ArticleBMJ open2019
A cross-sectional study of predatory publishing emails received by career development grant awardees.
Article in BMJ open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 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
11 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 academic impact of Open Science: a scoping review.Royal Society open science · 2025Review
- Review
- Do orthopaedics surgeons have any idea what predatory journals are?:(cross-sectional study).Heliyon · 2024Article
- "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
- Money down the drain: predatory publishing in the COVID-19 era.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2020Article
- Predatory Publishers/Journals in Medical Sciences: How to Avoid, Stop, and What to Do after Being Scammed by Them?Journal of gastrointestinal cancer · 2020Review
- Predatory Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them.Toxicologic pathology · 2020Article
- The understanding of research ethics at health sciences schools in Jordan: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical education · 2020Article
- 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
objectiveTo investigate the scope of academic spam emails (ASEs) among career development grant awardees and the factors associated with the amount of time spent addressing them.
designA cross-sectional survey of career development grant investigators via an anonymous online survey was conducted. In addition to demographic and professional information, we asked investigators to report the number of ASEs received each day, how they determined whether these emails were spam and time they spent per day addressing them. We used bivariate analysis to assess factors associated with the amount of time spent on ASEs.
settingAn online survey sent via email on three separate occasions between November and December 2016.
participantsAll National Institutes of Health career development awardees funded in the 2015 fiscal year.
main outcome measuresFactors associated with the amount of time spent addressing ASEs.
resultsA total of 3492 surveys were emailed, of which 206 (5.9%) were returned as undeliverable and 96 (2.7%) reported an out-of-office message; our overall response rate was 22.3% (n=733). All respondents reported receiving ASEs, with the majority (54.4%) receiving between 1 and 10 per day and spending between 1 and 10 min each day evaluating them. The amount of time respondents reported spending on ASEs was associated with the number of peer-reviewed journal articles authored (p<0.001), a history of publishing in open access format (p<0.01), the total number of ASEs received (p<0.001) and a feeling of having missed opportunities due to ignoring these emails (p=0.04).
conclusionsASEs are a common distraction for career development grantees that may impact faculty productivity. There is an urgent need to mitigate this growing 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.