Determining Credibility: Issues with Predatory Journals

When looking for reliable sources, open access online journals have been a great resource for students and researcher. However, there are some issues with credibility when it comes to articles that are published in predatory journals. Predatory journals publish articles that do not follow the same academic standards as other legitimate online and print journals. Key signs of predatory journals are:

Accepts and publishes inappropriate articles since there is little to no peer review
Making false claims about the publishing and its operations
Author(s) pay a high fee to get their article published
Using a similar name and/or style of a website of an established journal
Wrong usage of ISSNs

Because of these reasons, articles in predatory journals are questionable and lack credibility. There are three sources you can use in order to determine whether or not an open access journal is a predatory journal:

ISU Article Indexes and Databases: Useful for identifying journal by both subject and if they are peer-reviewed or not. http://instr.iastate.libguides.com/az.php
Ulrichsweb: An easy to search source of detailed information on periodicals of all types: academic and scholarly journals, e-journals, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and more. http://ulrichsweb.serialssolutions.com.proxy.lib.iastate.edu/ [available via your ISU Library proxy server credentials]
Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers and Standalone Journals: Gives an list of scholarly open-access standalone journals that are potential predatory journals, although the service was active until January 2017 and is no longer being undated. https://beallslist.weebly.com/