ArticlePostgraduate medical journal2018
Invitations received from potential predatory publishers and fraudulent conferences: a 12-month early-career researcher experience.
Article in Postgraduate medical journal, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Unsolicited Email and Predatory Solicitations: A Retrospective Case Study of a Canadian Hospital Pharmacist and the Tip of a Larger Iceberg.The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy · 2026Article
- The burden of unwanted e-mails in academic surgery: a cross-sectional study.International journal of surgery (London, England) · 2025Article
- Journals Operating Predatory Practices Are Systematically Eroding the Science Ethos: A Gate and Code Strategy to Minimise Their Operating Space and Restore Research Best Practice.Microbial biotechnology · 2025Article
- Email invitations to publish: Academically sound (such as SAFP) versus potentially predatory journals.South African family practice : official journal of the South African Academy of Family Practice/Primary Care · 2024Article
- Review
- A Toolkit for Detecting Fallacious Calls for Papers from Potential Predatory Journals.Advanced pharmaceutical bulletin · 2023Article
- "Dear Doctor, greetings of the day!": A 1-year observational study of presumed predatory journal invitations.Progress in orthodontics · 2023Article
- Unsolicited solicitations: identifying characteristics of unsolicited emails from potentially predatory journals and the role of librarians.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2022Article
- Predatory Journals, Fake Conferences and Misleading Social Media: The Dark Side of Medical Information.Zdravstveno varstvo · 2021Article
- Predatory Publishers/Journals in Medical Sciences: How to Avoid, Stop, and What to Do after Being Scammed by Them?Journal of gastrointestinal cancer · 2020Review
- The Perils of Predatory Journals and Conferences.Malaysian orthopaedic journal · 2020Article
- Precise and Immediate Action against Predatory ConferencesBalkan medical journal · 2019Article
- Burden and Characteristics of Unsolicited Emails from Medical/Scientific Journals, Conferences, and Webinars to Faculty and Trainees at an Academic Pathology Department.Journal of pathology informatics · 2019Article
- Measuring Scholarly Productivity: A Primer for Junior Faculty. Part III: Understanding Publication Metrics.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2018Review
- Academic E-Mail Overload and the Burden of "Academic Spam".Academic pathologyReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.