Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed a definition of predatory publishing. We present an article review leading to a guide for recognition of these journals.

Due to diversity and quick dissemination of information, journals have a higher number of audiences when compared with other information carriers. Nevertheless with the emerging new information technologies have contributed to the appeal and thriving of journals, Open Access journals in particular. The present paper intends initially to discuss the open access movement that gave rise to the emergence of open access journals. It would then introduce modes of open access as well as the characteristics and definitions associated with OAJ. This would be followed up by a classification of OAJ along with their advantages. Means for financing such journals as well as directory of open access journals would be also discussed. Finally, the OAJ covered by ISI as well as those published by the top 20 countries who lead science production are presented.

This paper aimed to study the citation behavior of the students of the school of veterinary medicine at Shahid Chamran University in the period of 1376-1380 using citation analysis which is one of the most important method of scientometric techniques. The core journals in this study were determined and compared with the list of the ISI journals to find out their impact factor ranked. Also the subjects of the studied dissertations were identified and compared with the subject catalogue of the Vet CD database in order to identify the subject areas which were probably less considered.

The world of academia has seen an unprecedented outbreak of so-called “hijacked journals,” where hackers create counterfeit websites that pose as the legitimate of actual journals (1-4). After publishing several scientific papers about hijacked journals and phony publishers, I have received a lot of email from scholars around the world who express their distress about being cheated by journal hijackers and losing their own hard-won academic reputations. They are also concerned about others stealing their research findings. Consistently, the most frequent question I receive in these emails concerns one important issue: Is the legitimate author allowed to republish her/his article in a legitimate journal- or would that constitute duplicate publication? In this short article, I want to share important information and an idea with readers and scholars in the academic world about this timely topic.

objective: The aim of this research is to identify common characteristics of invalid journals and to analyse Iranian articles published in those journals. Methodology; In this study, Bibliometric methods are used. A checklist was used to collect information about journals included in the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology’ s journals Black List (October 2013 Edition). journals’ websites and bibliographic databases were used as the source of information. The number of Iranian articles published in those journals and fees paid by authors for publishing their articles were studied. Finding: Thirteen out of 17 characteristics of prestigious journals were not present in more than half of the blacklist journals. Only four characteristics were common in the majority of the journals. From 2011 to 2014, 9, 665 articles by Iranian authors were published in blacklist journals and a sum of 4, 298, 262 $ has been paid. It is the first research about characteristics of Black List journals.

Purpose: To investigate the characteristics of misleading metrics and identify the extent to which Iranian journals use such indicators. Methodology: Charctrisitcs were harvested form th eliterature. Then, 410 Iranian journals using such metrics were identified from the misleading metrics websites. Data analysis was conducted using Microsoft Excel. Findings: Sudden disappearance from the web, large number of indexed journals, ambiguous and non-scientific methodologies, lack of accurate contact information, failure to notify about the scientific and administarive staff, charging journals for the calculation of metrics and conducting the evaluation in a short period of time were common. The name and information of 410 Iranian journals were listed in the website of 23 misleading metrics, 49 accredited by The Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) and 101 titles accredited by The Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MHME) mentioned at-least one misleading metric in their websites. Out of medical science journals 56% are affiliated with the medical science universities and institutions. Conclusion: Utilizing misleading metrics negatively affect the reputation of scientific journals. That put them at the rist to be listed as as predatory journals. Editorial boards are advised to avoid being indexed in misleading metrics and focus on reputable information and citation databases.