Dear Girum,
Thanks for your question. We are often asked about whether researchers should publish in certain journals that might be predatory. However, we are not often asked if you should cite or quote papers that are published in suspicious journals. However, I think the principles are similar - if the journal does not conduct rigorous peer review then you should be very wary about citing those papers, and you certainly shouldn't hand over any of your money to publish in such a journal!
Let's look at each journal from the perspective of editorial and digital publishing/bibliometrics standards:
1. Asian Journal of Chemistry (http://www.asianjournalofchemistry.co.in/Home.aspx)
The journal homepage isn't the best I've ever seen, but it very helpfully links to Scopus (see here https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=22703&tip=sid&exact=no) which shows that this journal is indeed indexed in Scopus, which is a trustwrothy database of around 25,000 journals. This means that the journal has passed a number of editorial and content quality checks. I think you can trust this one.
2. Asian journal of Nanoscience and Materials (http://www.ajnanomat.com/)
I think this journal homepage has some minor flaws and quirks, but here are three good indicators for this journal:
i. The Editorial board has full contact details, which is a good indicator of transparency: http://www.ajnanomat.com/journal/editorial.board
ii. The articles have working DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers), an important piece of metadata that the journal/publisher purchases on behald of the author. If you ever see one of these on a journal website, click (or copy the DOI into http://www.doi.org/) and check it actually redirects to the article. e.g. DOI: 10.26655/ajnanomat.2018.9.2
iii). The journal states on the homepage that it does NOT charge a fee for publishing, so by definition it is not a 'predatory' publisher which is making a profit from inexperienced researchers.
3.International journal of Phytomedicine (http://www.arjournals.org/index.php/ijpm/index)
This journal has some good and bad points, but I wouldn't say it's 'predatory' The publishing costs are quite low ($65 to $107), it has been publishing since 2009, but the DOIs in the latest issue don't work yet, and it falsely claims to be indexed in PubMed/NLM (this might be a misunderstanding - (see their record on NLM here and see my blog post here about Pubmed https://www.authoraid.info/en/news/details/1310/). I think you can trust that the content is peer reviewed, but be cautious if you are submitting to this journal.
4. Science, Technology and Arts Research Journal (https://www.ajol.info/index.php/star)
I trust this journal because it’s on the African Journals Online website, and they are one of our partners! AJOL only allow reputable African journals on the website. It’s also associated with Wollega University. They also charge no publication fees, so this couldn’t be classified as a ‘predatory’ journal.
5. International Journal of Nutrition food science (http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/index?journalid=153)
Like Ismael in a previous post, I am very sceptical of ‘Science Publishing Group’. The main thing that exposes them is their indexing, which is very poor. This publisher claims to be based in New York, and has hundreds of journals, and charges high APCs to publish (over $1000), so expect high standards! We would therefore expect for many of the journals to be indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed or the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (see here for more information on these indexes and how you can check them). However, none of these are listed on their indexing page, which has lots of broken links and inappropriate/fake indexes such as ‘Universal Impact Factor’.
This is definitely a publisher to avoid.
6. Journal of Indian Chemical Society (https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=24097&tip=sid)
As this is listed in Scopus (as per your link), this should be a reputable journal. It’s published by the Indian Chemical Society, which seems to be a well-established organisation. I think this is also a subscription journal, so there is no publishing fee.
7. Acta Chimica Slovenica (https://acta.chem-soc.si/)
I like this journal! It is an Open Access and has no publishing charges, which is always good to see.
It’s also a great example of a journal that’s indexed in all four of the major journal databases:
Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, PubMed (& Medline) (see links for verification – I searched them all manually for “Acta Chimica Slovenica”.
Of course, you can be a reputable journal without being included in any of these indexes, but it’s usually a good sign if the journal is included (especially if they claim to be indexed on their website!)
8. Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (https://www.springer.com/chemistry/physical+chemistry/journal/10973)
This is published by Springer – a well-known and reputable international publisher. The journal is also indexed in Journal Citation Reports (Web of Science) and Scopus, which is good ( this doesn’t 100% guarantee quality of research and peer review – there is always a possibility of human error - but it’s a usually a very good indication of editorial and publishing quality).
In conclusion, I would probably be willing to read and cite the research from all the journals except the one from ‘Science Publishing Group’, which you should exercise great caution with.
Of course, you should also apply your critical reading skills to all papers that you read – you may be able to spot papers which are poorly written and have not gone through adequate peer review.
Let me know if you have any questions!
If anybody has any additional thoughts on these journals, or my assessments above (afterall, I am not a subject specialist in any of the disciplines listed above), please comment below.
