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At the end of the course, we hope you will be able to:\ Describe the history of scholarly publishing and the impact of open access on scholarly communication Become aware of the drivers that create space for predatory practices to flourish in scholarly publishing Adopt interventions to lessen the im...

At the end of the course, we hope you will be able to:\ Describe the history of scholarly publishing and the impact of open access on scholarly communication Become aware of the drivers that create space for predatory practices to flourish in scholarly publishing Adopt interventions to lessen the impact of deceptive and low-quality journals We would like to emphasize that our perspective is based on our experience working in a well-funded biomedical library in the United States. The subject we are discussing encompasses numerous viewpoints and topics. It is highly probable that some individuals in this class have more expertise in specific areas of these topics than we do. Our field often involves being surrounded by diverse types of expertise, and we wholeheartedly welcome it. Perhaps the best place to start in understanding how unscrupulous and deceptive publishing practices became so easily ingrained in scholarly publishing is to examine the pressures that existed over the last 40 to 50 years. We will cover four eras in scholarly communication, from the Serials Crisis to the rise of the electronic journal, continuing with the Open Access Movement to the beginnings of transformative agreements. Throughout this journey, we will examine various factors that contributed to the rise of predatory publishing, including the commercialization of scholarly communications, heavy reliance on research metrics for evaluation, and shortcomings in the peer-review system. In the 1990s and early 2000s, libraries and academic institutions were in the grip of the Serials Crisis. As publishers increased library subscription costs, serial expenditures rose 51% (median) from 1985-1990 but libraries held 1% fewer subscriptions (Okerson 1991) in that same time period. The rapidly rising costs of serials and declining budgets caught libraries between a rock and a hard place with the effect of severely inhibiting the growth of library acquisitions, which further exacerbated the revenue loss by publishers and the circle of rising prices and lower acquisitions continued. In reaction to journal cancellations by libraries, commercial publishers introduced comprehensive licensing of their journal collections, dubbed the "Big Deal" where "libraries agree to buy electronic access to all of a commercial publisher's journals for a price based on current payments to that publisher, plus some increment" (Frazier, 2001). The Big Deal was initially celebrated but while the big deal might have appealing qualities, it held the potential to weaken library collections by replacing library ownership of journals with time-bound licenses to access that content, and big deals are not generally sustainable as they are "based on the presumption that libraries can continually increase expenditures for journals and that publishers must have perpetual revenue growth." (Frazier, 2005). As you can imagine, that is not the future that was going to be coming about.\ In late 1970's the internet's modest beginnings as a few computers communicating on a single network, advanced into a network of networks, and eventually into networks that used websites and hyperlinks called the World Wide Web in 1983 (Andrews, 2019). Many hoped that with the invention of the internet there existed the potential to relieve pressures caused by the Serials Crisis by increasing access to and dissemination of research to a wide audience, so that access would no longer be dependent on ownership, subscriptions, or licensing of content. Some early experiments with sharing research on the internet have become important, long-lived resources. Archive (ArXiv) was launched in 1991 as a database that provides free access to and dissemination of preprints and now post prints. Preprints are versions of articles that are intended to be published, but have yet to undergo formal peer-review (Garisto, 2019). A similar model was taken up by SSRN (formerly the Social Science Research Network) in 1994 as a repository for preprints in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, and health sciences and became financially self-sustaining through advertising. SSRN was later acquired by Elsevier in May 2016 (Elsevier, 2016). Commercial publishers converted to electronic publishing but also identified that the fixed costs of publishing (such as manuscript processing, editorial review, copy-editing, XML coding, marketing, etc.) represent 70--80% of total publishing costs. It seemed that regardless of whether the journal was print or online, there were few costs savings to be found (Halliday, 2001). In terms of access and dissemination, digital publishing was not providing relief for the Serials Crisis. Commercial publishers converted to electronic publishing but also identified that the fixed costs of publishing (such as manuscript processing, editorial review, copy-editing, XML coding, marketing, etc.) represent 70--80% of total publishing costs. It seemed that regardless of whether the journal was print or online, there were few costs savings to be found (Halliday, 2001). In