RESEARCH INTEGRITY WORKSHOP

Predatory Publishing

and Predatory Conferences

How to recognize them, how to verify a venue in sixty seconds,

and what to do if you have already been caught.

For graduate students and postdocs in engineering and operations research

Companion handout available — see the resources slide for the full list.

Three numbers to start

The scale of the problem, in documented figures

$50.1M

Judgment against the publisher OMICS Group in 2019, after a US federal court found it made deceptive claims about its journals and conferences.

456

Hijacked journals — clones of real journal websites — listed by the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker as of May 2026.

120+

Computer-generated nonsense papers withdrawn by IEEE and Springer in 2014, after they passed into more than 30 sets of conference proceedings.

None of this is a fringe problem at the edges of science. It is an industry, and it reaches our field.

Sources: FTC press release (2019); Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker; Van Noorden, Nature news (2014).

1

Predatory publishing & conferences

What we will cover

Six parts, then a routine you can actually use

1

What "predatory" actually means

The consensus definition and the four hallmarks it identifies

2

How they reach you

Anatomy of the solicitation email, and the journal red flags

3

Why blacklists are not the answer

And what positive verification looks like instead

4

Hijacked journals

The cloning problem that defeats ordinary vetting

5

Predatory conferences

Different tells, higher stakes, and documented cases in engineering

6

Verification in our field

IEEE, INFORMS and IISE tools, plus a sixty-second routine

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Predatory publishing & conferences

What "predatory" means

A consensus definition, not a slur

"

Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.

Grudniewicz et al., Nature 576, 210–212 (2019) — reached by 43 participants from 10 countries in a three-round Delphi process

Why the wording matters

• It describes conduct, not a list of names. Any journal can be assessed against it.
• It does not say "open access." Legitimate open access is a publishing model, not a warning sign.
• It does not say "new" or "non-Western." Being unfamiliar to you is not evidence of anything.
• Intent to deceive is not required — negligence and opacity are enough to qualify.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

The four hallmarks

Each one is checkable before you submit anything

1

False or misleading information

Invented impact factors, fabricated indexing claims, editorial board members who never agreed to serve, a listed address that is a mail drop.

2

Deviation from best practice

Peer review in days or hours, no named handling editor, no retraction or correction policy, no plagiarism screening, no archiving arrangement.

3

Lack of transparency

Fees not disclosed until after acceptance, no clear ownership, no named staff, vague or absent policies on ethics, data, and conflicts of interest.

4

Aggressive, indiscriminate solicitation

Cold emails praising a paper of yours they have clearly not read, invitations far outside your field, repeated follow-ups, artificial deadlines.

Framework: Grudniewicz et al., Nature (2019).

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Predatory publishing & conferences

How they reach you

Almost every case starts with an unsolicited email

Subject: Invitation — Your esteemed research work

Dear Esteemed Dr. [Your Name],

​

We read your excellent paper and were highly impressed by your remarkable contribution to the scientific community. We cordially invite you to submit to the Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Research (Impact Factor: 7.42).

​

Rapid peer review is guaranteed within 72 hours. Acceptance rate is high. Submit before the 30th to secure inclusion in our upcoming issue.

​

We also welcome your participation as a Keynote Speaker at our Global Summit in Barcelona.

"Esteemed Dr." with no real name

Mail-merged. They do not know who you are or what you work on.

"Impact Factor: 7.42"

Impact factors come only from Clarivate JCR. Verify there, or treat as invented.

"Multidisciplinary"

A scope so broad that no reviewer could be competent across it.

"Within 72 hours"

Real review cannot happen that fast. The clearest single tell in the message.

"Submit before the 30th"

The deadline is artificial. Its only function is to stop you checking.

"Keynote Speaker"

Unearned flattery — and the journal and conference are one operation.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Journal red flags

Any one of these should stop you; two should end the conversation

Fees revealed late

An article processing charge that appears only after acceptance, or that is not stated anywhere on the site.

Unverifiable indexing

Logos for Scopus, Web of Science, or DOAJ that you cannot confirm in those databases themselves.

Implausible turnaround

Review promised in days. Also: recently published articles with no submission or acceptance dates shown.

Board without consent

Editors listed who do not mention the journal on their own websites. Email two and ask.

Scope with no shape

A single journal covering engineering, dentistry, and economics, or an issue whose articles have nothing in common.

No integrity apparatus

No retraction policy, no corrections, no COPE membership, no named ethics contact, no archiving plan.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

What it costs you

The money is the smallest part

1

The work is effectively lost

A paper published in a venue nobody reads and no database indexes cannot be cited, cannot be found, and cannot be counted.

2

You usually cannot undo it

Many of these operators refuse to withdraw a paper, or demand a further fee to do so. The record may be permanent.

