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Testing the Robustness of COPE’s Characterization of Predatory Publishing on a COPE Member Publisher (Academic and Business Research Institute)

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Publishing Research Quarterly Aims and scope

Abstract

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is a leading ethics-promoting organization associated with academic publishing. COPE continuously fortifies its ethics guidelines, also serving as a warning portal of “predatory” publishing behavior. A 2019 COPE discussion document on “predatory publishing” lists 16 warning signs of predatory publishers/journals. Grounded in legitimacy theory, this study examines, by adopting COPE’s 16 warning signs of “predatory publishing” as criteria, the case of a current COPE member publisher, Academic and Business Research Institute (AABRI). Our assessment reveals that, according to COPE’s own stated criteria, AABRI would be considered as “predatory.” The objective of this case study was to appreciate whether COPE’s 16 warning signs may be insufficiently sensitive to detect a predatory journal or publisher, or whether those criteria require an adjustment if the journal/publisher is academically legitimate but is found to be otherwise. If such criteria were to be used widely by academics (and others) to characterize journals or publishers, but result in a surprising or undesired negative classification (“predatory”), then this may have widespread ramifications not only for global academia but also for scholarship and society at large. An incorrect classification could also negatively impact the COPE “brand” of ethical and scholarly legitimacy.

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Notes

  1. COPE’s Articles of Association are available at: https://publicationethics.org/files/articles_of_association_12_december_2019.pdf (December 12, 2019).

  2. https://www.aabri.com/.

  3. https://publicationethics.org/core-practices.

  4. Disclaimer: The authors’ assume an initial neutral stance and in no way insinuate that AABRI is legitimate or predatory, but merely provide a careful in-depth scrutiny vis-a-vis COPE’s membership criteria and COPE’s “warning” criteria to determine the status of this publisher.

  5. In COPE [14], the term “fake” is used synonymously with “predatory” since that document is a discussion on predatory publishing. This variable and flexible terminology might confuse academics, editors, policy makers and others by blurring the distinction between fake, predatory, illegitimate, exploitative and unscholarly journals [75]. The document states, “Warning signs of fake journals, based on the 16 Principles of transparency,” referring to a separate document [23].

  6. We note here that Clarivate delisted these journals due to citation abuses, and did not refer to them as “predatory” or “illegitimate” journals. Additional background here: https://scienceintegritydigest.com/2023/08/10/hindawis-mass-retraction-of-special-issues-papers/.

  7. https://www.businessperspectives.org/.

  8. https://www.businessperspectives.org/index.php/about-us/policies-and-publication-ethics.

  9. https://publicationethics.org/category/publisher/business-perspectives.

  10. Listed as a small professional publisher.

  11. https://blog.cabells.com/2020/04/16/guest-post-a-symbiosis-of-predatory-journals-and-authors-is-this-possible/.

  12. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/183mRBRqs2jOyP0qZWXN8dUd02D4vL0Mov_kgYF8HORM/edit#gid=0 (last updated: April 2, 2023).

  13. https://www.abacademies.org/journals/academy-of-marketing-studies-journal-home.html.

  14. See also https://scholarly237.rssing.com/chan-5258815/all_p20.html.

  15. See footnote of top page, where it is stated that: “Allied Business Academies publishing a total of 14 different journals in various fields of business. With an acceptance rate of 30%, each of the journals of our affiliates is double blind, peer reviewed and some of the journals are listed in SCOPUS, SCIMAGO, Google Scholar, ProQuest, Cengage Gale, LexisNexis and several other academic databases and search engines”.

  16. https://www.abacademies.org/journals/academy-of-marketing-studies-journal-submit-manuscript.html

  17. https://www.abacademies.org/submission-instructions.html.

  18. See https://web.archive.org/web/20220627171335/https://www.abacademies.org/journals/academy-of-marketing-studies-journal-home.html.

  19. http://www.researchjournali.com/journal-of-business-ethics/details.php.

  20. https://www.springer.com/journal/10551.

  21. https://publicationethics.org/about/trustees.

  22. The authors would like to thank Maximillian Heimstädt for sharing the data used for the study of predatory publishing in management research (see [32]).

  23. https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/excel_doc/0015/91122/extlistJuly2022.xlsx.

  24. https://abdc.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ABDC-JQL-2022-v3-100523.xlsx.

  25. https://publicationethics.org/become-member. COPE is to opening membership for universities and research institutions in 2023.

  26. https://publicationethics.org/news/avoiding-predatory-publishers.

  27. The term “publications” is very likely a typographic error in the COPE document and is probably intended to be “publishers,” “publication outlets” or “publication venues”.

