How writers and their associations respond to predatory publishing
Where a manuscript is submitted is the responsibility of its authors and, in part, of the medical writers who work on it, and keeping work out of predatory journals is an ethical duty. Writers share the duty, and they are often asked to help choose the journal. The medical writing and publication associations set the duty out in a joint position statement, educate their members about it and have the statement translated into other languages, while libraries, publishers and social media raise awareness of predatory publishing. Stopping the influence of predatory journals will need a coordinated response from all its stakeholders, from researchers to patients.
The authors' responsibility to evaluate a journal
Evaluating a journal before submitting material is a core responsibility of the authors: the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors states that "authors have a responsibility to evaluate the integrity, history, practices and reputation of the journals to which they submit manuscripts". New journals are constantly being created, some legitimate and others predatory. Each researcher has an individual, scientific and ethical responsibility to tell which are legitimate and which are predatory, to avoid the predatory ones and to publish only in legitimate ones.
Predatory publishers, journals and meeting organisers pose a serious threat to the integrity of science, so it is necessary to be vigilant and to evaluate carefully whether a publisher or provider is reputable before submitting an article or an abstract, and that evaluation is also a professional and ethical responsibility.
What the joint position statement asks of writers
The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) issued a joint position statement on predatory publishing on 29 July 2019. Because even seasoned researchers can unknowingly fall prey to unscrupulous online publishers, AMWA began working with the other two associations in January 2019 to draft it. The statement complements several other sets of guidelines that have helped define the characteristics of a predatory journal. It summarises those characteristics, outlines the harm predatory journals do to authors and to the scientific community, and gives practical tips for spotting them.
The statement says that authors should not purposely submit manuscripts to predatory journals to augment their own publication records, as some have recently done. It calls conscious, deliberate submission to a predatory journal unethical. It holds medical writers and editors, as well as researchers, responsible for evaluating the integrity, history, practices and reputation of the journals their research is submitted to. It encourages all authors to carry out due diligence by examining the reputation of the publications they submit to, and to send their work only to journals that provide proper peer review and genuinely seek to contribute to the scientific literature. It also holds medical writers responsible for ensuring that the manuscripts they work on are not submitted to predatory journals. Finally, it says the scientific community must be made fully aware of the harm of publishing in predatory journals and must understand how to avoid it.
One journal editor hoped the statement would move medical communicators to be more aware of predatory publishing practices, to be vigilant in helping their authors avoid unintentional publication in predatory journals, and to avoid perpetuating or citing works from those publishers.
Why the duty falls on medical writers
Medical communicators are often asked to help select an appropriate journal, so they are in a key position to help authors avoid falling prey to predatory publishers. They need to know about all aspects of predatory publishing, because it not only undermines the credibility of science but may also have serious consequences for authors, their careers and their institutions. One medical communicator holds that medical communicators must be able to recognise predatory open-access publications easily, so that they can steer the research community around them. One experienced medical editor is often asked by colleagues guiding clients and external medical experts to a journal or a meeting whether it is legitimate or predatory, and is surprisingly often not completely certain of the answer.
Medical writers and editors cannot influence every aspect of predatory publishing, but they need to be aware that it is happening and to educate the scientists they work with about its existence and potential impact. It is up to researchers, medical writers, editors and their organisations to inform and educate, so that science is peer reviewed, reliable and rigorous. One medical writer holds that predatory publishing has given medical writers added value in steering others away from these predators.
A survey sent in October 2021 to EMWA members on behalf of EMWA's Medical Communications Special Interest Group, and through other medical communications bodies, drew responses from 128 medical writers and communicators, mostly from EMWA but also from ISMPP and AMWA. Of the respondents, 68% were from Europe and a fifth from North America; the most typical had 11 to 20 years' experience (28%), and the most typical age was 40 to 49 (35%). Most agreed that predatory journals affect the work of medical writers and communicators (86%) and that predatory conferences do (78%). Four in five rejected the statement that predatory publishing is an academic problem that does not affect them, though one in ten agreed.
Seventy-eight per cent agreed that predatory practices left unchallenged could fuel disinformation in public policy, though 14% strongly disagreed. Ninety-one per cent agreed that they could significantly affect medical professionals, patients and other stakeholders, one of the highest positive responses in the survey.
