One scientist calls it the dark side of open access, the move to make scholarly articles more accessible. The New York Times reports on how there s a proliferation of online journals that will print seemingly anything for a fee, and researchers warn that non experts using the Internet for research will have trouble distinguishing credible research from junk.
Most people don t know the journal universe, says Steve Goodman, editor of Clinical Trials. They will not know from a journal s title if it is for real or not.
Some journals charge authors as much as $2,700 per paper and make a point of recruiting authors, something mainstream journals would never do.
Some of the publications also run conferences with names similar to prestigious academic conferences think Entomology 2013 instead of Entomology-2013 that charge speakers to attend. The meetings could be used to pad a resume, but seem good for little else.
It s really an incredible corruption of science, says ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross says that while such duplicity must be firmly condemned, he is no longer shocked by these scams or phishing expeditions, saying he gets invitations like these often enough such that he can immediately tell when they are scams. But I imagine it s not difficult to ensnare a physician or scientist by inviting him or her to give a presentation at a prestigious medical conference in some exotic land. Hopefully people will soon learn to investigate before booking their trip.