terms of access and dissemination, digital publishing was not providing relief for the Serials Crisis. In response to the continued Serials Crisis and the stagnating promise of online publishing, the Association of Research Libraries launched the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (called SPARC) in 1998 which proposed to "enhance broad and cost-effective access to peer-reviewed scholarship" (Johnson, 2002). SPARC Europe was launched soon after in 2001 (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, 2022). Early on, SPARC published example business plans for libraries to start up digital repositories (SPARC, 2002) and journals and they "created partnerships with publishers who are developing high quality, economical alternatives to existing high-priced publications." (Halliday, 2001) SPARC also became a strong advocate of the burgeoning Open Access movement and continues to be one to this day.\ SPARC was not the only group interested in accelerating open access. In February 2002, the Open Society Institute (now Open Society Foundations) held a meeting in Budapest, Hungary, to identify opportunities to support open access in all academic fields. This meeting resulted in a formalized definition of open access and a statement of strategy and commitment to the Open Access movement (BOAI, 2012). "By "open access" to \[peer-reviewed research literature\], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited." (BAOI, 2012) Other famous open access initiatives include the:\ Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (Max Planck Society, 2003).\ Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (Brown, 2003) In 2003 the Directory of Open Access Journals (called DOAJ) launched as a catalog of 300 open access journals which make all their content available for free without delay (Pincock, 2004). In 2015 DOAJ had grown to over 11,000 journals and had improved their 7 question vetting process to include a rigorous set of 50 questions that ranged "from the transparency of the journal's editorial processes to peer review and selection criteria, to plagiarism screening mechanisms, requiring full disclosure on all of these areas before a journal is accepted for inclusion in the DOAJ database" (Adams, 2015). This re-application process in 2015 removed close to 5,000 journals, mostly for failure to re-apply. The directory now lists up to 15,000 journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and the humanities ("Directory of Open Access Journals", 2022).\ The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) was a launched in October 2024 as a membership organization that represents the interests of open access journal publishers globally. It sets standards for open access publishing, provides a forum for members to share best practices, and advocates for open access policies and practices. It has since expanded its activities to include matters pertaining to open access books and open scholarly infrastructure. During the early to mid-2000s, several prominent new publishers emerged, pioneering the concept of fully open access for e-journals. An early adopter of the online open access publishing was BioMed Central, which was founded in 2000 and made articles immediately open access for readers. Because they did not charge readers subscription fees, they relied instead on charging authors an article processing fee to publish as their main revenue source (Butler, 2000). Biomed Central was also an innovator in peer-review by being the first publisher to openly post named peer reviewer reports alongside their articles for medical journals. Biomed Central was later acquired by Springer in 2008. Another adopter of open access publishing was the Public Library of Science which received a \$9 million grant from the Moore Foundation (PLoS, 2002) and announced the launch of PLOS Biology in 2003 and PLOS Medicine in 2004, and eventually the PLOS One mega journal which represents a broad range of subject areas, accepts articles based on technical soundness, publishes a high volume each month, and relies on article processing charges to cover their costs (Eaton, 2004; Giles 2007). The early to mid-2000's saw the launch of several other fully open access publishers that used article processing fees for their main source of income. Also notable are the recent acquisitions of these fully open access publishers by major commercial publishers. Some of these include: F1000 Research launched in 2000 which covers the life sciences where articles are published first and peer-reviewed after by invited reviewers ("Faculty of 1000", 2002), the F1000 publisher was later acquired by Taylor & Francis in January 2020. Frontiers Media was launched in 2007 and publishes journals in medicine and science and was later acquired by Nature Research in 2013 Hindawi was a commercial publisher but moved to full open access in 2007 and publishes scientific, technical, and medical journals and was later acquired by Wiley in 2021 ("Frontiers Media", 2022). The mega journal and open access publishing company PeerJ launched in 2012 had a slightly different model, and started with a one-time membership fee to authors, which in return for reviewing one paper per year, authors could publish in the journal for life (Binfield, 2014). In 2016 they moved to article processing fees but still offer the life membership as an alternative ("PeerJ", 2022).