The Fox and the Crow: Predatory Open Access Journals in Otolaryngology.

Abstract

Otolaryngologists regularly receive invitations from open access otolaryngology–head and neck surgery journals to submit papers or to join the editorial board. Some of these journals are considered “predatory.” There has been no published attempt to see if bogus otolaryngological articles would be accepted by such journals. We sent a fake article describing a supposed otosclerotic lesion localized in the fallopian tube and surgically treated by phacoemulsification of the stapes to 41 such journals. Eight journals accepted the paper, 7 requested structural revision, 2 requested revision even though the reviewer recommended rejection, 4 rejected the paper only because they found it had already been published by another open access journal (without the authors’ knowledge), and 2 rejected the paper. Eighteen journals had not responded after 6 weeks. A contemporary retelling of the poem “The Fox and the Crow” concludes our article, which illustrates predatory practices among specific open access otolaryngology journals.