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

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This 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 DESIGN

Unsolicited invitations received at an institutional email address and perceived to be sent by predatory publishers or fraudulent conferences were collected.

RESULTS

A 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.

CONCLUSIONS

Young 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.

You are invited to submit…

The academic community is under great pressure to publish. This pressure is compounded by high rejection rates at many journals. A more recent trend is for some journals to send invitations directly to researchers inviting them to submit a manuscript to their journals. Many researchers find these invitations annoying and unsure how best to respond to them. We collected electronic invitations to submit a manuscript to a journal between April 1, 2014, and March 31, 2015. We analyzed their content and cross-tabulated them against journals listed in Beall's list of potential predatory journals. During this time period, 311 invitations were received for 204 journals, the majority of which were in Beall's list (n = 244; 79%). The invitations came throughout the calendar year and some journals sent up to six invitations. The majority of journals claimed to provide peer review (n = 179; 57.6%) although no mention was made of expedited review process. Similarly, more than half of the journals claimed to be open access (n = 186; 59.8%). The majority of invitations included an unsubscribe link (n = 187; 60.1%). About half of the invitations came from biomedical journals (n = 179). We discuss strategies researchers and institutions can consider to reduce the number of invitations received and strategies to handle those invitations that make it to the recipients' inbox, thus helping to maintain the credibility and reputation of researchers and institutions.

Getting started with research "Writing-up the results of your research"

This paper gives an overview of the considerations and practical aspects of writing up the results of your research, which may be of interest to those beginning their research career or simply carrying out a research project for the first time as part of an academic qualification. It outlines practical steps for both writing up the results of your research as an academic report and thereafter disseminating your results more widely as a peer-reviewed scientific publication.