Thursday, December 29, 2016

In the NEWS: Fake Nephrology Conferences and Journals: Have you have been getting these emails?

Recently, few of us have noticed we get emails inviting us to submit to " Journal .... nephrology.. and .." The best one I got one was " New England Journal of Nephrology". In addition, there are apparently these emails inviting you to be presenting at conferences that sound so real but for few of us who have been in academia- know that they are a money making scam.  What is gained from these conferences? 
Series of these conferences are run by OMICS. They are apparently for many different fields in medicine.  When I clicked on the Nephrology section for the journals, I got this

https://www.omicsonline.org/nephrology-journals.php ( mostly Non nephrology journals)
When clicked on conferences, you get these
http://www.conferenceseries.com/nephrology-meetings 

Now take a look at the locations: Las Vegas, Orlando, Dubai!!
It seems that they are happening for many years. Has anyone gone to these? Based on the NYT article that was recently published, The Federal Trade Commission formally has charged OMICS with deceiving academics and researchers on such publications and fees.

The author in the NYT says nicely at the end and I quote "So it’s not surprising that some academics have chosen to give one another permission to accumulate publication credits on their C.V.’s and spend some of the departmental travel budget on short holidays. Nor is it surprising that some canny operators have now realized that when standards are loose to begin with, there are healthy profits to be made in the gray areas of academe."

Perhaps as a community in Nephrology we need to create a page that lists which of these journals and conferences are FAKE and prevent our colleagues on spending money on these ventures.


1 comment:

  1. Have been in one - its the most pathetic 'conference'. They make you pay for 'presenting' your research. Thus, both the speaker and the audience pay OMICS. The audience is made up of the few people who would eventually present a talk. In academics, presenting at an OMICS conference is looked down upon.

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