Researchers have identified more than 1,000 potentially problematic open-access journals using an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that screened around 15,000 titles for signs of dubious publishing practices.
The approach, described in Science Advances on 27 August1, could be used to help tackle the rise in what the study authors call “questionable open-access journals” — those that charge fees to publish papers without doing rigorous peer review or quality checks.
None of the journals flagged by the tool has previously been on any kind of watchlist, and some titles are owned by large, reputable publishers. Together, the journals have published hundreds of thousands of research papers that have received millions of citations.
The study suggests that “there’s a whole group of problematic journals in plain sight that are functioning as supposedly respected journals that really don’t deserve that qualification”, says Jennifer Byrne, a research-integrity sleuth and cancer researcher at the University of Sydney, Australia.
The tool is available online in a closed beta version, and organizations that index journals, or publishers, can use it to review their portfolios, says study co-author Daniel Acuña, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. But, he adds, the AI sometimes makes mistakes, and is not designed to replace detailed evaluations of journals and individual publications that might result in a title being removed from an index. “A human expert should be part of the vetting process” before any action is taken, he says.
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