To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to compare and contrast predatory journal emails and websites aimed at LIC and HIC researchers. Multiple similarities and some differences were noted between LIC and HIC predatory journal emails and their websites.
Common features in predatory email and journal submission requests to both LIC and HIC researchers included boastful language, claims of having read the researcher’s past work, requesting an email manuscript submission, poor website integrity, claims of very rapid processing time, etc.
Compared to HIC, LIC predatory journal emails were more likely to have impersonal greetings, poor integrity, a request for an urgent response and/or asked the researcher to reply to unsubscribe from the emails. The latter request is likely a way for predatory journals to confirm an email is active. Response only encourages the journal to continue sending emails. As emails are often hacked and therefore changed in LIC, being able to verify an email address is in current use is valuable. Predatory journals contacting LIC researchers were also more likely to use author targeted flattering language on their websites as well as lack a description of their peer review process.
Emails to researchers in LIC often contained requests outside the researcher’s scope of work, compared to emails to HIC researchers One possible explanation for the difference was that the LIC emails were more likely to come from very broadly scoped journals by their title (24% vs. 16%) and hence may have been more likely to encompass the researcher’s area of work. The predatory journals targeting HIC were more likely to be found on Beall’s list. This was unsurprising as Beall works at an HIC university and thus many of the journals, he assessed in compiling his list likely came from this context.
A concern raised by this study is that many predatory journal websites may have falsely claimed to have legitimate affiliations such as Creative Commons or the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These were common at 64% LIC vs. 50% HIC for COPE and 76% LIC vs. 84% HIC for Creative Commons. These findings were much higher than was found in previous literature 14,16 . Additionally, the Article Processing Charge (APC), were only mentioned in 7.9%6 to 20%15 of the emails in previous studies, but were mentioned in 74% of LIC emails and 62% of HIC emails in this study. Impersonal greetings were less common in this study (48% of LIC; 24% of HIC emails) than reported in previous studies(66%-83% )15. Previously reported common features of predatory journals were less common in this study including the use of distorted or unauthorized images on websites, use of Index Copernicus values, lack of retraction policies, an APC <$150USD, failing to mention copyright 14 , journal titles with a global/international context 6 , and requesting authors to pay APCs up front 5,12 . A further concern in distinguishing predatory journals is that some may be indexed in scholarly data bases such as ERIC, Scopus, Medline as a 2018 study revealed 18 .
Overall, these findings suggest that predatory publishers are continually learning and adapting their emails and websites tactics to try to better mimic credible academic journals to lure in unsuspecting potential researcher authors more readily. Of note, a number of these predatory journals claimed to waive or have lower APCs for LIC researchers specifically. Given that no manuscripts were submitted to the sites by the authors we cannot verify if this was true and maybe another attempt to seem more legitimate.
There are some limitations to this study. An assumption made in this research design is that clinician researchers were able to accurately collect and self-identify predatory emails, which may have led to some predatory emails being missed. Additionally, the criteria for email analysis included some qualitative factors (e.g., poor integrity), which results in subjective interpretation. The small clinician researcher sample size may limit the broader applicability of the work.
Since LIC researchers are targeted by predatory publishers, the strategies used to solicit submissions should be more clearly identified. Additional qualitative analysis could look for common themes. Given that predatory journals appear to be evolving their email requests and website content, replication of this study on a frequent basis is needed to be able to alert researchers in both HIC and LIC to new tactics as they arise. More studies are also needed in a broader array of LIC to see if tactics vary by region. As well similar research is also needed in countries where the language used by predatory journals in soliciting articles is not in English.