Disrupting predatory journals

The ‘publish or perish’ race among researchers force at least some of them to opt for quick outlets for publication, making them fall into the trap of predatory journals. With a strong base and history of research institutions and journals, the present study explores grooming a reasonable number of quality journals in India to tackle the menace of predatory publishing. The data presented are collected from different sources to work out the approximate minimum number of quality journals that can be strengthened using state-of-the-art technology solutions as well as internationally competitive journal editorial, review and publishing procedures. It is difficult to deal with the commercial interests of predatory publishers through academic safeguards alone. However, their negative impact can be contained through a set of action plans by various stakeholders, such as sensitizing authors about the perils of predatory publishing, training new authors about the nuances of academic publishing to facilitate their manuscripts getting accepted in good journals, strengthening Indian journals to publish more quality papers, etc.