Researchers’ experience and attitudes toward predatory journals and research productivity in Taipei Medical University, Taiwan

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the submission status as well as the problems faced by the Taipei Medical University (TMU) researchers, from 11 colleges, center of General Education, 11 university-level research centers, as well as the 3 affiliated hospitals.

Methods: This study was based on a questionnaire survey sent to TMU faculty and researchers for a 2-week period via email. Major contents of the questionnaire related to the following 3 questions:
(a) the experience of publishing in predatory journals;
(b) with regard to predatory journals, respondents expect what kind of support from the library and TMU;
(c) the perspective and suggestions for changes in the Impact Factor(IF), which exists in the year of submission, but was suppressed/dropped by SCIE/ SSCI JCR or the value dropped dramatically when the year they need to calculate the quantitative research productivity.1,286 questionnaires were sent and 114 valid questionnaires were returned, resulting in a response rate of 8.9%.

Results: The main findings were:
(a) All of the respondents have the experience to be invited by an unfamiliar journal, and approximately 80% of them have ever been invited as a reviewer. Furthermore, over a half of them have ever been invited as an editor;
(b) 16% of the respondents have accidentally published articles in a predatory journal;
(c) As to issues related to predatory journals, 60% of the respondents expect the library to provide blacklist and whitelist, as well as promotion events and advisory services. And hope that the university could provide negotiations and legal assistance when they want to withdraw those articles;
(d) 15.8% and 30.7% of respondents experienced changes in the IF (down to zero or decrease dramatically) which affect the result of their research productivity calculation, respectively.
(e) More than 50% of the respondents hope the university to modify the calculation method or the year selection of the IF, to avoid research effort in vain or unable to reach the expected score.

Conclusions: In summary, predatory journals are very often open-access journal, but journals without IF or suppressed/dropped by JCR are not necessary to be a predatory journal. Based on the research findings, the TMUL will strengthen the following measures to help not accidentally submit articles to predatory journals: provide the existing reference list of predatory journals, encourage faculty and researchers to apply for our initial inspection services of predatory journals to verify their background, and provide customized advisory services for each case.