3

You cannot republish it

A legitimate journal will treat it as already published. Prior publication in a junk venue can burn the paper for good.

4

It follows your CV

Search committees and tenure reviewers do look at where you published. Explaining one of these is a conversation you do not want.

For a graduate student, the third item is the one that hurts most. Protect the paper, not just the fee.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Why you cannot just consult a list

Two independent problems with blacklists

The lists are weak evidence

• A 2020 systematic review screened 1,528 records and found 93 checklists for identifying predatory journals.
• Only three met the review criteria for being evidence-based.
• Most averaged 11 unweighted items, gave no guidance on how to interpret a score, and largely duplicated each other.
• A journal can fail several checklist items and still be legitimate — and pass them all while being fraudulent.

The label gets misapplied

• COPE advises treating lists of predatory journals with the same scrutiny you would apply to the journals themselves.
• "Predatory" is sometimes used to discredit new entrants, particularly those challenging subscription models.
• Small, young, and non-Western journals are disproportionately flagged on grounds of unfamiliarity rather than conduct.
• Absence from a blacklist tells you nothing at all. Most fraudulent venues are on no list anywhere.

So: stop asking "is this journal on a bad list?" Ask instead "can I positively confirm this journal is what it claims to be?"

Sources: Cukier et al., BMC Medicine (2020); COPE, "Avoiding predatory publishers."

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Verify positively

Four independent confirmations, each from a source the journal does not control

1

Find it in an index

Search Scopus, Web of Science, or MEDLINE directly. Do not trust a logo on the journal site — confirm the title in the database itself.

>

2

Check DOAJ

For open access, the Directory of Open Access Journals applies transparency and quality criteria before listing. Absence is not proof of fraud, but presence is real evidence.

>

3

Check industry membership

COPE, OASPA, STM, ALPSP. Membership requires meeting published standards and can be verified on those organizations' own sites.

>

4

Read the last issue

Do the articles cohere as a field? Are submission, acceptance, and publication dates shown? Would you cite any of this?

Your subject librarian can do all four faster than you can, and will not think the question is naive.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Think. Check. Submit.

The cross-industry checklist — thinkchecksubmit.org

THINK

Slow down. The volume of journals makes choosing hard, and that difficulty is exactly what predatory publishers exploit. Assume nothing about a venue you have not used before.

CHECK

Work through the checklist: do you or your colleagues know the journal? Can you verify the publisher, the editorial board, the fees, the peer review process, the indexing, the archiving?

SUBMIT

Submit only if you were able to confirm most or all of the items. If you could not confirm something basic, that is the answer.

Run by a coalition including COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, STM, ISSN, LIBER and others — not by any single publisher. There is a parallel checklist for books and book chapters.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Hijacked journals

The problem that defeats everything on the previous three slides

A hijacked or cloned journal is a fraudulent website impersonating a real, indexed journal — same title, same ISSN, copied design, copied editorial board, different URL.

456

hijacked journals listed by Retraction Watch as of May 2026, up from roughly 400 six months earlier

Why the usual advice fails here

• You vetted the right journal. It is indexed, it is reputable, your advisor has published in it.
• You then submitted through the wrong website — and every check you ran still passes.
• The clone collects your fee, publishes without review, and sometimes gets its output into citation databases.
• Hijacking now operates as part of paper-mill infrastructure, which is why the volume keeps rising.

Source: Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Case study: "Springer Global Publication"

Reported by Retraction Watch, November 2024

An outfit with no connection to Springer Nature cloned the websites of thirteen journals at once — titles from Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and the American Medical Association, including the Journal of Academic Ethics and Machine Intelligence Research.

The name did the work

A plausible-sounding variant of a major publisher name is enough to pass a quick glance in a search result or an email signature.

It sold the whole pipeline

The same operation advertised finding writers for papers, editing manuscripts, and "managing" peer review — the defining signature of a paper mill.

A journal on academic ethics was among the targets

Nobody is too specialized, too obscure, or too self-aware to be cloned.

Source: Retraction Watch, "New hijacking scam targets Elsevier, Springer Nature, and other major publishers" (25 Nov 2024).

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Predatory publishing & conferences

How to defeat a clone

Three habits, none of which cost you any time

1

Never navigate from an email

Reach the journal by typing the publisher or society domain yourself, or by clicking through from Scopus, Web of Science, or DOAJ. Treat every link in a solicitation as hostile.

2

Check the URL, not the title

The title will be correct — that is the whole point of the scam. Search the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker, which lists confirmed clone titles alongside their fake URLs.

3

Distrust surprises in the workflow

A submission system that is a bare web form or an email address, a payment request by wire or to a personal account, or a domain that does not match the publisher: stop and ask your librarian.

