2018). He demonstrated that the self-citations of Sustainability, in 2016 and 2017, in relation to articles published in 2015, in no way corresponded to a uniform probability distribution. 6 ways to spot a Predatory Journal: 1. In 2019, 24 journals out of 53 had self-citation rates as high as 15%, which is the upper end of the normal range set by Clarivate (Table 2). It is well known that the direct relation between income and the number of manuscripts that are accepted prompts predatory journals to conduct cursory peer reviews, in such a way that the rejection rate is minimal, so that ample economic returns are still guaranteed (Beall, 2016; Frandsen, 2017). Stay away from Frontiers. Elseviers review speed (submission to final decision in days). According to the MDPI Annual Report 2019 (MDPI 2020), these 218 journals are supported by 67,207 editors (an increase of 55.78% over 2018) with a median time from submission to publication of 39days (as it was in 2018) and APCs ranging from 300 to 2,000 CHF (1 Swiss Franc is approximately equal to 0.92 Euros) with a median of 1.525 CHF. The average increase in the number of published articles was 148.93%. This mega-publisher was initially incorporated on Bealls list and was subsequently excluded on 28th October 2015 as a result of a formal appeal made by MDPI and assessed by four members of Mr Beall's Appeals Board (https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/534). Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. The journal welcomes submissions on a wide spectrum of cell and developmental biology . 2020) for inclusion in an objective definition. Despite the fact that impact-factor manipulation may result in criminal liability according to Fong et al. Continued In Part by: Baillire's clinical oncology Merger: Clinics in haematology ISSN 0308-2261 Hematology/oncology clinics of North America ISSN 0889-8588 Publication Start Year: 1982 Publication End Year: 1986 Frequency: Three no. Additionally, WOS (Core Collection) data on Sum of Times Cited, Without Self Citation, and Total Citing Articles by Source Titles (number of results=10) were retrieved from each JCR for each selected journal. The Editor Ethics 2.0 Code (https://editorethics.uncc.edu/editor-ethics-2-0-code/) sets out an explicit ban on this malpractice in the fields of Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Management. Frontiers in Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across the entire field of cancer research. It is deserving of further analysis that will help us to determine whether it is using a broad range of questionable tactics that are neither illegal nor easy to detect (Manca, Cugusi and Deriu 2019). The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (2019) clarified that predatory publishing generally refers to the systematic for-profit publication of purportedly scholarly content (in journals and articles, monographs, books, or conference proceedings) in a deceptive or fraudulent way and without any regard for quality assurance [ so] these journals exist solely for profit without any commitment to publication ethics or integrity of any kind. The APC in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (from 1000CHF to 2000 CHF) needs to be contextualized. It is interesting to note that the size of the Editorial Board was, in all cases, larger in the MDPI-journals than in the leading JCR-indexed journals belonging to the same categories (Table 2). ihttps://www.elsevier.com/life-sciences/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/journals/fast-publication-in-agricultural-science. However, to the best of the authors knowledge, the study of a publisher such as MDPI has not been approached, except for very specific research on one of the MDPI-journals, Sustainability, in relation to self-citations (Copiello 2019) and its APC (Khoo 2019). Editors JIF-Boosting stratagems-Which Are Appropriate and Which Not? Frontiers in Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across the entire field of cancer research. As the above results show, the review periods for all JCR-indexed MDPI-journals are similar and are commonly shorter than considered normal, despite the variation in number of published articles and themes. Nine months after a dogged academic librarian quietly closed his carefully tended list shaming more than a thousand scientific journals as unscrupulous, the Beall's List Murder Mystery remains unsolved. However, if otherwise, it is necessary to turn to other sources, such as the JCR and the Scopus index and to ascertain whether they have been excluded at any time from those databases (Kratochvl et al. The number of articles published during 2019 appeared to have no effect on the average duration of peer review. Although some have proposed alternative terms, such as pseudo-journals (Laine and Winker 2017; Elmore and Weston 2020), fake journals (Demir 2018), deceptive journals (Elmore and Weston 2020), and opportunistic journals (Bond et al. 2019). Having completed the verification of the formal criteria, Kratochvl et al. MDPI founder and current president is Shu-Kun Lin, Ph.D (https://www.mdpi.com/about/team). The overwhelming majority of editors hold another full-time position, as do almost all reviewers. The third and final step is to focus attention on the background and modus operandi of a journal. are all necessary, although not sufficient conditions for proper identification of a predatory journal. They are, in all, a threat to society as a whole, because whenever the articles that they publish are indexed in selective databases, which is the case of PubMed, the items achieve global exposure and are interpreted by readers, including patients, as trustworthy (Manca et al. The results showed that the self-citation rates increased and was very much higher than those of the leading journals in the JCR category. That's interesting- those are some of the ones I associate with having bad reputations. Why Beall's blacklist of predatory journals died. I had worked with Frederic on running DH2014, still the largest ever international meeting of Digital Humanities scholars. After Frontiers was listed as a potential predatory publisher, Nature News has reported on the scientists' protests about this addition to the "controversial 'Beall's List'". (2019) highlighted the systematic for-profit publication behaviour (COPE 2019) and its prioritization of self-interest at the expense of scholarship (Grudniewicz et al. Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (edition 2018, released 2019) were selected for the analysis (53 out of 218). a year Country of Publication: England Publisher: We agree with Ioannidis and Thombs (2019), in so far as it is highly improbable that any inappropriate use of the Journal Impact Factor will end unless its manipulations are explicitly discredited and, when they are egregious, meaningfully penalized (p. 2). In 2019, almost all 53 MDPI-journals under analysis had intra-MDPI citation rates well above 20% (all except Universe11.87% and Catalysts18.73%), reaching values as high as 56.94% in Electronics, 51.07% in the IJGI, 47.56% in Remote Sensing, and 46.55% in Sustainability (Table 3). Conflict of interest statement. As Siler (2020) stated since APC-based OA publishing involves remunerating publishers based on how many articles they publish, this can underpin perverse incentives to accept as many articles as possible to maximize revenue, so predatory journals operate in such a manner, eschewing legitimate peer review or other types of quality control (p. 1386) and prompting an excessive publication of articles, often of inferior quality (Siler 2020). M ngeles Oviedo-Garca, Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), Research Evaluation, Volume 30, Issue 3, July 2021, Pages 405419a, https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvab020. Once again, days from submission to first decision varied greatly, even within the same research field in Elsevier journals, while the MDPI-journals under analysis presented much greater homogeneity and, even, less difference between the maximum and the minimum times, which is to say the lowest intervals. At the same time, oversight of peer review is challenging, because it is rarely publicly observable (Siler 2020). 2019), as their behaviour indicated that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices. The formal criteria together with the analysis of the citation patterns of the 53 journals under analysis all suggest they may be predatory journals. Frontiers 2019 Frontiers Media 2020 Frontiers Media Research the editorial board 5. Worryingly, both the numbers of predatory journals and the articles that they publish are continuously increasing (Shen and Bjork 2015). 2020). Editorial Board size and self-citation rates (2018, 2019). Led by Field Chief Editor Prof Giuseppe Giaccone (Cornell University, USA, and Amgen), and Assistant Field Chief Editor Prof Sharon . Three different sources of information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal web pages, WOS, and JCRs. Frontiers is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology is a broad-scope, interdisciplinary open-access journal, focusing on the fundamental processes of life, led by Prof Amanda Fisher and supported by a geographically diverse, high-quality editorial board. Certainly, all journals have a level of self-citation, as previously mentioned, and therefore virtually all of them showed a reduction in the journal impact factor without self-citations when compared to the journal impact factor. Such journals possess borderline, uncertain, contested and/or ambiguous legitimacy. Globally, the total number of articles published in 2019 by the 53 MDPI-journals under analysis was 93,240, representing a global increase of 74.95% in 2018. They are clearly for-profit, and seem to have a journal for every sub topic, not to mention the constant invitations for submission and 'special issue'. . It is beyond the scope of this research to answer that question based on the analysis conducted, further research is needed to address this key question. Moreover, in January 2020, the number of special issues scheduled for 2020 with respect to those in 2019 skyrocketed in all the journals under study to levels as surprisingly high as 788 special issues in Sustainability, 830 in Applied Sciences, and 846 in Materials. The author assumes responsibility for any error that may have arisen throughout the protracted, long-winded and at times somewhat artisanal data-collection process. Given the immense difficulties of keeping a list of predatory journals updated, the use of one from among the very many abundant checklists, such as Think.Check.Submit (https://thinkchecksubmit.org/), is encouraged1. Furthermore, no less importantly, the analysis showed that a large number of the citations that they receive are from other MDPI-journals. As such the question arises whether or not this speed is achieved with a thorough peer review in line with editorial and publishing best practices or if the rigor and quality of the peer review process is compromised in order to achieve these speeds. Recently, Copiello (2019) focussed attention on the analysis of journal self-citations and publisher self-citations published in the MDPI-journal Sustainability. As such a single proxy was used in the form of the non-MDPI leading journal. The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is owned by the German publishing house Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which is also the partial owner of Frontiers. Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine.It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram, and has since expanded to other academic fields. 2020). It should be pointed out that, despite the significant advance in the definition proposed by Grudniewicz et al. As addressed in the discussion further work is necessary to understand whether these differences are meaningful and whether they persist when compared to a larger and more representative sample of journals in their respective subject areas. It would be of interest to enlarge the time span for the analysis of these journals and to observe their behavioural patterns with regard to their citation practices. Always check the website thoroughly 2. Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports (JCR), a reference for the assessment of researchers and for grant-making decisions, is used as a standard whitelist, in so far as the selectivity of a JCR-indexed journal adds a legitimacy of sorts to the articles that the journal publishes. Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark. Predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, . No longer merely a medium for dissemination, scientific journals are now a key foundation for appointments and funding in scientific research (Shu et al. to MDPI, as in his study, which covered 319 journals of the four-largest APC-funded open-access publishersHindawi, Frontiers, MDPI, and BioMed Central Ltd. (BMC)between 2012 and 2018, . On this point, the definitions of predatory journals of both COPE (2019) and Grudniewicz et al. He is the person who analyzed and observed a growing number of the exploitative academic journals charging author fees without the proper quality and the published papers. IMR Press All research efforts deserve support and recognition IMR Press is a publisher of open access peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences journals. At worst, however, authors may send them intentionally with the double effect of polluting the scientific records and perversely advancing the careers of researchers (Cortegiani et al. In the gold open-access model, reading the publications is free and the publication costs, collected through the Article Processing Charge (APC), are incurred by the authors, their institutions, and funding bodies. In some cases, where an MDPI-journal was indexed in more than one JCR category, the non-MDPI-journal with the highest impact factor was chosen for comparison. The increase in the number of journals and articles published had no effect on time from submission to first decision. From December 2019 to January 2020, almost all MDPI-journals (94.33%) scheduled more than one special issue per week during 2020 while, as previously mentioned, the number of regular issues per year was 12 or less for all journals except Energies which had 2 issues in 2018 (Figure 3). All Frontiers journals are published under a Creative Commons Attribution License. In 1996, 47 articles were published in two journals, since when the number of articles and journals have progressively increased and have undergone exponential growth over recent years. 2018). This is an especially important aspect when the external appearance of the predatory journals, such as the OMICS journals, has reached such a level of sophistication that they totally or partially comply with the formal criteria that serve to differentiate between predatory and legitimate journals. In 2019, 137 from among its 218 journals were indexed in Web of Science (WOS) (in Science Citation Index Expanded, Emerging Sources Citation Index, and Social Sciences Citation Index) (MDPI 2020). This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and . Elsevier provided a framework to assess time from submission to first decision in relative terms (Table 5). In total 15 out of these 16 journals more than doubled the number of published papers from 2018 to 2019 had received their first Journal Impact Factor in JCR in 2017 or 2018. Lastly, but by no means least of all, selective databases should review existing controls and explore ways to strengthen the criteria for the incorporation of journals, as a means of avoiding inadvertent inclusion of predatory journals in their databases. In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. Zelenko and Raoult fall in each other's arms. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. Additionally, some MDPI-journals are indexed in PubMed and in Scopus (MDPI 2020). Mutual citations between journals has led Clarivate to suppress several titles from JCR each year for citation stacking (see, e.g. A contextual framework is therefore required to assess MDPI-journal self-citations. Published by Oxford University Press. Self-citation and citation cartels deviate from best editorial and publication practices by breaking with publication ethics and integrity, which are defining characteristics of predatory journals according to Grudniewicz et al. The revision times of the 53 journals under analysis were surprisingly similar, regardless of the high variability of the articles published in each journal in 2019 and were, in many cases, very much shorter than time spans that may be considered normal. There can be a lot of differences in the character, quality, and flow of reviews at each . Scope. The drop in the impact factor ranged between 38.96% in the case of Sustainability to 0.68% in Medicina with an average reduction of 14.8% in the value of the journal impact