In the summer of 2012 a Home Healthcare Nurse author received an e-mail invitation inviting her to "introduce" her article at an international nursing conference, which was to be held a mere 6 weeks later. The letter was "signed" by the cochairs of the conference, both identified as "Dr." The first was also identified as being President of a cancer hospital in China. The second was identified only as being from India. The letter also provided a Web site address where additional information about the conference was available. A visit to that Web site showed "Highlights of Scientific Program [sic]" with no indication of who the speakers would be.
The Editor of Home Healthcare Nurse frequently receives messages from editorial board members and authors asking about the legitimacy of these e-mail invitations. Both authors of this editorial have received numerous similar invitations, many of them totally unrelated to nursing practice. So Judith Young did some research on these conferences and found that frequently they are sponsored by companies whose sole business is to organize such meetings and by open access publishers who are cited on Beall's (2012)List of Predatory Open-Access Publishers. The content of the journals these publishers produce is based primarily on papers submitted to the conferences, for which the authors must pay a publication fee, a hefty conference registration, or both.
Attempting to determine the validity of these conferences can be a challenge. Often the sponsors have no easily identifiable corporate Web site. A Google search on the sponsor's name can lead to a "Forbidden" message indicating that you do not have permission to access that server. If you do find a Web site for the sponsor, the links to its forthcoming conferences often do not work. Pictures of their "well-known speakers" often fail to provide any institutional affiliation.
How does one know if this is a sham conference invitation? The biggest clue is conference sponsorship. Does the invitation identify a recognized nursing organization or educational institution as the sponsor? The recent call for abstracts for the International Home Care Nurses Organization (IHCNO) conference in June 2013 prominently displays the name of the organization and also indicates that the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University is a cosponsor.
Other indications to look for include whether or not the keynote speakers are clearly identified and whether or not the conference offers continuing education credits. Another clue to validity is whether the sponsoring organization lists officers or a Board of Directors on its home Web site. Other hints that this might not be a scholarly conference include misspellings and poor English grammar on the Web site or in the e-mail. Vague claims that the sponsoring group is "a nonprofit approved by the government of the United States" and that "this event is supported by many countries" are additional red flags. As Denison (2011) observed in his academic blog, "This Week in Evolution," legitimate conferences "have organizing committees consisting of individually identifiable scientists with strong publication records."
If you are considering submitting an abstract to a conference, look at the turnaround time for abstract review and acceptance. These conferences often proclaim that the organizers need only 7 days for review. How realistic can that be? Furthermore, most conference speakers are selected by a program committee far more than 6 weeks before the date of the conference. According to discussions on http://spamawards.com, some of these conference organizers even specify that you may only submit an abstract if you have already registered for the conference.
If you are still in doubt about the validity of the conference, there are a variety of Web sites and blogs that identify conferences of dubious standing. Negative comments about specific for-profit conference sponsors have been posted on a variety of academic spam blogs, including MainSleaze (http://mainsleaze.spambouncer.org) and Uncommon Ground (http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/uncommon-ground/2012/03/spam-conferences.html). Additional sites include http://spaminform.com; http://scamwarners.com; http://isthisemailspam.com; http://spamcaution.com; http://scamdex.com; and http://scamoftheday.com. Additionally, there are several blogs devoted to these fake conferences including http://conferencecon.blogspot.com, http://fake-conferences.blogspot.com, and http://bogus-conferences.blogspot.com. The issue has also been discussed on Chronicle Forums (http://chronicle.com/forums/) sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The chief means of profit for these conferences is through virtual registrations, which enables an individual to participate in the conference as a presenter or an attendee through Webconferencing or online streaming without having to spend the money to travel. This method of conference attendance has actually been promoted by physicians who believe one way to reduce the carbon footprint is to limit travel to international medical conferences (Green, 2008; Roberts & Godlee, 2007). Furthermore, a Cochrane review of the effects on continuing education meetings and workshops on healthcare outcomes concluded that meetings alone are unlikely to change practitioner behavior effectively (Forsetlund et al., 2009).
Given the limited amount of support for conference attendance that most employers provide, it would be more prudent to use the funding for meetings that provide clearly identified speakers and are supported by recognized nursing or other organizations.
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