One sentence version: get to the journal through a source the journal cannot edit.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

PART TWO

Predatory conferences

Same economics, different tells — and a bigger hole in your budget.

What a predatory conference is

An event that exists to collect registration fees

Predatory conferences accept submissions of very poor quality or none at all, claim uninvolved academics as organizers and speakers, and deliberately mimic the names of established meetings to attract submissions.

How they differ from predatory journals

The product is a room, not a record

There may be an actual event — a hotel, a badge, a projector. Its existence proves nothing about its peer review.

Many "conferences" share one venue

Dozens of unrelated meetings run in parallel so that anyone in any field can be sold a ticket.

The proceedings are the second hook

Promised indexing for proceedings papers is where the journal-side deception reappears.

Flattery is the main instrument

Keynote and session-chair invitations to people with no relevant record. The title is the bait.

Definitional summary drawn from the predatory conference literature and the Think. Check. Attend. framework.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Conference red flags

The tells are different from the journal tells — learn both

Scope with no discipline

One event nominally covering industrial engineering, dentistry and nanotechnology. Or forty parallel "conferences" under one banner.

No verifiable committee

No named program chair, or a committee of people you cannot find, cannot contact, or who have never mentioned the event.

Acceptance in days

Or acceptance of an abstract you know to be thin. Real program committees take weeks and reject.

Fees before acceptance

Registration due regardless of outcome, non-refundable deposits, or a fee schedule that is hard to find on the site.

Guaranteed indexing

Promises that proceedings will appear in Scopus or Web of Science. No organizer can guarantee this; indexers decide.

A venue chosen for tourism

Rotating glamorous cities, the same event rebranded city to city, and a program with more excursions than sessions.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Why the stakes are higher

Three ways a fake conference costs more than a fake journal

1

Real money leaves

Registration plus airfare plus a hotel, often from a student travel budget that exists once a year. There is no refund and no recourse.

2

It is on your CV in public

A presentation line cannot be quietly removed once colleagues, committees, and collaborators have seen it.

3

It can burn the paper

A "proceedings paper" from one of these events may count as prior publication, closing the door on the real venue you wanted.

Before you spend travel money, send the call for papers to your advisor. One email, no cost, and it ends the question.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

This has been proven in court

FTC v. OMICS Group — US District Court, District of Nevada, 2019

$50.1M

Judgment entered against Srinubabu Gedela and his companies, calculated from total revenues 2011–2017 less chargebacks and refunds.

60%

Of a sample of 100 of their conferences named organizers or participants who had never agreed to serve in that capacity.

2016 → 2019

From FTC complaint to summary judgment. The court found deceptive claims about both the journals and the conferences.

What the court found they did

• Falsely advertised the rigor of peer review and the composition of editorial boards.
• Concealed steep publication fees until after authors had submitted.
• Used the names of prominent researchers as editors and speakers without their permission.

Source: US Federal Trade Commission press release, April 2019. WASET, a separate operator, has faced similar documented allegations.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

And it has reached our field

Two documented cases from mainstream engineering venues

Computer-generated papers

Cyril Labbé found SCIgen-generated nonsense papers in more than 30 sets of published conference proceedings from 2008 to 2013. IEEE and Springer withdrew over 120 of them — more than 100 from IEEE alone. These were not obscure venues.

Tortured phrases

Machine paraphrasing swaps technical terms for synonyms, producing text that no specialist would write. Cabanac, Labbé and Magazinov identified it across engineering journals; Microprocessors and Microsystems was the flagship case.

What a tortured phrase looks like

"colossal information"

means "big data"

"counterfeit consciousness"

means "artificial intelligence"

"irregular esteem"

means "random value"

"bosom peril"

means "breast cancer"

You can spot this while refereeing. If the terminology in a submission is not what anyone in the field says, look harder.

Sources: Van Noorden, Nature news (2014); Cabanac, Labbé & Magazinov, arXiv:2107.06751 (2021).

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Think. Check. Attend.

The conference counterpart — thinkcheckattend.org

1

Organizers and sponsors

Is the organizing society one your field knows? Are the sponsors named and plausible, or are they unnamed commercial patrons?

2

Conference information

Are fees, submission dates, event dates, committee, program and venue all clearly and completely presented?

3

Fees

Is it clear what will be charged, and whether fees are waived if you are accepted as a speaker?

4

Editorial control and review

Is the committee explicit about who controls the program and what kind of peer review is used?

5

Proceedings and indexing

Does it say which indexers it will submit to — as opposed to guaranteeing acceptance? Is the proceedings publisher a member of COPE, DOAJ, or OASPA?

