HIJACKED JOURNALS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND RELATED AREAS

Abstract

Hijacking of scientific journals is an inappropriate conduct that has increases during the last three years, becoming a serious problem for researchers that want to publish their manuscripts, and are deceived by fake sites that take their documents and make them believe they published in the selected, prestigious, well known journal when in fact they have not. To warn inexperienced researchers about this fraud, this paper lists, reviews and to inexperienced some characteristics of apocryphal web sites that mimic prestigious journals in agricultural sciences and allies to trick authors into believing they are submitting their manuscript to the original journal and then have to pay a fee for publishing. Twenty-eight websites of scientific journals in agricultural sciences listed in the Scholary Open Access blog were investigated. It was found that of the sites reviewed as hijackers, only 11 are still functioning, while 17 sites are no longer active. In a period of one year, from May 2016 to May 2017, 6 sites ceased to function, as 17 were operated in the first review in May 2016. Eight out of the 17 sites that no longer work, correspond to journals indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index databases. With the development of information and communication technologies, particularly the online publication of scientific journals, the improper conducts for profit by misleading researchers have increased markedly. The journals hijacking, supplanting their identity is a conduct difficult to detect, thus, authors should be cautious when submitting manuscripts, verifying the journal authenticity and making sure the journal is not listed in web sites that warn researchers about journals with inappropriate procedures in the process of publication of scientific knowledge.