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What is it like to attend a predatory conference?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02358-wCAREER FEATURE
18 July 2024
What is it like to attend a predatory conference?
Nature sent a reporter to find out as part of an investigation into dud events.
By Christine Ro
[...]
A Nature reporter attended the event, and found it to be shambolic. It was facilitated by a PhD student, a PhD student, who said that she had been asked by e-mail just a couple of days beforehand to take on the extra, unpaid role of delivering a conference speech. The conference administrator, who said that a friend had told him a few days earlier of the paid, one-off gig, had brought his laptop, but attendees had to run back to their hotel rooms to gather the connecting cables needed for presentations. No one from Conference Series was present.
The nine sessions were swapped around in a dizzying way. And although the conference was due to run until 5.30 p.m., it was abruptly wrapped up at 12.30 p.m., to general confusion. People who were supposed to give poster presentations — including one who had shepherded hers on two flights — left with their posters still wrapped.
[...]
What is a predatory conference?
Nature attended the in-person and the virtual event alongside Loren as part of an investigation into predatory conferences. These are in some ways similar to predatory journals, which promise to publish research of any kind without proper peer review — for a fee. And, like predatory journals, predatory conferences can be hard to define. Criteria often listed include weak or no peer review for presentations, poor organization and a focus on making the organizers money.
James McCrostie, who researches business administration at Daito Bunka University in Tokyo, thinks that the number of predatory conferences is continuing to grow, and that organizers are swift to change their practices to evade detection. He also thinks that ‘vulture conferences’, to use a Japanese term, are now more plentiful than legitimate ones.
[...]
18 July 2024
What is it like to attend a predatory conference?
Nature sent a reporter to find out as part of an investigation into dud events.
By Christine Ro
[...]
A Nature reporter attended the event, and found it to be shambolic. It was facilitated by a PhD student, a PhD student, who said that she had been asked by e-mail just a couple of days beforehand to take on the extra, unpaid role of delivering a conference speech. The conference administrator, who said that a friend had told him a few days earlier of the paid, one-off gig, had brought his laptop, but attendees had to run back to their hotel rooms to gather the connecting cables needed for presentations. No one from Conference Series was present.
The nine sessions were swapped around in a dizzying way. And although the conference was due to run until 5.30 p.m., it was abruptly wrapped up at 12.30 p.m., to general confusion. People who were supposed to give poster presentations — including one who had shepherded hers on two flights — left with their posters still wrapped.
[...]
What is a predatory conference?
Nature attended the in-person and the virtual event alongside Loren as part of an investigation into predatory conferences. These are in some ways similar to predatory journals, which promise to publish research of any kind without proper peer review — for a fee. And, like predatory journals, predatory conferences can be hard to define. Criteria often listed include weak or no peer review for presentations, poor organization and a focus on making the organizers money.
James McCrostie, who researches business administration at Daito Bunka University in Tokyo, thinks that the number of predatory conferences is continuing to grow, and that organizers are swift to change their practices to evade detection. He also thinks that ‘vulture conferences’, to use a Japanese term, are now more plentiful than legitimate ones.
[...]