\ Existing commercial publishers were able to rely on their immense scale and financial depths to transition print journals into electronic formats. Gradually, they introduced electronic-only journals as well. However, despite having the infrastructure for electronic journals, they hesitated to embrace the open access movement. This reluctance stemmed from the need to restructure existing business processes in an uncharted market, leading to apprehension about untested outcomes. In the early days, several models were proposed for commercial publishers to support open access. The hybrid model was "first proposed in 1998 when Thomas Walker suggested that authors could purchase extra visibility at a price" ("Hybrid Open Access Journal, 2022). In this approach, authors have the option to make their work openly available to readers by paying an article processing fee, while the publisher also charges the library a subscription fee for access to the entire journal's contents. The hybrid model gained popularity among major commercial publishers due to its perceived low-risk nature and cost-effectiveness, making it an appealing choice. However, concerns arose when some hybrid journals were accused of"double dipping.\" This term refers to situations where publishers charge a high article processing fee but do not adequately reduce subscription costs for libraries and readers, leading to potential financial imbalances (Björk, 2014).   More recently, the number of journals offering the hybrid option has increased from around 2,000 in 2009 to almost 10,000 in 2016 (Björk, 2017). It is also notable that hybrid journals were consistently charging higher APC than fully open access journals (also known as gold journals) (Björk, 2014, a). While this hybrid approach aims to make research more openly available to readers, it can create challenges for underfunded libraries struggling to afford subscription costs and for researchers struggling to afford article processing fees to publish. Before delving into "Open Access," it's essential to take a moment to grasp the broader concept of "open." Today, "Open Access" is just one facet of a larger movement known as "Open Science." Open Science serves as an umbrella term that aims to enhance the accessibility of scholarly research findings. This inclusivity extends to a wide array of outputs, such as code, data, research papers, educational resources, software, tools, presentations, and conference materials. Within the framework of Open Science, the focus lies on making these outputs available in a manner that permits their reuse, redistribution, and reproduction, along with access to the underlying data and methodologies employed in the research process. This concerted effort aims to foster collaboration and drive progress within the academic and scientific communities. (Foster, 2022). It is important to acknowledge that issues similar to those discussed today regarding predatory practices can occur across all aspects of "openness" within this larger ecosystem. There are many types of Open Access models at the article-level that are typically described using a color system, and include: Gold Open Access which refers to making an article or book freely available immediately upon publication on the publisher's website. Some journals or books will be licensed for sharing and re-use using a Creative Commons License (or similar license schema) ("Open Access", 2022) Green Open Access refers to self-archiving a version of the article in an online repository where it can be made freely available at some point in the publication process ("Open Access", 2022).\ Bronze Open Access are articles that are "available on websites hosted by their publisher --- either immediately or following an embargo --- but are not formally licensed for reuse (Brock, 2018)."\ Platinum/Diamond Open Access was coined in 2013, "where not-for-profit, non-commercial organizations, associations or networks publish material that is made available online in digital format, is free of charge for readers and authors and does not allow commercial and for-profit re-use ("Diamond open access", 2022)". Note: Hybrid Open Access is typically a journal-level description in which publishers charge authors an article processing fee if they want to make their work openly available to readers, and the publisher also charges the library a subscription fee for the entire contents of the journal ("Hybrid open-access journal", 2022). The articles are then considered "Gold Open Access" or "Bronze Open Access" depending on an embargo and licensing.\ The publication of papers or books and securing research grants for groundbreaking research are fundamental aspects through which scholars gain recognition and rewards for their contributions to advancing knowledge in their respective fields. Consequently, performance evaluations for faculty often rely on quantitative metrics, emphasizing productivity and citation impact. Both universities and government funding bodies tend to reward productivity and prestige, intensifying the pressure felt by faculty to achieve high levels of output. Unfortunately, this emphasis on quantity over quality in research evaluation systems has inadvertently created an environment conducive to predatory journals. In their quest to publish and NOT perish, some researchers may fall prey to predatory publishers. Compounding the issue is the