Q: Is American Journal of Nursing Science a predatory journal?

Thank you for your query. The commonly accepted characteristics of a predatory journal include poor quality of peer review, unusually fast-tracked article publication, the presentation of false or misleading information, aggressive solicitation of articles from potential contributors, and lack of transparency of editorial decision making. This is usually accompanied by a high Article Processing Fee to be paid by the author under the premise that this is how the journal maintains open access for its articles.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to definitively identify a journal or publisher as predatory, and authors often rely on lists such as Beall’s list to identify such journals. It is sometimes easier to attempt to determine whether a journal’s publisher is predatory, and in the case of the journal in question, the publisher’s name has admittedly featured on some lists of possibly predatory publishers.