Promotion standards to discourage publishing in questionable journals: a follow-up study

Predatory publishing poses significant challenges to academic integrity and progress. It requires the involvement of academic institutions, funding bodies, and policymakers to establish robust evaluation mechanisms and promote ethical publishing practices. This study examines the effectiveness of implementing promotion policies to discourage unethical academic publishing, focusing on Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. This study analyses 273 promotion applications submitted from January 2022 to November 2023, regardless of approval. The results show that researchers at KNUST submit relatively more publications to recommended outlets after the implementation of the new promotion guidelines. Moreover, with nine out of ten non-verified publications found to be from predatory journals, the verification process effectively discourages publication such outlets. Our study therefore confirms that the verification process can identify predatory publication outlets. Consequently, it is recommended that research institutions eliminate incentives for publishing in questionable outlets through publication criteria as part of promotion standards.