escalating field of competition. of competition continues to increase. The number of full-time researchers worldwide has been steadily increasing, reaching 7.8 million in 2013---a 21% growth since 2007, as reported by the UNESCO Science Report ("Facts and figures", 2021). Although Research and Development expenditures have risen in wealthier countries, much of the increase occurs in the private sector, while public commitment to R&D has declined in many of these nations. This intensifying competition, coupled with the pressure to produce prolifically, contributes to the vulnerability of the academic publishing landscape to predatory practices. The unethical practices of predatory publishers involve artificially inflating their metrics to appear more legitimate, preying on researchers under the pressure of the publish or perish version of research evaluation. However, the responsible metrics movement advocates for a change from simplistic and narrow metrics like the journal impact factor, towards a more comprehensive evaluation of research quality and impact. This approach considers factors such as content, novelty, and significance. Moreover, it recognizes and values various forms of scholarly output, including data sharing, preprints, and open access publications. The responsible metrics movement seeks to establish robust evaluation systems that resist manipulation, making it challenging for predatory publishers to deceive through metrics. At present, journal publishers assume the responsibility of evaluating research quality through the peer-review process. However, in predatory publishing, this crucial process is frequently conducted poorly or, in some cases, entirely absent. To combat predatory publishing, it is imperative to reduce the reliance on metrics for research evaluation, as this can drive researchers to publish extensively and inadvertently contribute to the growth of predatory publishers. Instead, emphasis should be placed on prioritizing expert peer review to thoroughly assess the quality of research and ensure its integrity. Open identities, open reports, and open interactions can play a crucial role in achieving this goal. However, it's essential to acknowledge that biases can emerge and impact the open peer-review process. Studies have shown that reviewers might favor papers from famous authors or prestigious institutions, display language or regional biases, and gender bias (Tomkins et al., 2017; "Global State of Peer-review," 2018; Helmer et al., 2017). To minimize biases, some peer-review processes have become confidential or closed, adopting single or double-blind methods. However, this confidentiality can allow fraudulent journals to thrive by engaging in dubious peer-review practices that lack rigor, trust, and accountability, going unnoticed or omitting the peer-review process altogether. These journals can accept more papers quickly, maximizing their profits through Article Processing Charges (APCs). The lack of expert peer reviewers and policies in closed processes can be obscured, making it challenging to identify low-quality journals. The implementation of transparent peer review, allowing reviewers to remain anonymous while using single- or double-blind review methods, can offer a "hybrid" model that avoids pressuring reviewers to disclose their identity and reduces fears of reprisal or collaboration challenges (Wiley, n.d.). Despite the crucial role of peer reviewers in ensuring research quality, they are often undervalued and lack recognition and professional support (Gouri Panicker, 2019). This disparity leads to an imbalance in peer-review capacity, with a small number of reviewers handling the majority of reviews, further concealing predatory journals (Kovanis et al., 2016). Peer-Review Week was established in 2015 as an annual event to explore exploring all aspects of how those participating in review activity -- in publishing, grant review, conference submissions, promotion and tenure, and more -- should be recognized for their contribution To combat predatory publishing effectively, greater emphasis should be placed on expert peer review, transparency, and recognition of reviewers' vital contributions to the research process.. Universities have demonstrated significant support for the open access movement through various means, including the establishment of institutional repositories, implementation of open access mandates, and the provision of open access funds. These endeavors demonstrate their commitment to facilitating legitimate and quality open access publications while combating predatory practices. Universities have also implemented open access mandates to encourage faculty engagement. Notably, in 2008, Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences became the first in the United States to adopt an open access mandate (Friend, 2008). The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMap) (https://roarmap.eprints.org/), as of February 2022, lists 877 research organization mandates, with 148 in the US. Open access funds, provided by universities, have become necessary to support scholars who wish to publish in open access journals but lack financial backing from funding agencies. These funds play a vital role in facilitating open access publishing for students, fellows, and faculty members. A 2016 report by SPARC highlighted 51 institutions across North America committing