Researchers and medical practitioners should be on alert for ‘predatory’ conference organisers who put commercial motivations above spreading information, say concerned researchers. Unsuspecting clinicians may be duped into attending or speaking at the conferences, which are convened purely for profit, and offer little in the way of science, said Associate Professor Michael Brown, from […]
Researchers and medical practitioners should be on alert for ‘predatory’ conference organisers who put commercial motivations above spreading information, say concerned researchers.
Unsuspecting clinicians may be duped into attending or speaking at the conferences, which are convened purely for profit, and offer little in the way of science, said Associate Professor Michael Brown, from the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy.
Conference organisers can make large profits on the events, by inviting attendees to speak at the legitimate-sounding conferences, before being hit with hefty fees of up to $900 to register.
One of the companies most under fire for this practice, the Hyderabad-based OMICS Group, was outed by bioinformatics lecturer at UNSW Dr Richard Edwards in his popular blog, The Cabbages of Doom.
In 2013 the US National Institutes of Health sent OMICS Group a cease-and-desist to stop them from falsely using the agencies and employees details in their promotional material.
Unlike when invited to speak at legitimate conferences, Dr Edwards told The Medical Republic OMICS asked him a for registration payment without a significant speaker discount, or travel or accommodation costs.
Dr Edwards and other past attendees have complained that they have been publicised as ‘organisers’ or ‘executive editors’. When these attendees have asked the company to remove their names, the response has been underwhelming.
The OMICS group isn’t believed to be the only company offering these conferences.
Critics say such conference companies appear to operate on a similar model to so-called predatory publishers, in that they bill themselves as providing legitimate products by hijacking the names of unaware experts, or even making up names, to lend credibility to their events.
They also attempt to appeal to potential speakers’ egos by showering them with complimentary epithets, such as “your eminence” and “esteemed” colleague, according to commentators on The Cabbages of Doom website.
Previous attendees of OMICS conferences have also described poorly-organised events, with dismal turnouts and large gaps in the program, and promised speakers sometimes failing to show up.
On its website, OMICS says its COPD 2016 conference will have, “over 500 scientists, clinicians, respiratory therapists, nurses, patients, government officials, and representatives from pharmaceutical companies will be participated [sic].”
Jeffery Beall, author of the popular Beall’s List of predatory publishers, said that by their nature, conferences are hard to regulate because they can be non-transparent and transitory.
“All honest researchers should protect themselves and avoid all OMICS conferences”, he told The Medical Republic.
Other commentators have warned potential conference attendees to examine the event websites carefully before registering, as the quality of the content often speaks for itself.
For example, OMIC’s site for its Australian COPD 2016 conference explains one of its streams thus: “Arteries and veins both carry and move blood throughout the body, but the process for each is very different. The lungs are a pair of cone-shaped organs made up of spongy, pinkish-grey tissue.”