  28. Each of AABRI’s ten active journals is a COPE member, whereas none of its eight extinct journals is a COPE member. Two of the ten active journals are, however, listed as COPE members with erroneous websites: https://publicationethics.org/category/publisher/academic-and-business-research-institute.

  29. https://web.archive.org/web/20161222020349/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/.

  30. It is also worthwhile noting here that, at least in 2013, these journals were safelisted by Cabell’s, in contrast to Beall’s classification: https://web.archive.org/web/20130301010438/https://www.aabri.com/. However, since Cabell’s was founded in 1973, long before the OA movement and the rise of predatory publishing, it would seem that Cabell’s might not have carefully checked all journals included in its publishing opportunities database prior to launching its blacklist (now Predatory Reports) on June 15, 2017.

  31. https://kscien.org/predatory.php?id=1.

  32. http://140.113.207.51:8000/; two journals were classified as “normal” (JFA, JIP), while AJPC was unable to crawl the website of two journals (JIBCS, RHEJ) or had database errors.

  33. https://ideas.repec.org/.

  34. See https://aabri.com/directories.html.

  35. See https://repository.globethics.net/handle/20.500.12424/93 (last accessed: April 3, 2023).

  36. https://www.springer.com/journal/11162.

  37. http://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41267.

  38. https://www.ft.com/content/3405a512-5cbb-11e1-8f1f-00144feabdc0.

  39. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14685957.

  40. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mrj.

  41. https://www.springer.com/journal/10389

  42. https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth

  43. https://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/08/oh-the-irony-business-ethics-journal-paper-retracted-for-plagiarism (March 8, 2013). The two papers are: Neil, B. A. 2012. “Eminent domain: In theory—It makes good cents,” Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, 5, pages unknown; and Neil, B. A. 2012. “An ethical dilemma and corporate game changer,” Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, 6, pages unknown. In both cases, the note by AABRI states: “AABRI has permanently retracted this manuscript from publication for non-compliance with the AABRI Originality Policy.” Even though the two articles are listed at the bottom of these two volumes’ content, no PDF files are available. They were simply and completely removed. Using the Retraction Watch database, we also identified another six papers by this author that were “silently” retracted from other AABRI journals (three from Journal of Business Cases and Applications, two from Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, and one each from Journal of Finance and Accountancy, Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies and Journal of Criminal Justice and Legal Issues, so eight in total.

  44. https://www.aabri.com/pubpolicy.html.

  45. https://web.archive.org/web/20220726110641/https://publicationethics.org/category/publisher/academic-and-business-research-institute. The correct URL is: https://www.aabri.com/jeli.html.

  46. https://web.archive.org/web/20220806113042/www.aabri.com/jcjli.html.

  47. https://www.aabri.com/guidelines.html.

  48. https://www.aabri.com/guidelines.html.

  49. https://www.aabri.com/pubcharges.html (despite this, there is quite a lot of detail about the fees they charge).

  50. https://www.aabri.com/guidelines.html.

  51. https://www.aabri.com/pubpolicy.html.

  52. https://publicationethics.org/files/short%20guide%20to%20ethical%20editing%20for%20new%20editors.pdf.

  53. http://www.aabri.com/jbsb.html.

  54. http://www.aabri.com/aabri.com/jibcs.html.

  55. https://aabri.com/pubpolicy.html.

  56. https://aabri.com/pubpolicy.html.

  57. https://web.archive.org/web/20130301010438/http://aabri.com/.

  58. https://web.archive.org/web/20220808110626/https://www.portico.org/publishers/aabri/.

  59. https://www.whois.com/whois/aabri.com.

  60. https://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/08/oh-the-irony-business-ethics-journal-paper-retracted-for-plagiarism/.

  61. https://publicationethics.org/about/subcommittees.

  62. https://blog.cabells.com/2019/03/20/predatoryreport-criteria-v1-1/.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the input, comments and suggestions made by Professor Panagiotis Tsigaris (Thompson Rivers University, Canada) on an earlier version of the paper.

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  1. Institut Supérieur des Études Appliquées en Humanités, Université de Gafsa, Cité des Jeunes, 2133, Gafsa, Tunisia

    Salim Moussa

  2. Ikenobe 3011-2, Miki, Kagawa-ken, 761-0799, Japan

    Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva

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Moussa, S., Teixeira da Silva, J. Testing the Robustness of COPE’s Characterization of Predatory Publishing on a COPE Member Publisher (Academic and Business Research Institute). Pub Res Q 39, 337–367 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-023-09967-9

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