Source: Think. Check. Attend. checklist.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Verification tools for our field

Four checks that beat any general-purpose checklist

1

IEEE Conference Search

conferences.ieee.org

Every IEEE-sponsored and co-sponsored event is listed once sponsorship is approved. Fake conferences display IEEE logos without permission constantly, so this is the definitive check — and it takes ten seconds.

2

Society calendars

INFORMS · IISE · POMS

The same logic for our own societies. If a meeting is not on the society's own calendar, the society is not behind it, whatever the call for papers implies.

3

Problematic Paper Screener

irit.fr — Cabanac

Sweeps the literature weekly for tortured phrases and other fingerprints of paper-mill output. Searchable: check a journal or a proceedings series before you submit or agree to referee.

4

Cabells Predatory Reports

via the library

Subscription, but actively maintained and with reasonable engineering coverage — unlike Beall's list. Ask whether NC State subscribes. One input, not a verdict.

A claimed sponsorship you cannot confirm on the sponsor's own site is not a sponsorship.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

This is not a competence problem

Who actually shows up at questionable conferences

A study of questionable conferences found presenters from top-ranked universities among the participants — not only researchers from under-resourced institutions or unfamiliar systems.

Kulczycki, Hołowiecki,

Taşkın & Doğan

"Questionable conferences and presenters from top-ranked universities"

Journal of Information Science (2024)

What follows from that

• Prestige, seniority, and a good library do not confer immunity. Busy people click links.
• Nobody here should feel embarrassed asking whether a venue is real — including asking a senior colleague.
• Pressure to publish and present is the actual risk factor, and early-career researchers carry the most of it.
• The defense is a routine, not intelligence. Routines work when you are tired and behind.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Your sixty-second routine

Do this every time, for every venue you have not used before

1

Delete unsolicited invitations unread. Nothing of value to your career arrives that way.

2

Reach the venue yourself — type the publisher or society domain, or click through from Scopus, Web of Science, or DOAJ. Never from an email link.

3

Confirm indexing in the database itself, not from a logo on the site. Cross-check the exact URL against the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker.

4

For a conference, confirm the sponsor: IEEE Conference Search, or the INFORMS, IISE or POMS calendar. A logo on their own page is not evidence.

5

Find the fee schedule and the named editor or program chair before you write a word. If either is missing or vague, stop.

6

Email one board or committee member and ask if they serve. For conferences, forward the call for papers to your advisor.

If any step cannot be completed, that is your answer. Ambiguity is the product they are selling.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

If you have already submitted or paid

Move quickly, document everything, and tell someone

Do this

• Write immediately requesting withdrawal, in writing, and keep a copy.
• Screenshot the site, the emails, the fee page, and the URL you used.
• Tell your advisor and your subject librarian today, not after it resolves.
• Ask your library or research office whether the institution has recourse — some have handled this before.
• If money moved by card, ask your bank about a chargeback while the window is open.
• Report the venue to your library so the next student is warned.

Do not do this

• Do not pay a further "withdrawal," "processing," or "release" fee. It buys nothing.
• Do not assume the paper is unsalvageable before asking — if it has not been published, withdrawal may still work.
• Do not quietly submit the same manuscript elsewhere without disclosing the situation to the new editor.
• Do not handle it alone out of embarrassment. This happens to experienced researchers routinely.
• Do not keep engaging by email once it is clear they are stalling. Escalate instead.

The disclosure point matters: an editor told the full story upfront can often work with you. One who discovers it later cannot.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Resources

All free except where noted, and all usable in minutes

Think. Check. Submit.

thinkchecksubmit.org

Journal and book checklist from a coalition including COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and STM.

Think. Check. Attend.

thinkcheckattend.org

The conference equivalent: organizers, information, fees, review, proceedings.

IEEE Conference Search

conferences.ieee.org

Confirms whether IEEE actually sponsors or co-sponsors a meeting.

Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker

retractionwatch.com

Cloned journal titles paired with their fraudulent URLs.

Problematic Paper Screener

irit.fr — Cabanac

Tortured phrases and other paper-mill fingerprints, searchable by venue.

DOAJ

doaj.org

Listing requires meeting transparency and quality criteria.

COPE

publicationethics.org

Member lists, guidance, and its note of caution about blacklists.

Your subject librarian

the library website

Fastest and most reliable resource here. Will not think your question is naive.

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Predatory publishing & conferences

Three rules to leave with

1

Nothing good arrives unsolicited

No real journal or conference needs to cold-email you with flattery and a deadline.

2

Verify from a source they do not control

Indexes, DOAJ, COPE, IEEE Conference Search, the society calendar. Never a logo on their own page.

3

Ask early, ask anyone

Your advisor and your librarian would far rather answer a question this week than a crisis next month.

Questions — and bring a call for papers you are unsure about.