over \$2.2 million for open access publishing, with 3,863 published papers and support provided to 3,121 authors (Tananbaum, 2014). Despite universities' active promotion of open access, they face challenges in sustaining open access funds due to increasing demands for open access fees. As a result, some institutions have opted to explore alternative options, such as investing in transformative agreements, which will be discussed later. However, the continued support from universities remains essential in ensuring the credibility and accessibility of open access publishing. The institutional repository emerged as a logical convergence of three factors: the need for universities and libraries to reclaim control over their scholarship by archiving faculty research, the desire to alleviate concerns with the traditional subscription-based publishing system, and the opportunity presented by digital networks and publishing technologies (SPARC, 2002). The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) launched in 2005 (https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/opendoar/) reports a global count of 5,888 repositories (as of July 2022), encompassing journal articles, theses, dissertations, books, conference papers, and more, spanning various subject areas such as social sciences, sciences, humanities, technology, health, and medicine (Jisc, 2022). Predatory publishing has been significantly influenced by policies set forth by government agencies and research funders, making them major drivers within the open access movement. Collectively referred to as "government and funders," this group has the authority to enforce open access mandates while also allowing the costs of open access publishing to be covered through grant funds, alleviating the burden from individual authors (Huang, 2020) or university open access funds. The mid-2000s saw the rapid implementation of numerous mandates, which have been periodically updated over time. Funder policies related to open access can be found in Sherpa Juliet https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/. These policies play a crucial role in shaping the landscape of academic publishing and play a significant part in addressing predatory practices within the realm of open access. Learned, scholarly, or professional societies and associations were also impacted by the "serials crisis" and the movement toward open access. Unlike profit-driven commercial publishers, these societies and associations are driven by their mission to serve the needs of their members (Halliday, 2001). According to David Prosser "The irony of this situation is while the large commercial publishers take a growing percentage of the library budget at the expense of small publishers, it is often the smaller, society publishers who produce some of the leading journals in a given field" (Prosser, 2004).\ With limited subscriptions, the visibility and dissemination of journals decline, leading to reduced citations and lower impact factors. Consequently, this affects a journal's ability to attract high-quality research (Cooney, 2010). Over 97% of society publishers publish fewer than three journals, with 90% publishing just one, making even minor changes have a significant impact (Crow, 2006). The transition to electronic journals further added to the challenges for society and small publishers, requiring the implementation of infrastructure for electronic publishing. Many of them chose to adopt third-party services or partner with publishers like BioMed Central (founded in 2000 and now owned by Springer Nature since 2008), which has been publishing society journals since 2003, to meet their electronic publishing needs (Cooney, 2010). In response to the changing landscape, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) was launched in 2008 to encourage open access as the predominant mode of scholarly publication. Initially comprising 25 members, OASPA has grown to 175 members in 2021 (Redhead, 2021). For many society and small publishers, transitioning to an open access model was a complex process, but it allowed them to fulfill their mission of disseminating specialized research to wider audiences. With increasing support from government agencies, funders, and universities for open access, some newer publishers found open access to be a lower-risk approach as it doesn't rely on building subscriptions to cover costs (Cooney, 2010). Embracing open access has offered opportunities for these societies and associations to navigate the challenges of predatory publishing while continuing to serve their academic communities effectively. Advocates have tirelessly worked to promote the benefits of Open Access, establish supportive infrastructure, and advance policies benefiting researchers, research institutions, and society. In 2008, SPARC, along with PLoS and Students for Free Culture, launched the first Open Access Week, an annual event that continues to thrive, focusing on various themes each year ("About Open," 2022; Johnson, 2014). However, a common misconception exists about "publicly available" content, often leading to inappropriate re-use without recognizing copyright protections (Gadd, 2004). In the U.S., copyright safeguards original works of authorship and grants the author protection for the duration of their life plus seventy years after their death. While US copyright law primarily focuses