Credit: Image generated by the editorial team using AI for illustrative purposes.

Research papers in peer-reviewed academic journals are at the heart of academic integrity. New ideas and discoveries are vetted and checked by experts in the field as the boundaries of scientific knowledge are pushed forward. However, in recent years, there has been a rise in predatory journals, publications that exploit this model but skip the rigorous peer-review process entirely.

But now an automated software tool called Aletheia-Probe (named after the Greek word for truth) offers a simple way to spot these fraudulent publications.

The deception

Predatory journals are masters of disguise. They have professional layouts, create fake editorial boards featuring real academics (often without their permission), and use names that sound similar to those of established, respected journals. Researchers deciding where to submit their papers can sometimes be fooled, leading them to publish in outlets that lack credibility.

Additionally, because there is no peer review, flawed work can slip through unchecked, so a paper could contain serious errors or even dangerous medical advice.

To help combat these risks, Andreas Florath, a cloud-computing architect at German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, created Aletheia-Probe. Details of its architecture and design are available in a paper on the arXiv preprint server.

Aletheia Probe Data Flow Architecture: Multi-stage pipeline for journal legitimacy assessment combining curated lists, API analyzers, and pattern heuristics. Credit: arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2601.10431

How it works

The software automatically searches multiple authoritative databases simultaneously to determine what they say about a specific publication. First, it looks at databases managed by humans, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which lists legitimate publications, and Beall’s List, a known blacklist of predatory journals.

Next, Aletheia-Probe checks a journal’s digital footprint in large online libraries such as OpenAlex or Crossref. It looks for red flags that humans might miss, such as whether a journal is publishing an impossibly high number of papers or missing basic professional details like author information.

Instead of providing a simple yes or no answer, Aletheia-Probe presents a confidence score and a report of its findings. For example, it may say that a particular publication appeared on two "good lists" and one "bad" list and therefore its confidence that it is a legitimate publication is low or uncertain. This allows the human researcher to make the final call.

"Rather than providing opaque ‘trust this score’ outputs, the tool explicitly presents its reasoning, enabling researchers to understand the basis for each assessment and make informed decisions," commented Andreas Florath in his paper.

While the current version of Aletheia-Probe is functional and available as an open-source tool, Florath says there is still work to do. This includes comprehensive real-world testing and expanding the number of data sources it can search at once.

Written for you by our author Paul Arnold, edited by Gaby Clark, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan—this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly). You’ll get an ad-free account as a thank-you.

Publication details

Andreas Florath, Aletheia-Probe: A Tool for Automated Journal Assessment, arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2601.10431

Aletheia-Probe: github.com/sustainet-guardian/aletheia-probe

Journal information: arXiv

© 2026 Science X Network

Citation: Open-access software tool helps researchers spot fake journals (2026, February 3) retrieved 3 February 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-02-access-software-tool-fake-journals.html

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