Presumed predatory journals are abundant in oral health: Predatory journals - ScienceDirect

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Objective

: to identify characteristics of presumed predatory (PP) journals, presumed legitimate open access (PLOA) journals, and presumed legitimate subscription (PLS) journals published in dentistry.

Methods

: We assessed presumed predatory (PP), presumed legitimate open access (PLOA) and presumed legitimate subscription (PLS) using indicators reported in the literature consisting of 29 items in the form of questions in a cross-sectional setting. The indicators formed the basis for the 13 salient characteristics of PP journals that were used to generate scores. Greater scores would imply that the journal was more likely to be predatory compared to lower score journals. Associations between predatory score and journal type were examined using the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test, and classification to the 3 groups based on the article characteristics was implemented using the random forest approach.

Results

: From the 580 potentially eligible journals, 431 dental journals were included: 226 PP (52%), 111 (26%) PLOA, and 94 (22%) PLS. There were significant differences in the predatory score among the three groups; PP journals had the highest mean score and PLS journals the lowest mean score. Mention or reporting to be indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) database and journal´s website with distorted or blurry images were the most influential variables for accurate classification into a predatory category or not.

Conclusion

: The present study found that some specific characteristics such as distorted images and grammatical errors are more prominent in PP dental journals.