How aware medical writers are
In the 2021 survey, 97% of respondents had heard the terms for predatory publishing, and 78% had come across predatory activity in their work, 52% several times and 26% only once or twice. Twenty-one per cent had not, as far as they were aware, and 1% did not know.
The questions that followed were put to those who had come across predatory activity. Most of those who answered how they had recognised it did so from their own experience (70%), and about a third used a resource, 36% in the text of the survey report and 32% in its chart. Someone else pointed it out to 8%, 3% found out only after they had used the source, and 8% did not know.
Half of those who answered how often they received unsolicited emails from suspected predatory journals or conferences received them once a month, 10% once a week and 14% more than once a week, while 27% never received them. Of those who answered whether such solicitations were becoming more common, 58% agreed and 39% neither agreed nor disagreed.
Of those who answered about their direct experience, three quarters had been invited directly to submit an article or join an editorial board, and 11% had inadvertently submitted. One per cent had knowingly submitted. About 20% did not know whether they had been solicited or had submitted anything, a significant minority who appear unable to tell predatory journals and conferences from legitimate enterprises.
Seventy per cent of all respondents knew the EMWA-ISMPP-AMWA Joint Position Statement on Predatory Publishing, 4% were unsure, and a quarter did not know it. Of the resources made to counter predatory practices, respondents had heard of Beall's List (54%), the COPE principles of transparency (46%), Think. Check. Submit. (32%), Cabells' Predatory Reports (22%), Think. Check. Attend. (10%) and the Dolos list (2%), and 26% had heard of none of them. The text of the survey report gives the same shares for Beall's List, the Committee on Publication Ethics, Think. Check. Submit. and Cabells' Predatory Reports, but as resources respondents used.
The analyst of the survey concluded that most medical writers are aware of the problem and feel relatively confident in dealing with it, while many others are either unaware of it or quite uncertain about identifying predatory operators and avoiding being lured by them.
The professional associations
AMWA, EMWA and ISMPP are committed to educating their members about predatory publishing and about the responsibilities of medical writers and publication professionals in addressing it. Since the statement's publication, they have provided its message to their members, and they promote resources that medical communicators can trust to help determine whether a journal is reputable.
Within EMWA, the Medical Communications Special Interest Group also focuses on predatory publications. The seminars on predatory journals that EMWA hosted in the years before the 2021 survey drew high levels of interest and engagement. At EMWA's 2020 virtual conference, 85% of attendees at one presentation on predatory publishing said they would like to see the topic developed further at future conferences.
To raise awareness among non-English speakers of the responsibilities of medical writers and publication professionals that the statement addresses, EMWA has initiated its translation into European languages. Translations posted on the association's website include Italian, Polish, Swedish, Armenian, Arabic, Bulgarian and Czech. EMWA has sought volunteers to translate it. EMWA holds that by developing and publicising the statement with AMWA and ISMPP, it makes the statement's principles easier for publication professionals around the world to read, understand and apply.
Of all respondents to the 2021 survey, 84% agreed that further EMWA resources would be useful for their work. Asked how EMWA could support its members, respondents suggested education programmes open to all medical writers, a single website with all the relevant information, a new list against which anyone can check journal titles, and the continued rollout of webinars and talks on the subject from organisations such as EMWA. The survey's analyst, writing in 2022, said that EMWA would take these recommendations on board as it decided where to focus its activities supporting members and the wider medical communications community.
Raising awareness
One journal editor holds that predatory publishing should be of grave concern to the medical writing, clinical development and academic communities, and that it is therefore very important both to establish awareness and the extent of the problem and to keep raising the issue for discussion so that awareness stays high.
Awareness of predatory publishers and their tactics grew steadily after Jeffrey Beall began to expose them and launched his list. Many organisations acknowledge the problem and advise their members on how to recognise and identify a predatory journal. Academic libraries and publisher organisations include sections on predatory publishing and tips on how to avoid it.
Social media is used to educate others and raise awareness of predatory publications. On LinkedIn and Twitter, for example, editorial associations, publishers, and individual writers and researchers use #PredatoryPublishing to share their experiences, denounce the practice and increase awareness of these publications. One Twitter account, run by a group of academics focused on fake journals, gives its mission as to "rid scientific publishing of fake and predatory journals". In 2021 it had over 3,000 followers and tweeted regularly to inform and educate the public about predatory journals.
A coordinated response
Stopping the influence of predatory journals will need a coordinated response by all stakeholders: researchers, institutions, funders, regulators and patients.