Astronomer Michael Brown has discovered a booming black market ensnaring his profession. Credit:Jesse Marlow It comes as an increasing number of reputable journals hunting for new revenue streams have started charging academics who wish to cite their publications. "At best, it is vanity publishing; at worse it is swindling money out of academics who don't know better," Professor Brown said. Australian academics who have spoken to Fairfax Media say they have been lured with offers to become editors of bogus publications that pose as legitimate journals; others have been listed as editors or editorial board members without their knowledge or consent. Early-career academics, as well as more experienced ones unaware of the trend, have fallen prey to the scam.

Jeannie Rea, the national president of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), accused these publications of "fraud" and pledged to investigate legal avenues for those who have been duped. Universities are now cracking down on the problem, with Sydney University, Griffith University and Swinburne University confirming that they will not allow academics to seek promotions or claim credit for publishing in so-called predatory journals. They are also asking academics to disclose if they had resorted to predatory journals in their annual reviews. Mostafa Naser, a lecturer at Edith Cowan University, said he had not consented to being named as an editorial adviser of the Australasian Journal of Law, Ethics and Governance. "I am not aware that my name is there," Dr Naser said. "Someone called and we had an informal discussion about it, but it was not concrete that I would be part of the editorial board. This happened about a year ago. I haven't consented to my name [being] on the academic journal."

Many of the predatory publications – which claimed on their websites that they were located in the heart of Melbourne and Sydney suburbia – spam academics with email invitations to publish research in their journals. They often steal the names of well-respected journals, use bogus metrics to rate their prestige, and provide superficial peer reviewing, if any at all. In exchange, they offer academics the chance to publish almost anything, including research riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. An excerpt from a journal named on the famous Beall's list as a 'predatory journal'. Credit:Timna Jacks The exploitative industry was exposed online by Jeffrey Beall, academic librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver.

Mr Beall, who archives a list of predatory journals on his website, said the black market had worrying implications for the quality of scientific research. "The victim is science itself," he said. "Unvetted research is being published bearing the window dressing of scientific publications." Peter Bentley, a higher education expert from tertiary think tank the LH Martin Institute, said the pressure to reach academic publishing quotas was driving the industry. "The pressure to publish is one reason why such journals exist," Dr Bentley said. "I don't think that people would choose to publish in journals that have no reputation." The NTEU's Ms Rea said rising instability in the profession meant academics without a job were falling victim to dubious publishers.

"There are academics who are disconnected because of the lack of secure jobs ... but feel pressured to build up their CV." Melbourne University's deputy vice-chancellor of research, Professor James McCluskey, said predatory publishers were also inviting academics to illegitimate scientific or academic conferences. They suggested the events were high profile and boasted that they hosted a distinguished list of faculty speakers. Earlier this year, Australian Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty pulled out of an international medical conference held in Melbourne after discovering it was organised by a company accused of predatory conduct. A 2015 BMC analysis showed that the number of predatory articles had increased from 53,000 in 2010 to 420,000 in 2014.