Commentaries: Sharks: Predatory journals and conferences in psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience

Looi, Jeffrey Cl; Owens‐Walton, Conor

doi:10.1177/0004867420919154

Cited by 2 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…Most (n=17) of the included papers were published between 2017 and 2021. The corresponding authors were from 12 different countries, where one-fourth were affiliated to the USA,24–28 followed by India,29–31 Denmark,32 33 Hungary,34 35 Saudi Arabia,36 Iran,37 UK,38 Australia,39 Switzerland,40 Canada,41 Hong Kong42 and the Czech Republic 43. PC attract multidisciplinary attention.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PC attract multidisciplinary attention. Corresponding authors’ disciplines included nursing/medicine,26 27 34–36 41 psychiatry,29 39 energy/technology,31–33 37 dentistry,38 cancer,30 pharmacy,24 finance,43 bibliometrics28 and computer science 25…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eleven studies collected empirical data,25 26 28 34–36 38 40–43 where one half used a quantitative approach, one qualitative. Nine papers were theoretical,24 27 29–33 37 39 All papers were peer reviewed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Peer review was often missing 25 27 29 32 33 37 38 42 ; the academic subject matter of the PC had a wide and multidisciplinary scope 27 29 32 36-38 42 , ; and the conference was organised for profit with little concern about scientific value. 29 34 39 41 43 RQ2: reasons for participating in PC All 20 papers [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] explicitly or implicitly suggested possible reasons for participating in PC (table 4). We identified reasons for this as relating to the overall context of the academic work, the nature of PC, and the personal characteristics of researchers.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lang et al, 2020 35 N/A Looi et al, 2020 39 From Cress, 2017," … conferences that appear to be scholarly but are strictly exploitive moneymaking schemes that cost authors and funding sources time and money"…”

Section: Definitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Predatory conferences: a systematic scoping review

et al. 2022

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ObjectiveTo systematically map the scholarly literature on predatory conferences and describe the present state of research and the prevalent attitudes about these conferences.MethodsThis scoping review follows Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Four databases were searched (PubMed/Medline, Web of Science, Scopus and ProQuest Social Sciences Premium Collection). In addition, the included studies’ reference lists were scanned for additional papers not found in the searches. Peer-reviewed publications were included irrespective of study design. Letters and commentary were included if they were peer reviewed. Editorials and literature reviews were excluded.ResultsFrom 809 initial publications, 20 papers were included in the review, from 12 countries and covered a wide range of science disciplines, from nursing/medicine to energy/technology and computer science. More than half were empirical and published after 2017. In most papers, a definition of the term predatory conferences was put forward. Spam email invitations with flattering language were the most common characteristics, and the conferences were often hosted by unknown organisations that used copied pictures without permission. High fees, lack of peer review, and a multidisciplinary scope were signal features. All papers explicitly or implicitly suggested possible reasons for participating in predatory conferences. Some reasons were related to the overall context of academic work, the nature of predatory conferences (eg, researchers falling prey to misleading information about a conference or choosing a conference based on an attractive location) and the personal characteristics of researchers. Only one paper reported empirically identified reasons for participating in predatory conferences. The three countermeasures proposed most frequently to deal with predatory conferences were increasing education, emphasising responsibilities of universities and funders, and publishing lists of predatory publishers associated with conferences.ConclusionsThis review identified a scarcity of research concerning predatory conferences. Future empirical as well as fully analytical research should be encouraged by funders, journals and research institutions.

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