Predatory Publisher - Check Before You Publish

Many people talks about 'publish or perish' in the higher education industry now. Meaning, if an academician want to build his or her career in this field, one must conduct research and publish the paper in journals. Publication is also one of the criteria for promotion for academia.

I have to agree that it is important to publish a research work if it served the purpose of sharing the intellectual knowledge of new findings/conclusions that contribute to shape our society. This is why www.businessdictionary.com defined research as:

"Systematic investigative process employed to increase or revise current knowledge by discovering new facts. It is divided into two general categories: (1) Basic research is inquiry aimed at increasing scientific knowledge, and (2) Applied research is effort aimed at using basic research for solving problems or developing new processes, products, or techniques."

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/research.html#ixzz49jswWhCD

However, I am so surprised to learn that there are so many blacklisted publishers and journals out there. Some of these journals have so many papers published by academicians from various institutions. These blacklisted publishers not recognized due to potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers, misleading metrics and hijacked journals.

The Beall's list of predatory open access publishers 2016 provides a summary of the number of predatory publishers and journals.
https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2016/

For the list of predatory publishers and journals, you can access to these:
https://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/
https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
and
http://blog.scopus.com/posts/titles-indexed-in-scopus-check-before-you-publish

Even our Malaysia Ministry of Education (MOE) has a list of blacklisted journals compiled in May 2015 which you can download with this link: http://epsas.upm.edu.my/psasrip/images/pdf2015/publishers.pdf
Don't publish for the sake of publication or for promotion. There is no easy way to publish but to go through good publishers and high ranking journals like from Scopus or Web of Science . So, check on the publisher and journal credibility before you cite or submit for publication.

Can Wikipedia be used as source of reference for undergraduate and postgraduate assignments?

The answer is NOOOOoooo....

It is crucial to note that encyclopedias  or dictionaries, of any kind, including Wikipedia, Dictionary.com and Merriam Webster Online are not primary sources and should not be cited or used in constructing term papers at the undergraduate or graduate level. As such, these Internet websites can be useful to help gather some background information and to point the way to more scholarly source material (Simon & Goes, 2013).

For references, you should look for materials that are peer-reviewed or refereed and published in recognised academic publication. For example, reference books, professional journals or university publisher. The BEST source of referencing (highly recommended for undergraduate) is always "textbooks"!

So, do not waste your time to check if a website can be used as a reference for your assignment or research work, just head to the library/resource centre for the right materials.



Reference:
Simon, M. K. & Goes, J. (2013). Dissertation and scholarly research: recipes for success (2013 Edition). Seattle, WA: Dissertation Success, LLC.