The rise of predatory conferences jeopardises the future of legitimate research events. But could conference IDs be the solution?
By now, predatory conferences should be on your radar. These “scholarly” events are organised on a strictly for-profit basis, pay lip service to peer review, and publish almost anything sent their way — for a fee, of course. (An associate professor submitted a nuclear physics paper written using iOS autocomplete to one such conference. It passed review with flying colours.)
For years, shady individuals have been exploiting early-career researchers’ eagerness to publish. But unless you were desperate — or painfully naive — fake conferences were pretty easy to spot and avoid. Up till now.
Read the blogpost of Paul Killoran, who is extremely passionate about exposing predatory conferences. Paul is the founder of Ex Ordo, which specializes in conference software.