Predatory publishing workshops in progress all week at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Dammam, Saudi Arabia

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 18th April 2017 — Knowledge E has launched a series of training sessions to raise awareness among researchers about the dangers of predatory publishing and provide guidance on how distinguish high quality, reliable journals from more questionable publications. The sessions are taking place at 6 different colleges across the Jubail and Dammam campuses at the Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Saudi Arabia and aim to protect IAU authors from signing over their manuscripts to journals that might hinder their careers.

Philip J. Purnell and Mohamad Mostafa have brought their combined experience of publishing and journal evaluation to academics and scholars throughout the university and by the end of the week, hope to raise awareness of the pitfalls of submitting your manuscript to the wrong journal to more than 200 university authors. The sessions will focus mainly on the humanities and social sciences covering colleges of Arts, Sharia & Law, Education, Design, Community and the Deanship of Preparatory & Supporting Studies. One key element of the workshops is the launch of the Arabic version of the Think, Check, Submit campaign, an international initiative that offers a simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.

 

Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University opened its doors to women and men in 1975 with two pioneering colleges, the College of Medicine and the College of Architecture.  Almost four decades later this academic institution has grown into a leading research university with 21 colleges spread throughout the Eastern Province and a student population of over 45,000.  As a preeminent research-based institution, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University continues to grow and develop, continually assessing and improving its curricula and expanding its academic capabilities in all disciplines, while at the same time engaging the public in addressing environmental and community challenges.

Knowledge E works passionately with all types of organisations and government entities within research and education to support their continued innovation and development by providing them with leading expertise, information resources and software solutions. This includes the KnE Digital Library for research literature discovery, the KnE Publishing Platform for open access journal and conference proceedings publishing and indexing, and associated capacity-building research and publishing services.