Category Archives: About Resources

Hijacked Journals – A Predatory Journal Scam Sub-type

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Predatory journals have been part of the scholarly publishing discussion for a number of years now and numerous efforts have been made to develop training resources and tools to help potential authors establish whether or not a journal they are considering submitting a manuscript to is reputable or not.

Not surprisingly, as consumers are becoming more aware of the existence and threat of predatory publishing, the predators are adapting to this new reality and becoming more sophisticated – or rather – more downright sneaky in their ways. Which brings us to “Hijacked Journals”.

What is a “Hijacked Journal”?

A hijacked journal is basically a predatory journal that is not just trying to mimic another established journal by adopting a similar title and “look” to their publication, but rather is actually using a legitimate journal’s exact title, ISSN information, and other meta-data. This scam can happen to current titles published by larger publishers, but likely is more easily carried out successfully using journal titles that may have been recently ceased or to smaller society or university publications.

What can you do to protect yourself?

The usual strategies for avoiding predatory publishers still apply to avoiding hijacked journals. That said – taking extra steps to investigate whether or not a publication has ceased or has had a change in publisher is highly recommended as this step will help to determine if even more scrutiny of the journal is warranted. Tools like the NLM Catalog and Ulrichs can be used to verify this information.

Furthermore, to help authors not fall victim to this hijacking scam, the diligent folks at Retraction Watch have begun compiling a spreadsheet of journal titles that they have classified as “hijacked” in their new Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker. Learn more by reading their recent blog post announcing this new tool.

Additional reading:

Questions? Ask Us at the MSK Library.

 

New Database: STAT+

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STAT+ includes exclusive reporting about the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, the health tech industry, science, and coverage at the intersection of health and policy. This resource also tracks advancements in CRISPR, breakthrough medical devices, and drug pricing policies. STAT+ is a premium subscription service of Stat News. 

MSK users can create an account onsite/remotely/on VPN/off VPN to view articles on STAT+. Access just requires that a user have a valid @mskcc.org email address. To sign up for an account, visit www.statnews.com/subscribe, and enter an MSK email address and create a password.

Retraction Alerts Now in EndNote!

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The latest version updates of EndNote 20 — versions 20.2 and 20.3 — now provide retraction alerts thanks to a new partnership between EndNote and Retraction Watch to provide alerts to both references in your library and within Microsoft Word while using Cite While You Write (CWYW).

In order to take advantage of this new feature, you must have an EndNote Online account (free with your desktop version) that you have synced to your EndNote desktop library. NOTE: You can only sync one desktop library to EndNote Online.

For more information and resources on EndNote and other citation management programs, head to the MSK Library’s Citation Management LibGuide. To have EndNote 20 installed on your MSK workstation or your MSK-issued laptop, contact the Help Desk at 123-3337 or 646-227-3337.