Early career researchers and predatory journals during the Covid-19 pandemic. An international analysis

Nicholas, David; Bravo, Blanca Rodríguez; Boukacem‐Zeghmouri, Chérifa; Herman, Eti; Clark, David; Xu, Jie; Abrizah, Abdullah; Świgoń, Marzena; Watkinson, Anthony; Sims, David; Jamali, Hamid R.; Tenopir, Carol; Allard, Suzie

doi:10.3145/epi.2023.ene.17

EPI

2023

DOI: 10.3145/epi.2023.ene.17

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Early career researchers and predatory journals during the Covid-19 pandemic. An international analysis

David Nicholas¹,

Blanca Rodríguez Bravo

²

,

Chérifa Boukacem‐Zeghmouri

³

et al.

Abstract: Around 170 early career researchers (ECRs) from 8 countries were interviewed about the whole range of their scholarly communication attitudes/behaviours during pandemic times and this paper analyses what they said about predatory journals in a wide range of scholarly communication contexts. Because of the delicacy of the topic there was just one question exclusively directed at predatory journals, which asked about policies rather than actions, which yielded nevertheless wide-ranging comments on the topic. ECR… Show more

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Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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8

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“…2020, 2023; Nicholas et al. 2017, 2019, 2023; Rodríguez‐Bravo et al. 2017), the findings reported here focus on the latest developments in this area now that the presence of AI is increasingly being felt.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…As discussed elsewhere (Nicholas et al. 2023), whilst peer review is consensually held to be vital for safeguarding the quality, novelty, reliability, soundness, theoretical and empirical validity and potential impact of research (Eve et al. 2021; Nicholas et al.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Early Career Researchers on all Aspects of Peer Review: A Deep Dive Into the Data

Nicholas

¹

,

Bravo

²

,

Abrizah

³

et al. 2025

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Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

“…2020, 2023; Nicholas et al. 2017, 2019, 2023; Rodríguez‐Bravo et al. 2017), the findings reported here focus on the latest developments in this area now that the presence of AI is increasingly being felt.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…As discussed elsewhere (Nicholas et al. 2023), whilst peer review is consensually held to be vital for safeguarding the quality, novelty, reliability, soundness, theoretical and empirical validity and potential impact of research (Eve et al. 2021; Nicholas et al.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Career Researchers on all Aspects of Peer Review: A Deep Dive Into the Data

Nicholas

¹

,

Bravo

²

,

Abrizah

³

et al. 2025

Get access via publisher Add to dashboard Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

“…Additionally, the high fees charged by OA journals have also caused concerns, as a significant amount of research funding now flows into the hands of commercial OA publishers, rather than the research itself. This might explain that since 2024, it is thought that the number of submissions from China, for instance, to MDPI, a grey journal publisher (Nicholas et al, 2023) has decreased.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, ECRs are not aware of the costs because they are not the ones to make the decision whether and what to pay or not; they are also not involved in the negotiations of who among the authors is going to be the corresponding author and does the paying; or which author is going to enact the waiver, should that be possible. Thus, we have a complicated picture confused by the diversity of OA paths, funding policies and OA terminology, and, of course, by the raging debate over grey publishers which is ever present and especially raised by thematic issues (Nicholas et al, 2023).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Purchase and publish: Early career researchers and open access publishing costs

Nicholas

¹

,

Revez

²

,

Abrizah

³

et al. 2024

Learned Publishing

5

0

Get access via publisher Add to dashboard Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

“…Methodologically, ECRs have been identified by investigators as authors who may have less experience. In an international study of solely ECRs, Nicholas et al (2023) defined them as researchers under the age of 40 who have or are obtaining a doctorate and do not hold established or tenured positions. This research found that 63% of ECRs were aware of questionable practices including those exhibited by predatory journals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Faculty Knowledge of Predatory Journals in the United States: A Cross‐Institutional Survey

Webber

¹

,

Wiegand

²

,

Cohen

³

et al. 2025

Learned Publishing

0

Get access via publisher Add to dashboard Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

show abstract

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