Search for other works by this author on: Plagiarism and Predatory Journals: A Threat to Scientific Integrity, Publishing in Predatory Tourism and Hospitality Journals: Mapping the Academic Market and Identifying Response Strategies, Supporting a Definition of Predatory Publishing, Predatory Publishers Are Corrupting Open Access, Predatory Journals and the Breakdown of Research Cultures, Dangerous Predatory Publishers Threaten Medical Research, Faculty Applicants Attempt to Inflate Cvs Using Predatory Journals, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Predatory Publishing is Everyones Concern, A Large-Scale Analysis of Impact Factor Biased Journals Self-Citations, On the Skeweness of Journal Self-Citations and Publisher Self-Citations: Cues for Discusin from a Case Study, Inclusion of Predatory Journals in Scopus is Inflating Scholars Metrics and Advancing Careers, Predatory Journals and Conferences: Why Fake Counts, Citations and Metrics of Journals Discontinued from Scopus for Publication Concerns: The GhoS(t)copus Project, Checklists to Detect Potential Predatory Biomedical Journals: A Systematic Review. 2019). Data on each selected journal were gathered from the following sections of the MDPI-journal web pages: Home, Editorial Board, Special Issues, APC, and Journal Statistics. The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is owned by the German publishing house Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which is also the partial owner of Frontiers. 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. 2018). These lists very soon become outdated and incomplete, especially if the resources to keep them updated are scarce. Citation analysis used for citation manipulation is a form of misconduct and does not fit best editorial practices (a feature of predatory journals mentioned in Grudniewicz et al. Peer review is a system of safeguards which, despite its limitations, fulfils its function reasonably well of ensuring that false research, of low quality, with serious flaws or inaccurate information is not disseminated, thereby avoiding misinformation (Elmore and Weston 2020; Siler 2020). Individuals have complained about the shallowness of the review process (e.g., 1, 2) and allegedly heavy-handed or unscrupulous tactics by Frontiers to shut down Beall's list of predatory journals (e.g., 3, 4). bhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/computer-science/journals/fast-publication. Predatory journals usually offer rapid peer-review processes, but without experts reviewing the quality of research and accuracy of the information (Oerman et al. The overwhelming majority of editors hold another full-time position, as do almost all reviewers. (, Shu F., Mongeon P., Haustein S., Siler K., Alperin J. P., Larivire V. (, Xia J., Harmon J. L., Connolly K. G., Donnelly R. M., Anderson M. R., Howard H. A. Additionally, the constant and quite exceptional increase in the number of articles published in MDPI-journals between 2018 and 2019, reinforced by an exponential increase in the number of special issues, which easily outweigh the number of regular publications (above all in view of the previsions for 2020), together with an increase in APC fees could bring into question the status of MDPI as a publisher, at the very least because its APC-based business model alters the economic and scientific incentives in academic publishing (Siler 2020). JCR-indexed MDPI-journals betray both traits through a steady increase in number of their published articles (sometimes to several hundred in just one regular issue) and special issues. BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. 2020; Siler 2020). The alarming increase in the number of predatory journals (from 1,800 to 8,000 over the period 20104) and the exponential growth (from 53,000 to 420,000 between 2010 and 2014) of the articles that they publish (Shen and Bjork 2015) have rendered futile any effort to keep white and blacklists updated. Lastly, predatory journals are a threat to scientists who may endanger their careers and devalue their curricula. In addition, it is highly unusual to have an article accepted without revisions. As shown in Figure 4, the minimum for most journals (77.35%) was <15 days from submission to the first decision and the maximum was under 22 days. The list of criteria was created after considering which information could be objectively collected and compared across journals and which may fit the suggestion by the above sources that predatory journals do not follow best publication practices. Exceptionally, data on the MDPI-journal self-citation rates were collected on 3 June 2020, to assure data accuracy in relation to the 2019 self-citation rates. 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). Its average APC amounts to 1,138USD (OMICS 2020). Note: When a JCR-indexed journal is ranked in more than one category, 1 its highest rank is depicted in column Q; 2 the leading journal for comparison is the one with the highest impact factor (2018) in the category where the MDPI-journal is ranked. We will only update links and add notes to this list. Another more sophisticated ruse (along the same lines, although less obvious) consists of collaboration between two or several journals to all cite each other in what have been dubbed citation cartels (Chorus and Waltman 2016). The journal Sustainability has the largest Editorial Board with 1,145 members, while the journal Metabolites has a mere 62 Editorial Board members. 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. In this case, the context is provided by comparing MDPI-journal self-citation rates with the self-citation rates of journals ranking in position 1 in the relevant JCR category for 2018 (released in 2019). The results showed that the self-citation rates increased and was very much higher than those of the leading journals in the JCR category. Assistant Field Chief Editor. Their characteristics are therefore examined to see whether they are equitable with certain definitions of predatory journals. Cukier et al. 