The forensic implications of predatory publishing

Excerpt

An email that I received recently requested my participation in a conference on “coastal zones” because of my academic standing in the field. It began: “Dear Byard, Greetings for the day! Lets Exploit yourself to the world. Because we believe that ‘You are the one that can inspires the common, to change the recitation of emerging world’” [sic]. The reality is, however, somewhat different—I have never written or presented a paper on “coastal zones”. In fact the only recent experience that I have had of coastal zones is taking my dog for a walk at the beach near Adelaide on weekends. This is hardly an activity to qualify for international pre-eminence, although Lucy (the dog) does seem to enjoy it. The sad fact is that nowadays we all receive persistent marketing emails such as this that are often written in idiosyncratic, hyperbolic, and incorrect English that invite us to be on editorial boards, to write papers, monographs and text books, and to travel to the far reaches of the planet to present at conferences on subjects ranging from oceanographic research to attention deficit disorder. Most, if not all, are in no way related to the specific areas of research or expertise of the recipient. The reason for this is that it is inconsequential to the publishers/organizers, as long as they can have enough participants/contributors who are who willing to pay the often substantial fees that are charged for involvement in such activities. Frankly some of these requests are not too dissimilar to emails that sometimes arrive congratulating the recipient on winning several billion dollars—all that is required are full banking details, including passwords. …