on protecting the economic rights of the rightsholder, there are also moral rights that safeguard non-economic interests, including the right to claim authorship and the right to object to any distortion or modification of the work. In 2001, Lawrence Lessig and Eric Eldred recognized the need for a license bridging the gap between copyright and public domain, emphasizing moral rights. The debut of Creative Commons licenses in 2002 offered creators the ability to permit display, public performance, reproduction, and distribution, with optional restrictions like attribution, non-commercial use, no derivative works, or sharealike conditions (Gadd, 2004). Unlike the traditional "all rights reserved" copyright, Creative Commons licenses enable authors to state "some rights reserved" and offer three incarnations: human-readable versions, lawyer-readable documents, and machine-readable metadata. These licenses have been adapted to over 50 jurisdictions worldwide to reflect local laws. Historically, authors often transferred their copyrights to publishers, leading to concerns about limited control and high prices for access. Advocacy efforts, like SPARC's author addendum, aimed to empower authors to retain rights, allowing reuse, posting in online depositories, and granting licenses to the public (Thatcher, 2008). Many gold open access journals now permit authors to retain copyright, granting them full control over their work and the ability to apply Creative Commons licenses to indicate how the public can reuse it (Lange, 2022). In 2014, the Authors Alliance was established as a nonprofit organization advocating for authors' rights, promoting open access to knowledge, and supporting balanced copyright policies. It is no secret that early open access journals had flaws. To highlight these flaws, particularly those pertaining to peer-review, Dr. John Bohannon a correspondent with Science, submitted fake scientific papers to 304 open access journals from January through August 2013. Bohannon had molecular biologists at Harvard University "fine-tune the scientific flaws so that they were both obvious and"boringly bad.\"" According to Bohannon, "The paper's final statement should chill any reviewer who reads that far." (Bohannon, 2013) Of the 304 submissions made by Bohannon, "157 of the journals had accepted the paper and 98 had rejected it. Of the remaining 49 journals, 29 seem to be derelict: websites abandoned by their creators." Bohannon notes that "Of the 255 papers that underwent the entire editing process to acceptance or rejection, about 60% of the final decisions occurred with no sign of peer review." (Bohannon 2013) What was most shocking perhaps is that open access journals published by Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, and Sage all accepted the paper; though notably PLoS One and Hindawi did not. In response to quality issues raised by this test and by the scholarly community at large, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) improved their 7 question vetting process to include a rigorous set of 50 questions that ranged "from the transparency of the journal's editorial processes to peer review and selection criteria, to plagiarism screening mechanisms, requiring full disclosure on all of these areas before a journal \[was\] accepted for inclusion in the DOAJ database" (Adams, 2015). Dr. Bohannon's test was not the first attempt to highlight the flaws of Open Access publishing. Jeffery Beall, a librarian from the University of Colorado in Denver, had noticed that some of these new journals were taking on practices that lacked transparency and had poor quality control. As early as 2009, Beall had written a review about the questionable practices of a particular new Open Access-only publisher in the Charleston Advisor, and in a second review in 2010, he coined the term "predatory publisher" (Beall, 2013). Soon after, he changed the focus of his online blog, now commonly called Beall's List (Beall, 2022), to include lists of publishers (and later individual journals) that he considered to have potential, possible, or probable predatory practices. Bohannon expressed that Beall was good at spotting these questionable publishers; 82% of the publishers who accepted Bohannon's bogus paper were on Beall's list (Bohannon, 2012). Beall's List was not without controversy. Though the list is widely used by universities to instruct researchers on which journals not to submit to, there were intense criticisms from the publishing and scholarly community. These criticisms included Beall's own bias against open access publishing, casting suspicion against new publishers, and the use of a pejorative term such as predatory when discussing publishing (Kimotho, 2019). When Beall's list was taken down in 2017, most likely due to the immense pressure he faced by the community and his employer, it had 1,163 publishers and 1,310 stand-alone journals (Kendall, 2021). Some major open access publishers found on Jeffrey Beall's list before it was shutdown in 2017:\ 2009: Bentham Open reviewed by Beall in Charleston Advisor, and added in 2010 Beall's list and was never removed 2010: A subset of Hindawi journals were included on Beall's list but later removed 2012: Dove Medical Press was added to Beall's list but later removed 2014: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) was included on Jeffrey Beall's list but met OASPA Membership criteria that same year 2015: Frontiers Media was added to Beall's list despite of being a member of COPE, never removed In 2017, Cabell's Scholarly Analytics (previously the Directory of Publishing Opportunities) launched a subscription product which now includes a Journalytics report for reputable journals and a Predatory Report that evaluates journals based on 64 criteria including integrity, peer-review and publication practices.