Are Predatory Conferences the Dark Side of the Open Access Movement?

Cress, Phaedra E

doi:10.1093/asj/sjw247

Cited by 36 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Predatory publishing of journals that pretend to have a peer review system is as a phenomenon in fact part of a broader spectrum of similar web-enabled fraudulent business activities. These include the fake impact factors used by predatory publishers trying to look more credible (Jalalian, 2015), predatory conferences (Cress, 2017) and fake academic degrees (Groelleau et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited

2020

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Predatory journals are Open Access journals of highly questionable scientific quality. Such journals pretend to use peer review for quality assurance, and spam academics with requests for submissions, in order to collect author payments. In recent years predatory journals have received a lot of negative media. While much has been said about the harm that such journals cause to academic publishing in general, an overlooked aspect is how much articles in such journals are actually read and in particular cited, that is if they have any significant impact on the research in their fields. Other studies have already demonstrated that only some of the articles in predatory journals contain faulty and directly harmful results, while a lot of the articles present mediocre and poorly reported studies. We studied citation statistics over a five-year period in Google Scholar for 250 random articles published in such journals in 2014, and found an average of 2,6 citations per article and that 60 % of the articles had no citations at all. For comparison a random sample of articles published in the approximately 25,000 peer reviewed journals included in the Scopus index had an average of 18,1 citations in the same period with only 9 % receiving no citations. We conclude that articles published in predatory journals have little scientific impact.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited

2020

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“… 12 Similarly, poor quality meetings, often called fraudulent or predatory conferences, represent a new emerging hazard that is rapidly expanding and has mislead hundreds of researchers. 13 Organisers of these meetings, usually individuals or companies rather that an organisation or a scientific community, use names similar to reputable conferences and terms such as international or global but charge substantial fees to presenters and have little concern for scientific value. 14 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invitations received from potential predatory publishers and fraudulent conferences: a 12-month early-career researcher experience

Mercier

Tardif

Moore

et al. 2017

Postgraduate Medical Journal

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Purpose of the studyThis study aims to describe all unsolicited electronic invitations received from potential predatory publishers or fraudulent conferences over a 12-month period following the first publication as a corresponding author of a junior academician.Study designUnsolicited invitations received at an institutional email address and perceived to be sent by predatory publishers or fraudulent conferences were collected.ResultsA total of 502 invitations were included of which 177 (35.3%) had subject matter relevant to the recipient’s research interests and previous work. Two hundred and thirty-seven were invitations to publish a manuscript. Few disclosed the publication fees (32, 13.5%) but they frequently reported accepting all types of manuscripts (167, 70.5%) or emphasised on a deadline to submit (165, 69.6%). Invitations came from 39 publishers (range 1 to 87 invitations per publisher). Two hundred and ten invitations from a potential fraudulent conference were received. These meetings were held in Europe (97, 46.2%), North America (65, 31.0%), Asia (20.4%) or other continents (5, 2.4%) and came from 18 meeting organisation groups (range 1 to 137 invitations per organisation). Becoming an editorial board member (30), the editor-in-chief (1), a guest editor for journal special issue (6) and write a book chapter (11) were some of the roles offered in the other invitations included while no invitation to review a manuscript was received.ConclusionsYoung researchers are commonly exposed to predatory publishers and fraudulent conferences following a single publication as a corresponding author. Academic institutions worldwide need to educate and inform young researchers of this emerging problem.

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“…Along with pseudo journals, another phenomenon gaining attention is the pseudo conference (Cress, 2017;Sorooshian, 2017). These are evidently proliferating to judge from the number of invitations appearing in academic inboxes, reflecting the ease of purchasing email lists of academicians and then soliciting their attendance.…”

Section: Relationship Between 'Open Access' and 'Pseudo Journals'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming: A reassessment

et al. 2019

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The motivation for this Special Issue is increasing concern not only with academic misconduct but also with less easily defined forms of misrepresentation and gaming. In an era of intense emphasis on measuring academic performance, there has been a proliferation of scandals, questionable behaviors and devious stratagems involving not just individuals but also organizations, including universities, editors and reviewers, journal publishers, and conference organizers. This introduction first reviews the literature on the prevalence of academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming (MMG). The core of the article is organized around a life-cycle model of the production and dissemination of research results. We synthesize the findings in the MMG literature at the level of the investigator or research team, emphasizing that misbehavior extends well beyond fabrication and falsification to include behaviors designed to exaggerate or to mislead readers as to the significance of research findings. MMG is next explored in the post-research review, publication, and post-publication realms. Moving from the individual researcher to the organizational level, we examine how MMG can be engaged in by either journals or organizations employing or funding the researchers. The changing institutional environment including the growth of research assessment exercises, increased quantitative output measurement and greater pressure to publish may all encourage MMG. In the final section, we summarize the main conclusions and offer suggestions both on how we might best address the problems and on topics for future research.

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Are Predatory Conferences the Dark Side of the Open Access Movement?

Cited by 36 publications

References 6 publications

How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited

How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited

Invitations received from potential predatory publishers and fraudulent conferences: a 12-month early-career researcher experience

Academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming: A reassessment

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