Promotion standards to discourage publishing in questionable journals: a follow-up study
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Date
2024-05
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Elseviere
Abstract
Predatory publishing poses significant challenges to academic integrity and progress. It requires the involvement
of academic institutions, funding bodies, and policymakers to establish robust evaluation mechanisms and
promote ethical publishing practices. This study examines the effectiveness of implementing promotion policies
to discourage unethical academic publishing, focusing on Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Tech
nology (KNUST) in Ghana. This study analyses 273 promotion applications submitted from January 2022 to
November 2023, regardless of approval. The results show that researchers at KNUST submit relatively more
publications to recommended outlets after the implementation of the new promotion guidelines. Moreover, with
nine out of ten non-verified publications found to be from predatory journals, the verification process effectively
discourages publication such outlets. Our study therefore confirms that the verification process can identify
predatory publication outlets. Consequently, it is recommended that research institutions eliminate incentives for
publishing in questionable outlets through publication criteria as part of promotion standards.
Description
This article is published by Elsevier 2024 and is also available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102895
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Citation
The Journal of Academic Librarianship 50 (2024) 102895