\ There are now several industry initiatives to maintain transparency and ethical standards among journals and publishers -- and these initiatives can help us determine the journal's reputation. Directory of Open Access Journals, which is an independent index of fully open access (i.e. Gold OA) journals has a mission to increase the visibility, accessibility, and reputation of open access scholarly research journals. Journals must apply for membership and those that meet the minimum criteria (DOAJ, 2020) are added to the directory. DOAJ: https://doaj.org/ The Committee on Publication Ethics or COPE provides advice and guidance on best practice for dealing with ethical issues in journal publishing. Journals and publishers can become a member of COPE to show that they intend to follow the highest standards of publication ethics. COPE has minimum set of criteria (COPE, 2018) derived from the DOAJ criteria that journals are assessed against when they apply for membership. COPE Member List: https://publicationethics.org/members There are several other groups who also have similar initiatives to COPE and DOAJ. ICMJE List of Journals: http://www.icmje.org/journals-following-the-icmje-recommendations/ Retraction Watch: http://retractionwatch.com/ Think, Check, Submit: https://thinkchecksubmit.org/ In 2008, the OMICS Publishing Group launched its first fully open access journal called the Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics. By 2012, the company was committed to publishing gold open access, and had more than 200 journals though 60% of them had no content (Brainard, 2019). The publishing company was criticized for several predatory behaviors:\ Using titles that closely resemble reputable journals, for example:  BioMed Central established the Journal of Biomedical Science in 1994, while OMICS established the Journal of Biomedical Sciences in 2012 ("OMICS Publishing Group", 2022)\ Charging authors a withdrawal fee for publications that authors withdraw five or more days after submission, a non-standard fee that most reputable publishers do not charge (Brezgov, 2019) Targeting young investigators and those in lower income regions with large numbers of emails requesting they submit content (Kaiser, 2013) Slow to remove (or not remove at all) researchers from editorial boards when they request to withdraw once the journal's practices come to light (Masic, 2017) Though not fully proved, it is said that they provided fake lists of scientists as journal editors to create an impression of scientific legitimacy (Yadav, 2018) Ignoring reviewers' requests for revisions and publishing articles in unaltered or unedited formats (Cohen, 2015) Providing poor to no peer-review; of 69,000 manuscripts published by OMICS from 2011 to 2017, the publisher provided evidence that only half had been sent out for peer review (Brainard, 2019) Generating unofficial impact factors based on citations from Google Scholar (Brainard, 2019) In addition, OMICS was one of the publishers caught in 2013 in Dr. John Bohannon's sting operation to uncover low quality practices in peer-review. In 2013, the U.S. National Institutes of Health sent a cease-and-desist letter to OMICS claiming, " We are aware of multiple instances where the website uses the name of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), its Institutes, PubMed Central, or the names of NIH employees in an erroneous and/or misleading manner." (Kaiser, 2013) The letter further asks OMICS to "cease and desist from employing our name or the name of any of our agencies, institutes or employees on your website for other than true factual statements." (Kaiser, 2013). All OMICS publications were removed from PubMedCentral in 2013. Also in 2013, the OMICS director, \[Srinubabu\] Gedela, claimed in an interview that he threatened to sue Jeffery Beall for \$1 billion because of claims that OMICS was a predatory publisher, though the matter was not known to be pursued ("Beall's List", 2022). The NIH turned the issues of their cease and desist letter to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In August 2016, the FTC filed a lawsuit against the OMICS group and a decision was reached in 2019 in favor of the FTC fining OMICS \$50 million based on the company's total revenue from 2011 to 2017 (Brainard, 2019). Unfortunately, the FTC can only collect money based on assets owned by OMICS in the U.S., which is unlikely to be found. Also, the FTC did vow to take journals offline if OMICS does not changes its practices. (Kolata, 2019) One of biggest "shocks" to the open access movement in recent years has been the implementation of Plan S which is an open access mandate that requires immediate open access to all published papers stemming from research funding. Plans for Plan S were launched in 2018 but the mandate did not go into effect until January 1, 2020. It has been implemented by national funding agencies of countries including the United Kingdom, France, and Austria, as well as private funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Rabesandratana, 2018). To date, 16 funders in 13 countries have signed on to Plan S. In order to comply with Plan S, grantees can:  Publish in an OA journal or platform  Publish in a subscription journal, provided they make a final peer-reviewed version or accepted manuscript immediately available in an OA repository.  