science

Journal hijacking

Journal hijacking is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Journal hijacking rather than just read about it. In short: Journal hijacking refers to the brandjacking of a legitimate academic journal by a malicious third party. Typically, the imposter journal sets up a fraudulent website for the purpose of offering scholars the opportunity to rapidly publish their research online for a fee.

Key takeaways

Journal hijacking belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Journal hijacking to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Journal hijacking from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Journal hijacking refers to the brandjacking of a legitimate academic journal by a malicious third party. Typically, the imposter journal sets up a fraudulent website for the purpose of offering scholars the opportunity to rapidly publish their research online for a fee. The term hijacked journal may refer to either the fraud or the legitimate journal. The fraudulent journals are also known as "clone journals". Similar hijacking can occur with academic conferences.

Background In 2012, cybercriminals began hijacking print-only journals by registering a domain name and creating a fake website under the title of the legitimate journals. The first journal to be hijacked was the Swiss journal Archives des Sciences. In 2012 and 2013, more than 20 academic journals were hijacked. In some cases, scammers find their victims in conference proceedings, extracting authors' emails from papers and sending them fake calls for papers. There have also been instances of journal hijacking wherein hijackers take over the journal's existing domain name after the journal publisher neglects to pay the domain name registration fees on time.

List of hijacked journals There are several hundred documented cases of journal hijackings; hijacked journals with existing Wikipedia articles include:

See also Category:Hijacked journals Cybersquatting Confidence trick Passing off Predatory open access publishing

References

Bibliography Jalalian, Mehrdad; Dadkhah, Mehdi (2015). "The full story of 90 hijacked journals from August 2011 to June 2015". Geographica Pannonica. 19 (2): 73–87. doi:10.5937/geopan1502073j. ISSN 0354-8724. Abalkina, Anna (21 June 2021). "Detecting a network of hijacked journals by its archive". Scientometrics. 126 (8): 7123–7148. arXiv:2101.01224. doi:10.1007/s11192-021-04056-0. ISSN 0138-9130. S2CID 230523913.

External links American librarian Jeffrey Beall's hijacked journal and authentic journal list Hijacked Journal Checker

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Journal hijacking

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Journal hijacking claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Journal hijacking before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Journal hijacking ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Journal hijacking

In research: Journal hijacking appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Journal hijacking in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Journal hijacking is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic publishing, Deception, Hijacked journals, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Journal hijacking outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Journal hijacking in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Journal hijacking means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Journal hijacking out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Journal hijacking in simple terms?

Why does Journal hijacking matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Journal hijacking?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Journal hijacking.