Publishing in a predatory Journal

[Bored_Conscious]

I recently joined a project that got submitted not too long ago. I didn't know which journal it was going to be submitted to, but I found out that the two journals it was submitted to are predatory.

Both are not pubmed indexed. One of the journals is created by a company with a damning wiki article written on it and the other isn't so damning. Regardless, they're both not great and it isn't the kind of work I'm necessarily proud of. I have a couple of other papers in the pipeline that will be published in relatively good journals before I finish medical school.

Is it even worth including these two papers when I apply for residency? Should I just leave it out?
(I'll note that I didn't pay a dime to get these two papers published. The first author did that I assume.)

If it matters, I'm interested in internal medicine in order to pursue a GI fellowship.

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[mistafab]

I only list things with a pubmed index. YMMV

 

[pazzer2]

Can you state the name of the journal?

 

[GoSpursGo]

I don't think it will HURT you as long as you have other things that are legit and as long as they are findable.

 

[Bored_Conscious]

I don't think it will HURT you as long as you have other things that are legit and as long as they are findable.

Okay, thank you. It seems like the general consensus is 1) Don't have predatory journals be your ONLY research experience 2) It won't actively hurt you, but it won't really help either.

I've decided not to worry about it at the moment. I currently have 10 publications (as defined by ERAS - e.g. abstracts, poster, PubMed-indexed publications) and I believe the average # of publications for categorical IM residents in 2018-2019 was averaged around 4. I assume, all things considered, by the time I graduate, I'll hopefully add a couple more papers. At that point, I don't think I'll risk possibly having those two papers bringing me down.

 

[Bored_Conscious]

Can you state the name of the journal?

BioRes Scientia and Journal of Biomedical Research & Environmental sciences

 

[Dr.SPAC3MAN]

Could someone explain what a predatory journal is?

 

[GoSpursGo]

Could someone explain what a predatory journal is?

Generally, a journal that exists only to scam authors to pay exorbitant submission/publishing fees and then generally give a sham peer review leading to a "publication" that is worthless and not indexed in databases like PubMed. They often rope authors in through spam emails asking for a submission to their journal ("Dear Dr. Professor, we were very impressed by your prior publication xyz and would like to invite you to have your esteemed work published in our journal. Please send us a paper in the next 72 hours"). Authors who don't know better think these are legitimate invitations when it's really just all a scam.

The academic equivalent of some foreign royalty asking for money.

 

[Goro]

Could someone explain what a predatory journal is?

They're like vanity presses that you pay them and they publish your book.

Faculty use them to buff up their CVs, especially when it comes to promotions or annual reviews.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Faculty use them to buff up their CVs, especially when it comes to promotions or annual reviews.

I honestly refuse to believe this flies. I have no doubt that some dumb assistant professors who don't understand how things work might try, but anything that doesn't show up in PubMed honestly looks embarrassing on an academic CV.

 

[pazzer2]

I looked into Journal of Biomedical Research & Environmental Sciences. Although it is not pubmed indexed, they do provide a DOI number for each publication. The DOI allows it to be searched on Google Scholar. While pubmed is used widely, the use of alternative search engines are gaining popularity.

 

[Dral]

They often rope authors in through spam emails asking for a submission to their journal ("Dear Dr. Professor, we were very impressed by your prior publication xyz and would like to invite you to have your esteemed work published in our journal. Please send us a paper in the next 72 hours").

If I had a dollar for every email in my inbox like this...

 

[GoSpursGo]

I looked into Journal of Biomedical Research & Environmental Sciences. Although it is not pubmed indexed, they do provide a DOI number for each publication. The DOI allows it to be searched on Google Scholar. While pubmed is used widely, the use of alternative search engines are gaining popularity.

To be frank, no. Just because alternative search engines exist, it does not mean they are legitimate. Frequently they are invented specifically to lend the appearance of legitimacy and they are "popularized" largely by these predatory journals. DOI is meaningless--you can give anything a DOI, and while it's nice that it makes the material easily findable it doesn't mean the work is legitimate.

The journal you mention is an excellent example. Their publisher is recognized as predatory, and this specific journal was called out as quoting a misleading impact factor. It is indexed in Index Copernicus, which largely indexes predatory journals through a "pay for indexing" paradigm. And you might say, "Whatever, I don't really care, I just need lines on my CV for ERAS and I don't care where I publish." Well, right now the website for that journal is down and the journal isn't listed on the parent organization's journal list. This can happen without notice in these predatory journals, they'll suddenly and without warning close up shop. Then that DOI is worthless. If you have a broken DOI on your CV, at best reviewers will think you don't know how to identify reputable journals, and at worst might think you're fabricating publications. Neither of those are impressions you want to give.

To be clear... none of this is the fault of the student. I know a student is just doing what they were told by the PI/mentor and trusting they're getting good advice. However, seeing these kinds of publications draws into question the mentorship and the quality of training that the student has received.

 

[mvenus929]

I honestly refuse to believe this flies. I have no doubt that some dumb assistant professors who don't understand how things work might try, but anything that doesn't show up in PubMed honestly looks embarrassing on an academic CV.

Our promotions committee/support team basically said we had to include PMIDs on our CV just for this purpose.