Exposing predatory journals: anonymous sleuthing account goes public

"In 2018, a relatively unknown X (formerly Twitter) account began quietly posting about instances of predatory publishing in academia. To avoid controversy, the owner of the account, called Publishing with Integrity, chose to stay anonymous — until August, when he revealed himself as Graham Kendall, a computer scientist and deputy vice-chancellor at MILA University in Nilai, Malaysia.

Kendall became interested in the phenomenon of predatory publishing after seeing Jeffrey Beall’s work in blogs and papers about a decade ago. Beall, a former librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, maintained a public list of predatory journals and publishers on his blog. By the end of 2016, it contained more than 1,000 publishers.

Beall shut down his list in 2017, citing pressure from his employer and publishers. Kendall started his anonymous account a year later and has been posting about predatory publishing ever since. He spoke to Nature Index about why he’s gone public, and the challenges of mitigating unethical publishing practices...."