Informing Researcher and Clinician Decisions to Interact with a Scholarly Publication: Identifying Preferences for a Journal Transparency Tool

Advances in healthcare and research are published in peer-reviewed biomedical journals all over the world. Our previous research shows that predatory journals, or fake academic journals, pose a threat to this. Predatory journals claim to publish high-quality research, but they do not follow accepted scientific publishing practices (e.g., peer review, indexing). If health decisions are made based on low-quality research published in predatory journals, this is a problem. When using a search engine, researchers and clinicians come across predatory journals in a variety of ways, including looking for up-to-date information or looking for a journal to submit to. A digital journal transparency tool, in our vision, could help clinicians and researchers decide whether to use an article to guide patient care, cite, or submit their own research to a particular journal. The tool would provide real-time data on a journal’s practises to aid in making informed decisions. The objective of this project is to identify researcher preferences for this journal transparency tool.

Faculty Supervisor:

David Moher;Alfonso Iorio;Kelly Cobey

Student:

Partner:

EBSCO Health

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Information and cultural industries; Retail trade

University:

University of Ottawa

Program: