What makes a journal questionable? An analysis using China’s early-warning list

There is widespread agreement that questionable journals pose a threat to the integrity of scholarly publishing and the credibility of academic research. However, there is currently no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a questionable journal. The characteristics of questionable journals have not been delineated, standardized, nor broadly accepted. A series of policy initiatives by the central Chinese government has culminated in the now Early Warning List of International Journals, released by the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences – 65 journals that Chinese scholars should be wary of publishing in. Taking this List as a litmus test, we analyze the characteristics of each journal focusing on a definitive set of factors that may see a journal included on the List. We not only include the factors applied by the publisher of the List, such as the article processing charges, the retraction rate etc., but also investigate several other factors. Most of the factors are found to influence the List, while some are not. In fact, many of the journals on the List are highly ranked by impact factors. Our study aims to provide empirical information supporting global attempts to mitigate the pervading phenomenon of questionable journals.