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'At-risk articles': the imperative to recover lost science Cover

'At-risk articles': the imperative to recover lost science

Open Access
|Jun 2020

Abstract

Deceptive publishers have been discussed and written about from a multitude of perspectives and in a variety of disciplines, but scant attention has been devoted to a particular aspect of the issue: How we as scholarly communities are dealing with the research that appears in these outlets. It is problematic that the question is not being addressed, as this research is at risk of being lost. It is at risk because articles that appear in deceptive publications are not indexed, so they are less visible, discoverable and citable. Additionally, they are not preserved and therefore likely to disappear should the publisher cease its activities or neglect to carry out basic maintenance on their archives and servers. Furthermore, it is particularly problematic because this lost science is potentially valuable. In this article, it is argued that, rather than continuing to risk the loss of this potentially important research by ignoring its existence, research disciplines should look at developments in open peer review and the increasing use of preprint servers for their potential to recover and reintegrate these at-risk articles into the scholarly record.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.514 | Journal eISSN: 2048-7754
Language: English
Submitted on: Mar 24, 2020
Accepted on: Jun 4, 2020
Published on: Jun 24, 2020
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 3 issues per year

© 2020 Jeanette Hatherill, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.