While there is no single criterion that can indicate high or low quality, organizations such as COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and others publish guidelines for identifying predatory entities. The following list of characteristics are derived from the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
Some characteristics of predatory journals and publishers:
- Scope of journal is unclear (for example, overly broad and spanning multiple disciplines)
- Promise of rapid publication
- Editorial and peer-review process and timeline are not clearly stated
- Non-professional contact email address
- Website has grammatical and spelling errors
- Ownership and/or management of the journal is unclear or misleading
- No ISSN
- Rights for use and re-use of content are not clearly stated
- Not indexed by a legitimate abstracting and indexing service or database
- Journal title mimics that of an established journal, differing by only one or two words
- Journal sends unsolicited email invitations
- Advertising is accepted
- Repeat lead authors in same issue
Some characteristics of quality journals and publishers:
- Scope is well-defined; articles are within the scope of the journal and meet discipline standards
- Editorial board are recognized experts in the field
- Full names and affiliations of editors are indicated on the journal website
- Editorial and peer-review process and timeline are clearly stated
- Journal is affiliated with established scholarly society or academic institution
- Fees, if any, are easily found and clearly explained on website
- Articles have DOIs (Digital Object Identifier)
- Rights for use and re-use of content are clearly indicated
- Journal has an ISSN
- Journal is indexed by a legitimate abstracting or indexing service or database
- Journal's primary audience consists of researchers and/or pracitioners
- The journal states its business model
- The journal website contains an archive of its past issues
