Emails from predatory journals

NewsBot · Mar 24, 2019

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The burden of predatory journal and congress requests in foot and ankle surgery
Fuß & Sprunggelenk 23 March 2019

Introduction
In recent years the proportion of predatory invitations by email of the total number of emails received has grown dramatically. The aim of the current study was to objectify the increase in predatory journal and congress requests per email over a 5.5-year period and their relatedness to the receivers’ speciality in Foot and Ankle surgery.

Material and method
A comprehensive Microsoft Outlook® analysis of 5.5 years’ worth of junk email from one surgical Foot & Ankle specialist working at a Level-1 trauma centre was evaluated. The topic of each email from the last year was scored according to the ‘degree-of-relatedness’.

Results
Between July 1st 2013 and December 31th 2018 a total of 41,687 emails were collected in the junk email folder of Microsoft Outlook®. A total of 17.0 percent was attributed to emails from predatory journals and congresses. Over the 5.5-year period the percentage of total emails that consisted of invitations from predatory journals and congresses rose from 4.5% to 40.8%. Only an insignificant amount (2.3%) was directly related to the authors medical sub-speciality of Foot and Ankle surgery.

Conclusion
This is the first study showing the individual burden of unsolicited emails from predatory publishers and journals. The authors acknowledge the risk that this publication, like all others, will likely result in yet even more invitations from predatory journals and congress invitations. All should be warned of a huge increase in emails from predatory journals and congresses, which has likely not peaked yet. Appropriate action is needed, as we urge foot–ankle interested scientists to publish in indexed journals with proper peer review.
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