Predatory Invitations from Journals: More Than Just a Nuisance?

Abstract

Physicians and academic researchers are frequently targeted with spam invitations to submit manuscripts to predatory journals. This study was conducted to understand the nature and characteristics of these invitations. All spam e-mails received by an academic medical oncologist over a 3-month period were collected and categorized. Presumed predatory journal invitations were analyzed and cross-checked against Beall's list of "potential, probable, or possible predatory" journals and publishers. Invitations to submit to predatory journals were the most common single type of spam received. 2017;22:236-240.

Problems and challenges of predatory journals

“…As predatory journals are only based on considerations of cost‐effectiveness, unprofitable journals may be closed and all published articles in that journal will be lost. Therefore, authors should be aware of this problem and only consider OA journals that store their accepted and published articles in public repositories, such as PMC 25, 52…”

“…Therefore, authors should be aware of this problem and only consider OA journals that store their accepted and published articles in public repositories, such as PMC. 25,52 Concealed conflict of interests Predatory journals also can be abused to hide potential conflict of interests: 53 a very famous casealthough not published in a predatory journalwas the case of Wakefield in the Lancet. This case demonstrates how one falsified study can continue to have tremendous effects on public health for decades.…”

Physician "Out of Office" Alert: Does It Work?

“…If the findings of the present study were to be extrapolated to any organization with thousands of employees, the loss is phenomenal. At the institutional level, resources in tremendous quantity have been dedicated toward attempts to reduce the number of unwanted e-mail messages, and spam in particular, with limited success 1,8 . However, besides spam, the number of other e-mail messages that are sent as a courtesy and that are not requesting specific action from the physician still require precious time to manually review, filter, and reply to or to delete (or both).…”

False gold: Safely navigating open access publishing to avoid predatory publishers and journals

“…Form of unethical scholarly practice or research misconduct Publishers use solicitation techniques to invite researchers to submit papers and join editorial boards Journals lack acceptable peer review and editorial oversight Papers published in these journals are unlikely to be read or used, as many are not indexed or searchable Predatory publishing is more common in countries where academic evaluation practices favour international publication Authors are not always unwitting victims, but may take a calculated risk to publish in predatory journals, to publish in "international" journals Akers, 2016;Beall, 2013Beall, , 2016Clark & Thompson, 2012;Clemons et al, 2017;Darbyshire et al, 2016;Hansoti et al, 2016;Haug, 2013;Manca et al, 2017;Pearson, 2016;Pickler et al, 2015;Quinn, 2015;Shamseer et al, 2017;Shen & Bj€ ork, 2015;Stone & Rossiter, 2015 Risks of predatory publishing Has created a negative image of OA generally Use of poor quality research published in these journals is a threat to evidence-based practice and undermines scholarship Journals are not indexed in reputable databases, which limits the reach of even high quality papers, as regular search techniques do not identify their content Beall, 2016;Clark & Thompson, 2016;Darbyshire et al, 2016;Jones & McCullough, 2014;Manca et al, 2017;Pickler et al, 2015;Shamseer et al, 2017;Smith, 2015;Stone & Rossiter, 2015;Vinny et al, 2016 Authors' responsibilities Understand how to recognize predatory journals, and the adverse consequences of publishing in them Perform due diligence when considering where to submit a paper: Be suspicious of claim of rapid peer review and publishing processes Check reputable online databases for journal indexing Check the journal's editor credentials and contact details Ensure that the peer review process is transparent Beall, 2013;Clark & Thompson, 2012Clemons et al, 2017;Crowe...…”