Directive Publications has been named in a predatory journal listing. Our answer, criterion by criterion: peer review is described in public, every published article carries a Crossref-registered DOI, fees are published and payable only on acceptance, and the ethics policies exist. Four criteria we do not meet: curated indexing, completed board verification, named-archive preservation and a solicitation policy.
What a predatory journal listing is, and what appearing on one proves
A predatory journal listing is a third-party compilation of publishers that the compiler judges to fall short of accepted publishing standards. The criteria vary between compilers, and an entry need not state which criterion it rests on.
Appearing on such a list is not a finding of fact and not a regulatory determination. It is a prompt to check. It is also not nothing: the criteria behind these lists mostly matter, and a publisher who answers by attacking the compiler has told you something.
We will not dispute anyone's methodology and will not name or link any list. We take the criteria those lists apply, state our position on each, and give a source to check it against. For the same tests applied to any publisher, see our guide on how to identify a predatory journal.
The predatory journal listing criteria, answered with a source you can check
Each row takes a criterion roughly as watchlists phrase it, states our position, names the source you check it against and records a verdict. The verdict says whether we meet the standard behind the criterion, not whether the criterion describes us. Four verdicts go against us. Where a check exists outside our control, column three points to it: Crossref, ORCID, ROR, OpenAlex and DOAJ. Where no outside record exists, column three names the page on this site that carries the claim, the weaker check of the two.
| Criterion | Our position | Check it against | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peer review is not described, or is not really performed | Double-blind review. At least two independent expert reviewers sought per research manuscript. The handling editor decides. Appeals go to the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. | Our peer review page. Our reviews are confidential, so no public record of an individual review exists here. | Met, for the description |
| The editorial board cannot be verified, or members are listed without consent | The board is published. Verification against ORCID, ROR and OpenAlex is in progress and incomplete, and consent is outstanding for part of it. | ORCID, ROR and OpenAlex records for the members named on our board pages. | Not met |
| Indexing is claimed that the publisher does not have | We claim no indexing in PubMed, PubMed Central, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science or DOAJ, because we have none. | Search our name in DOAJ and PubMed, then our site for those logos. | Met |
| The publisher is present in the major curated databases | We are not. We are discoverable through OpenAlex and Google Scholar, which index broadly and are not selective quality signals. | DOAJ search, PubMed search, an OpenAlex source record. | Not met |
| A fake, unverifiable or self-awarded impact factor is displayed | We display no impact factor, CiteScore, ranking or owned metric anywhere on the site. | Any page of this site: the number is not there. | Met |
| DOIs are absent, unregistered or do not resolve | We are a Crossref member. Every published article has a DOI registered under prefix 10.52338. | The Crossref member record; paste any of our DOIs into doi.org. | Met |
| Fees are hidden, or appear only after acceptance | Submission is free. The published article processing charge is payable only if a manuscript is formally accepted after peer review. If rejected, nothing is owed. | Our publication charges page, readable before you submit. | Met |
| There is no route for authors who cannot pay | Three published routes: low-income and lower-middle-income economies, unfunded or self-funded research, and discretionary. Full waiver or partial reduction, decided separately from editorial evaluation. | Our waiver policy page. | Met |
| Ethics, corrections and misconduct policies are missing | Published pages cover publication ethics, research integrity, corrections, plagiarism, data availability and copyright. They align with COPE Core Practices. Similarity screening runs on submissions. | The policy pages themselves, read against the COPE Core Practices. | Met |
| Copyright is taken from the author, or the licence is unclear | Open access under CC BY 4.0 by default. Authors retain copyright. | The licence statement on any published article and the Creative Commons deed. | Met |
| Machine-readable metadata is not supplied to the wider ecosystem | Articles are produced as JATS XML and exposed over OAI-PMH. Records appear in OpenAlex. | Our OAI-PMH endpoint and an OpenAlex work record for any article. | Met |
| Long-term preservation is arranged with a named archive | We are not enrolled in any named preservation archive. Our preservation policy claims none. | The participating-publisher lists of the named archives. | Not met |
| Manuscripts are handled through a professional submission system | Manuscripts are submitted by email to the editorial office, at an address on our own domain. No portal. | Our submit page and the email domain you write to. | Partly met: a published route on our own domain, no submission system |
| Solicitation emails are governed by a published policy | We publish no policy on invitation or solicitation emails. That page does not exist. | Our published policy list. | Not met |
The four verdicts that go against us
We are not in DOAJ, Scopus, PubMed Central or Web of Science
Absence from the curated databases is the gap that matters most if you are choosing where to submit, because some institutions and funders count an article only when the journal sits in a named list. A DOAJ application is an intention, not a granted status. If your promotion committee or thesis regulations require a listed journal, we do not satisfy that requirement.
Editorial board verification is incomplete
Verifying a board member means matching the person to an ORCID record, the institution to a ROR identifier, the publication history to OpenAlex, and holding written consent to be listed. That work is unfinished, so treat the names on our board pages as unverified by that standard for now.
We are not enrolled in a named preservation archive
Digital preservation is an arrangement that keeps articles readable if the publisher stops operating, and enrolment in a preservation archive is the form of it an outside reader can check. We hold none, which is why our preservation policy is written in general terms.
There is no published policy on solicitation emails
Solicitation is one of the criteria these lists apply, and we have not published a policy governing it. Until that page exists the protection sits on your side: check that a sender's domain matches the journal's own site rather than a free mail provider, and paste any DOI the email quotes into doi.org to see whether it resolves to the article the email describes.
Peer review: what is published, and what nobody can prove from outside
Our peer review process is published and readable before you submit: double-blind, at least two independent expert reviewers sought per research manuscript, a decision by the handling editor, and an appeal to the Editor-in-Chief whose decision is final.
What no reader can verify from outside here is whether one specific manuscript was reviewed as described. Our reviews are confidential and our reviewers are anonymous, so that evidence is not public. Journals that run open peer review publish the reports and make that check possible; a double-blind process does not. It is also why we publish no acceptance rate, rejection rate or turnaround figure: such numbers are easy to state and impossible to audit.
Money: when nothing is owed, and how the waiver actually works
Submitting a manuscript costs nothing. The article processing charge falls due only if a manuscript is formally accepted after peer review; if it is rejected, no invoice follows. Invoicing on acceptance is ordinary practice in open access publishing.
Three waiver routes are published, and the outcome can be a full waiver or a partial reduction:
- Authors based in low-income and lower-middle-income economies.
- Unfunded or self-funded research.
- A discretionary route.
Ask at or before submission rather than after acceptance. Waiver requests are handled administratively, separately from editorial evaluation.
What we will change, and what we will not
The four failing rows are the work list. Board verification continues, record by record. The indexing position changes only if a curated database accepts an application, which is their decision. Preservation and a solicitation policy are gaps named here rather than dressed up.
What will not change is the table. An answer to a listing should be verifiable line by line and should carry the lines that go against it, because an answer with no losses in it is marketing. Decide on the rows rather than on our tone. Read our peer review policy, publication charges and fee waiver routes, then read what the impact factor, CiteScore and the h-index really mean and what an ORCID record is and how to register one. If we are not right for your paper, better to reach that conclusion before submitting than after.