Donna M. Romyn
Athabasca University, Canada
Title: Safeguarding evidence-informed nursing practice from predatory publishers
Biography
Biography: Donna M. Romyn
Abstract
The imperative to make research findings accessible via publication in open access journals has given rise to an unintended consequence – the proliferation of deceptive and predatory publishers in virtually every discipline, including nursing. The consequences of falling prey to the deceitful nad fraudulent practices of predatory publishers can be far reaching, including the loss of sound research findings that simply vanish with the abrupt demise of the predatory journals in which they were published.
Yet, despite the profoundly negative consequences of this growing phenomenon, there has been relatively little discussion of it in the nursing literature. One possible explanation for this is naivety: nurse scholars either are not aware of the issue or do not believe it is (or could be) a problem in nursing. A more troubling explanation is that they may believe they are too clever to be lured by the overtures of predatory publishers. The latter may not be true.
Strategies for guarding against the allure of predatory publishers will be highlighted in this presentation. Caution is essential, if nursing is to protect itself from this emerging threat and sustain a culture of sound, evidence-informed nursing education and practice. Doing so demands that nurse educators and scholars learn how to guard against inadvertently giving credence to predatory journals as a result of having naively been drawn into their editorial, peer-review and publication processes. They may not be able to stop the proliferation of predatory publishers but they can learn to resist their allure.