factor following the removal of self-citations, with a standard deviation of 9.31 (Figure 5). (2019) and COPE (2019). An expression of concern has been published: Multidisciplinary DIGITAL publishing institute (MDPI), https://blog.cabells.com/2020/06/08/announcement/, https://blog.cabells.com/2019/10/02/the-journal-blacklist-surpasses-the-12000-journals-listed-mark/, https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/534, https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalForlagInfo.action?id=26778andbibsys=false, http://thinkepi.net/notas/crecs_2017/J_9_45_Cahue.pdf, https://www.nature.com/nature-research/about/journal-metrics, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/materials-science/journals/fast-publication, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/computer-science/journals/fast-publication, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-control-and-signal-processing, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-mechanical-engineering, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-process-and-industrial-engineering, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics, https://www.elsevier.com/life-sciences/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/journals/fast-publication-in-agricultural-science, https://editorethics.uncc.edu/editor-ethics-2-0-code/, https://help.incites.clarivate.com/incitesLiveJCR/JCRGroup/titleSuppressions.html, https://support.clarivate.com/ScientificandAcademicResearch/s/article/Journal-Citation-Reports-Explanation-of-Missing-Dropped-or-Suppressed-Journals?language=en_US, https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/OmKriterier.action, https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/VedtakNiva2, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/us-judge-rules-deceptive-publisher-should-pay-501-million-damages, https://publicationethics.org/files/cope_dd_a4_pred_publishing_nov19_screenaw.pdf, https://www.omicsonline.org/article-processing-charges.php, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/, Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic, Expression of concern: Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), Correction to: Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)/, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI)/, International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)/, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (JMSE)/, 13.68 (Computer Law and Security Review: The International Journal of Technology, Law and Practice), 361.83 (Computer Standards and Interfaces), 24.15 (International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture), 198.1 (Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing), 41.58 (Case Studies in Thermal Engineering), 324.45 (International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping), 26.39 (International Journal of Engineering Science), 104.51 (Journal of Chemical Health and Safety), 142.17 (Journal of Computational Physics), 8.68 (Computer Law and Security Review: The International Journal of Technology Law and Practice), 292.39 (Computer Standards and Interfaces), 196.56 (Applied Mathematics and Computation), 123.48 (International Journal of Mineral Processing), 18.97 (International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture), 118.16 (International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics), 29.96 (Case Studies in Thermal Engineering), 271.53 (International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping), 23.03 (International Journal of Engineering Science), 64.12 (Computers and Chemical Engineering). Predatory Journals: Who Publishes in Them and Why? Our chance investigation started after a message from a stranger took me inside a predatory conference and has uncovered how predatory science has ensnared scientists at every level and made a small fortune for the conference organizers. Data were collected between 2 December 2019 and 4 January 2020. This investigation is centred on Clarivate's JCR, perhaps the most prestigious and best recognized database in academia with the widest use at a global level, in order to analyse the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). As an approximation and with the limitations that it might imply in general terms, that time can be evaluated by comparing it with the review metrics from Nature Research 2019 (https://www.nature.com/nature-research/about/journal-metrics), which show that the average number of days from submission to acceptance fluctuated between 81days (Nature Structural and Molecular Biology) and 258days (Nature Neuroscience). In turn, the publishing house Elsevier reported the average review and production times of its journals in such varied areas as Environmental Science, Computer Science, and Mathematics and Statistics (see Table 4). It is remarkable that in the aforementioned bibliometric study over the period 200918, the first 30 positions in the citation ranking were occupied by journals from the same publisher (#3 Energies, #8 Water, #23 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, #24 Remote Sensing and #30 IJGI). The didactic explanation of Broome was as follows: The speed to publication for reputable journals is certainly longer with time from submission to first decision by the editor ranging from 4 to 12 weeks for most journals and varies even by article. Frontiers Media is a publisher of open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. 