Inside Beall’s lists

The analysis confirms that the vast majority of journals implicated on Beall’s lists are scholarly marginal and often quite weird, which gives credibility to the suspicion that they are using non-standard editorial practices. Academics, who are concerned about their professional reputation, should better stay away from them. However, there are also enlisted journals that may not be predatory in the true sense. In particular, the list of publishers contains two important entries, namely Frontiers and Impact Journals, the accusation of which being predatory appears to be questionable. Relatively high citation impact scores coupled with large shares of authors from advanced countries in journals under these publishing houses vindicates the controversy. Jeffrey Beall in these verdicts challenges opinion of hundreds if not thousands researchers worldwide, who apparently read and quite frequently cite results reported in these journals