From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 14:34:33 +0100

What many now refer to as predatory publishing first came to my attention 7
years ago, when I interviewed a publisher who — I had been told — was
bombarding researchers with invitations to submit papers to, and sit on the
editorial boards of, the hundreds of new OA journals it was launching.

Since then I have undertaken a number of other such interviews, and with each
interview the allegations have tended to become more worrying — e.g. that the
publisher is levying article-processing charges but not actually sending
papers out for review, that it is publishing junk science, that it is claiming
to be a member of a publishing organisation when in reality it is not a
member, that it is deliberately choosing journal titles that are the same, or
very similar, to those of prestigious journals (or even directly cloning
titles) in order to fool researchers into submitting papers to it etc. etc.

The number of predatory publishers continues to grow year by year, and yet far
too little is still being done to address the issue.

Discussion of the problem invariably focuses on the publishers. But in order
to practise their trade predatory publishers depend on the co-operation of
researchers, not least because they have to persuade a sufficient number to
sit on their editorial boards in order to have any credibility. Without an
editorial board a journal will struggle to attract many submissions.

Is it time to approach the problem from a different direction?

More here:
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/predatory-publishing-modest-proposal.html