A prolific hijacked journal has managed to breach the defenses of Scopus, one of the world’s leading academic databases. This time, the target is the award-winning journal Community Practitioner, the official publication of the UK-based organization Unite-CPHVA.
While the legitimate Community Practitioner is a subscription-based journal focused on medicine and nursing, the clone website falsely claims it has been an open-access publication since January 2020, and offers subscriptions to past issues by contacting “the editor.” It also advertises the ability to publish articles across all research fields, a stark departure from the scope of the legitimate title.
Analysis of the Scopus database revealed a staggering 880 inauthentic articles from the hijacked journal indexed between 2020 and 2024, originating from countries including India, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. Many of these articles were blatantly plagiarized, with even their DOIs copied.
Authors of these fraudulent articles may have unjustly benefited from their misleading indexing in Scopus, potentially securing academic promotions, employment, and credentials under false pretenses. The reputation of the legitimate journal has been tarnished, with its CiteScore metric compromised due to the influx of low- or zero-cited inauthentic articles since 2020.
