In the name of Scopus, one hijacked journal easily tricks authors
Mahmood Anwar is a former business management professor of the National Research University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan tells: "While browsing the Google Scholar profile of a former colleague, a journal with a bizarre title attracted my attention: Zhongguo Kuangye Daxue Xuebao (ZKDX). Looking at its indexing status, the journal appears to be covered by Elsevier’s Scopus and ranked at Q1 as shown on Scimago – the highest Scopus quartile. But something seemed fishy to me.
The journal offers fast-track publication, covers multidisciplinary areas, and claims to have an impact factor of 5.750 for 2024. I checked Clarivate’s Master Journal List and found it has not been indexed. The journal is open access and charges an article processing fee of USD $120 for accepted manuscripts. But it also forces the authors to sign a copyright transfer form, which is an anomalous practice for open access journals.
I searched the ISSN 1000-1964, displayed on the journal’s website. Mismatch indicates the journal ZKDX, which claims to have ISSN 1000-1964, is a false-fake-imposter operation. Another point of deception: ZKDX has a .ch top-level domain, presumably to convince unsuspecting authors that this journal belongs to China. However, the .ch domain is specific to Switzerland, whereas .cn is for China. When I searched the name of editor-in-chief Luengui Gungwu on Google Scholar and Baidu, I could not find any credible resource to identify any such person affiliated with China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing, PR. China.
It seems that this imposter operation is located in India because Whois search shows IP location and ASN from India. Credible and senior researchers like my former colleague published in this journal and failed to determine that this is a fake journal. Please give a thorough look to any journal’s website before article submission to avoid putting your efforts in vain.
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