Individual integrity and public morality in scientific publishing / Integridade individual e moralidade pública na publicação científica

ABSTRACT. Science and science reporting are under threat. Knowingly or not, researchers and clinicians are part of this debacle. This is not due so much to the notorious replication crisis, as to our acceptance of lowering common morality for personal gains, including the widespread, deprecable phenomenon of predatory publishing. Rather than fiercefully countering this loathsome practice, academics are accepting, often supporting a masquerade solution: paying several thousand dollars to publish for all their own papers. This new policy will create a disparity across richer and poorer disciplines; will result in concentrating even more in the hands of large, rich, Western institutions, also penalising younger researchers; will kill observational studies and exploratory research; and will make disseminating science depending more on finances than on quality. This article calls for the full awareness of the academic community on the risks of the current situation in scientific publishing.

RESUMO. A ciência e os relatórios científicos estão ameaçados. Conscientemente ou não, pesquisadores e médicos fazem parte desse desastre. Isso não se deve tanto à notória crise de replicação, mas à nossa aceitação de rebaixar a moralidade comum para ganhos pessoais, incluindo o fenômeno generalizado e depreciável da publicação predatória. Em vez de combater ferozmente essa prática repugnante, os acadêmicos estão aceitando, muitas vezes até apoiando uma solução de disfarce: pagar vários milhares de dólares para publicar seus próprios artigos. Essa nova política criará uma disparidade entre as disciplinas mais ricas e mais pobres, resultará na concentração ainda maior nas mãos de grandes e ricas instituições ocidentais, penalizando também os pesquisadores mais jovens; matará os estudos observacionais e a pesquisa exploratória e fará com que a divulgação científica dependa mais das finanças do que da qualidade. Este artigo apela à plena consciência da comunidade acadêmica sobre os riscos da situação atual da publicação científica.

An insight into predatory journals

The impact of scholarly journals has increased with invent of Internet due to improved access, faster dissemination, and ease of searching a variety of publications. With the increasing trend of research, open access (OA) publishing has increased intensely over the last few years. The core intent of OA is faster dissemination of research by making it available to readers free of cost. However, some publishers exploited this novel idea for their own benefit. Beall termed them as predatory publishers/journals. In this article, authors have made efforts to understand the predatory publishers/journal, reasons behind their upsurge, their modus operandi, their common targets, and the points which will help readers to identify them. The aim of this article is to expose facts behind the predatory journal and to create awareness among not only budding researchers but also faculty members, authors, and editors about the threat predatory journals carry toward scientific world and to their own curricula.

Manuscript Submission Invitations from ‘Predatory Journals’: What Should Authors Do?

Press freedom and worldwide internet access have opened ample opportunity for a staggering number of poor open access journals and junk publishers to emerge. Dubious publishers are abusing and camouflaging the golden open access model. In 2012, Jeffery Beall shed light on the predatory journals (as he preferred to call them) and the threat to open access scientific publication. Publishing in predatory journals is continuing to be a major threat for the development of science in developing countries. The authors of this article proposed solutions and outline a fresh perspective to help authors avoid publishing in predatory journals.

El dilema del editor de una revista biomédica: aceptar o no aceptar

Este conversatorio trata sobre el proceso de evaluación de los artículos científicos para su publicación en el área biomédica, destacando aspectos como integridad de la literatura científica, calidad en los datos, significación de la investigación, etc. Describe la experiencia del Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research en la evaluación de la literatura científica.

This lecture discusses the evaluation process of scientific articles submitted for publication in the biomedical area, pointing to issues such as integrity of the scientific literature, quality of data, relevance of theresearch etc. It also describes the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research experience in the scientific literature evaluation.