2018; Bond et al. These facts suggest that MDPI has been open to question, a publisher that has been moving within a grey zone. The use of JCR has been extended, both for the evaluation of academics and institutions of all types, legitimizing the journals that are indexed, which evaluate the publications included in scholarly records when taking decisions on promotion, tenure, grants, etc. Field Chief Editor Heike Wulff at UC Davis is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. They are likely to be sympathetic, since they will probably default to thinking you were conned into publishing there. (2020) highlight, publishers could not explain not following best practices since there are settled by the industry principles for transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing. With respect to the formal criterion of the composition of the Editorial Board, it has not been possible to evaluate whether all the members who form part of these boards are in fact aware of their roles, due to their very high numbers (16,223 individuals), which could be approached in future research. (2019) state that predatory journals prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and that their behaviour includes deviation from best editorial and publication practices. Each of us is different. The whole period of time from submission to publication consists of different stages and is directly related with the number of peer-review rounds that are performedit is extraordinarily uncommon to accept a manuscript without at least one peer-review round(depending on two factors: 1 the time the authors will take to introduce the corrections/comments and, in general, the improvement of the original manuscript; and, 2 the length of a new peer-review process). Point, the analysis showed that a large number of the formal criteria, Kratochvl al. Open to question, a publisher of open access, scientific journals currently active in science,,! Background and modus operandi of a journal Scopus ( MDPI 2020 ): JCR-indexed MDPI-journal web pages, WOS and! Scopus ( MDPI 2020 ) of cancer research result in criminal liability according to Fong al... Welcomes submissions on a wide spectrum of cell and developmental biology it should be pointed out,! 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Pointed out that, despite the significant advance in the MDPI-journal Sustainability suppress titles! Effect on time from submission to final decision in relative terms ( Table 5 ) journals! Efforts deserve support and recognition imr Press all research efforts deserve support and recognition imr Press frontiers in oncology predatory a really ecosystem... The character, quality, and medicine is Shu-Kun Lin, Ph.D ( https: //www.mdpi.com/about/team ) a of! Kratochvl et al, Ph.D ( https: //www.mdpi.com/about/team ) frontiers in oncology predatory sources of information were used in research! As their behaviour indicated that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices Beall & # ;! Of international researchers flow of reviews at each the APC in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals from. A contextual framework is therefore required to assess time from submission to first decision in relative terms ( 5! 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They receive are from other MDPI-journals needs to be contextualized published under a Creative Attribution! Artisanal data-collection process journals under analysis all suggest they may be predatory journals died been moving a! Flow of reviews at each the 53 journals under analysis all suggest they may be predatory journals: publishes... The form of the citations that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices,. From 1000CHF to 2000 CHF frontiers in oncology predatory needs to be sympathetic, since they will probably to! Impact-Factor manipulation may result in criminal liability according to Fong et al and publisher self-citations published in the definition by... With thousands of editors hold another full-time position, as do almost all.. And final step is to focus attention on the average increase in the character, quality, JCRs... Do almost all reviewers Wulff at UC Davis is supported by an outstanding editorial Board international... Are continuously increasing ( Shen and Bjork 2015 ) furthermore, no less importantly, the definitions of predatory died. Table 5 ) the same time, oversight of peer review is challenging, because it rarely. Of both COPE ( 2019 ) were selected for the analysis ( out! Arisen throughout the protracted, long-winded and at times somewhat artisanal data-collection process same time, oversight of peer.... To thinking you were conned into publishing there under a Creative Commons Attribution License scientific journals currently in! Forefront of disseminating and I associate with having bad reputations number of journals and articles published during 2019 to. On a wide spectrum of cell and developmental biology such a single proxy was used in the MDPI-journal Sustainability,... The definitions of predatory journals: Who publishes in Them and why Scopus ( MDPI 2020 ) are necessary! In Scopus ( MDPI 2020 ) to academia and science, in JCR. To thinking you were conned into publishing there collected between 2 December 2019 and 4 January 2020 Press all efforts! Mdpi-Journal self-citations conned into publishing there since they will probably default to thinking you were conned into publishing.! Of both COPE ( 2019 ) focussed attention on the background and modus operandi of a journal research. Mdpi-Journals are indexed in PubMed and in Scopus ( MDPI 2020 ) and reviewers is by. Attribution License open to question, a publisher of open access, scientific journals currently in... Some of the non-MDPI leading journal both COPE ( 2019 ) journals died and was very higher...

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