On March 30th, the Management Studies Research Center of NSYSU held an academic research ethics lecture titled "Things You Will Not Learn from Classes: Open Access and Predatory Journals" at CM1037. The lecture was hosted by Prof. Hsu Shih-Chieh (Professor in the Department of Information Management and Director of the Management Studies Research Center) and given by Prof. Wong Ho-Ting (Assistant Professor, on the Department of Business Management and Deputy Director of International Programs); the participants were all very enthusiastic about the event. Not only did they gain knowledge of journal-related discriminative capabilities, but each participant also went home with a Golden Diamond Pineapple.


In the lecture, Prof. Wong discussed the classification of academic journals, the reason for open access's birth, and the business model of journals. He also talked about the differences between traditional and open access journals, an example of a questionable publisher, the introduction of predatory journals, and tips to recognize whether a journal is predatory or not. Moreover, Prof. Wong provided an interactional test to help participants work out whether a journal is reliable or highly dangerous.


There are thousands of journals in the world, and grad students might have unnecessary fears about them due to a lack of understanding, which makes completing a research degree even harder. The "Open Access Academic Journal" ecosystem was one of the main topics in this lecture, along with the technique for identifying a predatory journal, and this knowledge will mitigate the related dangers in both students' and teachers' academic careers.