Publish in hybrid journals, which charge subscriptions and also offer authors a paid OA option, but only if the journal commits to flip to full OA (known as "transformative journals") (Coalition S support for transformative journals will end in December 2024). (Rabesandratana, 2018) Plan S has the potential to "shake up" the publishing industry and increase the momentum toward fully gold open access journals. However some researchers are concerned that Plan S could restrict their publishing choices, especially for well-known publishers that are reluctant to flip their hybrid journals. The take away for many of us today is that we should watch this space for new developments (Rabesandratana, 2019). With the rise of open access and the ongoing Serials Crisis, there is a financial strain on both subscription funds and the support available for publishing in open access journals. A recent study found that 16% of the content in the Web of Science from 2014-2017 was available as hybrid open access, indicating a potential issue with "double dipping"(Robinson-Garcia, 2020). This refers to libraries not experiencing a reduction in subscription costs despite researchers in their institutions paying article processing fees to publish open access in the same journals. To address this problem, libraries and publishers have established agreements known as offsetting, read and publish, or publish and read agreements. These practices are now described as transformative agreements, which focus on transforming subscription-based agreements into arrangements that prioritize"reading and publishing." If you are interested in learning more about transformative agreements, the ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry, launched in 2014, aims to promote workflow efficiencies and library-driven standards in managing open access article processing charges. You can find more information at: https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/agreement-registry/ The resurgence of preprint servers in recent years has offered a promising solution to combat issues related to predatory publishing. Preprint servers enable researchers to share their work openly and receive feedback from the wider academic community. Reputable preprint servers further enhance the credibility of the content they host. Researchers and readers can place their trust in preprints posted on established servers, as these platforms typically conduct basic checks for plagiarism and compliance with their policies. ASPBio maintains a comprehensive list of preprint servers, providing researchers with easy access to these valuable resources: https://asapbio.org/preprint-servers Artificial intelligence (AI) may play a crucial role in addressing the issue of predatory publishing by assisting researchers, institutions, and publishers in identifying and avoiding predatory journals. By analyzing the content and metadata of articles, AI can spot common traits found in predatory journals, such as poor grammar, excessive self-citations, and lack of editorial oversight. AI can offer researchers recommendations for trustworthy and reputable journals based on the topic and content of their research. This guidance can help researchers avoid predatory journals and select appropriate outlets for their work. However, it is important to acknowledge that AI's application in academic publishing can have its drawbacks, as pointed out by Simon Linacre. He highlights how AI might be utilized to further erode trust in the academic publishing system. For example, imagine you are an unethical author and just want to get a publication in a recognized journal, and are willing to take some risks to do so, but unwilling to actually write a real paper yourself. Publishing in a predatory journal is an option, but it will cost a few hundred dollars and only gives you a publication in a journal few people have heard of, so significant risk for minimal reward. However, if you ask an AI to write you a paper and then make some tweaks, you might get it published in a better journal for no fee (assuming you take the non-open access route) (Linacre, 2023). Diamond open access can play a significant role in addressing issues with predatory publishing by providing a sustainable and transparent alternative publishing model. Diamond open access is a form of open access where scholarly works are made freely available to readers without charging authors any article processing charges (APCs) or fees. Diamond open access journals are typically funded by academic institutions, societies, or non-profit organizations. This transparent funding model ensures that the publication process is not driven by profit motives, reducing the chances of predatory practices. Diamond open access journals typically adhere to ethical publishing practices, such as clearly stating their peer review process, editorial policies, and copyright policies. This transparency helps authors make informed decisions about where to submit their work.