of predatory publishing. The inherent message for health and medical services staff, researchers, academics, and students is, as always, to critically evaluate all sources of information, whatever their provenance.
AB - The moral panic over the impact of so-called predatory publishers continues unabated. It is important, however, to resist the urge to simply join in this crusade without pausing to examine the assumptions upon which such concerns are based. It is often assumed that established journals are almost sacrosanct, and that their quality, secured by peer review, is established. It is also routinely presumed that such journals are immune to the lure of easy money in return for publication. Rather than looking at the deficits that may be apparent in the practices and products of predatory publishers, this commentary invites you to explore the weaknesses that have been exposed in traditional academic journals but are seldom discussed in the context of predatory publishing. The inherent message for health and medical services staff, researchers, academics, and students is, as always, to critically evaluate all sources of information, whatever their provenance.
KW - Elsevier
KW - academic journals
KW - academic quality
KW - peer review
KW - predatory publishing
KW - scientific misconduct
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128535561&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5195/jmla.2022.1441
DO - 10.5195/jmla.2022.1441
M3 - Article
C2 - 35440900
AN - SCOPUS:85128535561
SN - 1536-5050
VL - 110
SP - 233
EP - 239
JO - Journal of the Medical Library Association
JF - Journal of the Medical Library Association
IS - 2
ER -