The Rise of Predatory Journals in Foot and Ankle Surgery: Propitious or Detrimental?

CATEGORY: Other INTRODUCTION/PURPOSE: In the world of foot and ankle surgery, much like other surgical fields, research has always been a strong foundation for advancing the field and making strides into improving our knowledge base, perfecting surgical techniques and discovering ways of improving patient outcomes. In recent years, there has been the advent of predatory journals in orthopaedic surgery, though many clinicians may not be familiar with what predatory journals are. The aim of our study is to objectively analyze F&A surgery predatory journals and compare them to higher impact journals in F&A surgery and dispute whether or not predatory journals are beneficial or detrimental to the field of F&A. METHODS: Our inclusion criteria involved all existing foot and ankle journals that were considered to be predatory according to Beall’s criteria. Our authors viewed Beall’s online archive, in addition to a recent publication by Yang et al (4), in which we were able to gather a list of several predatory journals related to the field of foot and ankle surgery. After discussion with the authors, it was decided to select three of the higher impact well-known foot and ankle journals to use as a comparison to the predatory journals. The journals that were selected were the Foot and Ankle International journal (AOFAS), Foot and ankle specialist, and the European Foot and ankle specialist (EFAS). Many journal demographics factors (ISSN, peer review process, PubMed indexig, etc) were compared between both types of journals. RESULTS: Of 7 predatory journals, only 2 (28.6%) responded to an online message in regard to the demographics of their journal. Of the journals that responded, none of the journals directly answered all of the questions that were asked. Only 4 of the 7 journals (57%) disclosed their impact factor, and they ranged from 1.508 to 2.52. 2 journals (28.6%) had an editorial board, while one (14%) did not have an editorial board. Information regarding the editorial board was unable to be gathered from 4 journals, as they did not respond to online messages. 4 journals disclosed an article processing fee ranging from $360-$2145. CONCLUSION: With financial incentives and job promotions being based on research publications, more and more predatory journals are being created to allow authors in the field to publish. However, this rise in predatory journals is detrimental. With a lack of a thorough peer review for some journals, sky-high article processing fees, and hidden peer review processes, these journals are a threat to the next generation of researchers who are not savvy in literature review. We must make a push to have more stringent criteria to critique and index articles.