How to Evaluate an African Journal’s Credibility

Quick answer: to learn how to check if an African journal is legitimate, test each claim the journal makes against an independent record: the ISSN, any indexing, its editors and its peer review. Submit only if every claim holds up.

This workflow suits any researcher weighing a submission, and it sits alongside our wider guide to african academic journals. If you are still choosing where to send a manuscript, read how to publish in african journals first and return here before you commit.

Why you test claims instead of scanning for warning signs

A journal’s own website is the least reliable place to confirm that the journal is trustworthy. Predatory publishing is described as accepting articles quickly with little or no peer review or quality control, including mediocre and fake papers. The same pattern includes citing fake or non-existent impact factors and mimicking the name or website style of established journals. A site can therefore look polished and still be hollow.

The more dependable approach is to treat every statement on the site as a claim and look for a record outside the journal that confirms it. Each check below follows that logic. Some checks are quick, such as an ISSN lookup. Others take a few minutes, such as searching an editor’s name. Together they give you a decision you can defend to a supervisor or funder.

Claim-by-claim checks at a glance

Work down this table in order. The earlier rows are the fastest, and a failure in any of them is usually enough to stop.

The checks draw on University of Canberra library guidance and the descriptions of predatory practice at predatoryjournals.org.

Verifying the ISSN and indexing claims

Check the ISSN against the registry

An ISSN identifies a serial, but on its own it says nothing about quality. Predatory journals boast about standard identifiers such as ISSN and DOI as though they were prestige. Hijacked journals go further and adopt the titles, ISSNs and other data of legitimate journals.

So do not stop at “it has an ISSN.” Enter the number in the ISSN International Centre’s portal and compare the registered title and publisher with what the website shows. If the number belongs to a different title, or the publisher differs from the site’s, treat the website as a copy and look for the genuine journal’s own address through its registered details.

Test indexing claims at the source

Indexing claims are easy to type and hard to disprove from the journal’s own pages. Low-quality journals give false or misleading indexing and performance information, so the check must happen on the index’s own site. Open the database the journal names, search for the journal title and ISSN, and note whether it appears. If you cannot find it, the claim is unconfirmed, and you should not submit on the strength of it.

Search the Directory of Open Access Journals

DOAJ describes itself as a directory of quality peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals. Search it by the journal’s exact title, then repeat the search using the ISSN you verified in the registry. Compare the publisher and website address in the listing with the site in front of you. A match supports the journal’s credibility. A listing that points to a different website suggests an imitation. A journal that is absent from DOAJ is not automatically illegitimate, since not every sound journal is open access. It does mean you must rely more heavily on the other checks.

Confirming that peer review really happens

Peer review is the claim that matters most, and it is the easiest to fake. A credible journal provides fair and constructive peer review. A low-quality one offers cursory or no review of submitted manuscripts, and predatory publishers accept articles quickly with little or no review.

Read the journal’s peer review policy and judge whether it describes a process or only asserts one. A real policy explains what happens after submission and who decides on a paper. A promise of very fast acceptance with no stated process is a reason to look elsewhere. Print the policy page or save it with the date, and mark the claims you want to test. Notes taken at this stage help if you later have to justify your choice of venue.

Editorial board and website red flags

An editorial board is a promise that qualified people stand behind the journal. Publishers who cheat on this appoint fake academics to editorial boards or list real academics as members without their permission. Checking is straightforward. Take a handful of names and confirm that each editor has genuine affiliations and active research profiles on Google Scholar, ORCID or LinkedIn. Then check that the institution and field on the profile match what the journal lists.

Scan the website for these further signals, and treat any one as a reason to pause:

• Unverifiable board members: editors with no traceable profile, or with an affiliation that does not match the journal’s listing.
• Indexing and metrics that fail checks: logos or impact figures that you cannot find in the named index.
• Promises of speed over process: quick acceptance with no description of how review works.
• Borrowed identity: a name or layout that closely resembles a better-known journal.

Who to ask when the evidence is mixed

Sometimes the checks disagree: the ISSN matches, the index lookup is inconclusive and the board looks plausible but thin. In that case, work through a recognised checklist before deciding. Think.Check.Submit offers a checklist for researchers to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher. The same library guide points to open access quality indicators developed by Grand Valley State University Libraries, which cover both positive and negative signs. Together they give you a structured second opinion that does not depend on the journal.

If you have already sent a manuscript to a journal you now doubt, inform your university’s research ethics committee about the issue. For wider context on how such publishers operate in the region, see our overview of predatory journals in africa.

A practical decision rule follows from all of this. Submit when the ISSN record matches, the claimed indexing is confirmed at the source, the editors can be traced and the peer review process is described in concrete terms. Hold back when any single claim fails an independent check, because the remaining claims then deserve no benefit of the doubt.

Frequently asked questions