Re:Librarian removes controversial list of "predatory" journ...
by jmiserez on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @03:18PM
(#13475064)
> we need academic administrators on a separate career track to police the bloody lot.
No, we don't. Predatory journals are neither run by nor wanted by the academic community. They are a product of exactly such administrators looking at useless stats such as # of papers published in a "journal".
We don't need better trained bureaucrats that will ultimately still just look at "n papers published" or "x citations" or any other mindlessly calculated statistic.
The administrators you mention do not sound like peers (as in peer-review), but more like they are no longer involved in research and just do administrative tasks. If that is the case, then maybe they are simply the wrong people for the job.
Very few people can accurately assess the quality/impact of research, and most of these are the peers themselves, i.e. the researchers/academics currently active in the area. Lists like the one discussed are a helpful tool to do that assessment quicker, as some publications can be immediately flagged for lacking peer-review. But they do not replace actually understanding the research.
No, we don't. Predatory journals are neither run by nor wanted by the academic community. They are a product of exactly such administrators looking at useless stats such as # of papers published in a "journal".
We don't need better trained bureaucrats that will ultimately still just look at "n papers published" or "x citations" or any other mindlessly calculated statistic.
The administrators you mention do not sound like peers (as in peer-review), but more like they are no longer involved in research and just do administrative tasks. If that is the case, then maybe they are simply the wrong people for the job.
Very few people can accurately assess the quality/impact of research, and most of these are the peers themselves, i.e. the researchers/academics currently active in the area. Lists like the one discussed are a helpful tool to do that assessment quicker, as some publications can be immediately flagged for lacking peer-review. But they do not replace actually understanding the research.