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. (2019) highlighted the systematic for-profit publication behaviour (COPE 2019) and its prioritization of self-interest at the expense of scholarship (Grudniewicz et al. Poor Peer Review Practices. This is calculated by dividing the number of papers that the journal has published (924), by the number of editors (288). 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). In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. 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. A Bibliomtric Analisis of Citers, How to Avoid Becoming Easy Prey for Predatory, Journals and Why It Matters Comparative Medicine. Take a look at their peer review process and publication timelines 6. In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. The Author(s) 2021. hhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics. ahttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science. Frontiers is merely a symptom of an utterly rotten scholarly publishing system, which is beyond repair. 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. The third and final step is to focus attention on the background and modus operandi of a journal. 2019), as their behaviour indicated that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices. Both publishers, Hindawi and Frontiers, were founded by a husband-and-wife team. 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). A predatory journal will exploit this model to its own benefit with an inexistent or practically inexistent peer-review process (Beall 2015; Frandsen 2017; Demir 2018), which permits the rapid publication of academic papers without due guarantees, with an associated risk to the quality of the published science. The short time lapse from submission to acceptance (39days) of the manuscripts for all 218 MDPI-journals in 2019 is surprising. (2017) have reminded us. 2017a, b)an alarmingly high number of them in the opinion of Manca et al. 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. Field Chief Editor Giuseppe Giaccone at Georgetown University is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. One form of avoiding the proliferation of predatory journals based on the gold open-access model, which can favour quantity over quality, would be to promote a platinum/diamond open-access model, in which neither the authors nor the readers pay for access to the articles and the costs of the publication process are met by associations or institutions (e.g. 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. 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. WOSPredatory Reports328Frontiers19951SCIE4SSCI223MDPI 422 ! If our attention is focussed on the intra-MDPI citation rate trends between 2018 and 2019, we see that 46 out of the 53 journals increased their intra-MDPI citation rates. Frontiers 2019 Frontiers Media 2020 Frontiers Media Even then there's a good chance that . The APC in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (from 1000CHF to 2000 CHF) needs to be contextualized. 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. 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). In my opinion, Frontiers journals are only modestly predatory. However, this solution could only work in the medium to long term. Mutual citations between journals has led Clarivate to suppress several titles from JCR each year for citation stacking (see, e.g. As depicted in Figure 5, the impact factors of all journals were reduced when self-citations were removed. The most prominent and prestigious journals in a scientific field are promoted to Level 2 (publishing 20% of the literature in that field) (https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/VedtakNiva2). 2018; Bond et al. MDPI founder and current president is Shu-Kun Lin, Ph.D (https://www.mdpi.com/about/team). Field Chief Editor Giuseppe Giaccone at Georgetown University is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. 2019), data show analysed journals have a completely different pattern in this matter when compared with leading journals in the category. More specifically, in general terms, the average time from submission to first decision from MDPI-journals was 19days, both in 2019 and 2018 (MDPI 2020), despite the increase in the number of both journals (15 new journals from 2018) and articles which were published (a 64.1% increase compared to 2018). 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. Number of special issues of MDPI-journals (2018, 2019 and 2020). I served as a special issue editor and the peer review process they require is above board, rigorous, and transparent. Both, self-citation and intra-MDPI citation rates directly affects the numerator in the journal impact-factor calculation, raising the journal impact value. Economics and Business Management Faculty, Business Management and Marketing Department, University of Seville, Avda. Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, w. Wikipedia lists various controversies about Frontiers articles and resignations of editors. (2020) in the complex evaluation of a journal, to which another two must be added: combining objectively verifiable criteria with analysis of a journals content and knowledge of the journals background (p.1). 2019), with those articles likely not to have undergone an acceptable editorial and peer-review process. All Frontiers journals are published under a Creative Commons Attribution License. As mentioned above, MDPI reports state that the median time from submission to publication for all its 218 journals was 39days in 2019 (MDPI 2020) as it was in 2018 when MDPI published 203 journals (MDPI 2019). 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. 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). As such a single proxy was used in the form of the non-MDPI leading journal. In 2018, the case of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Sustainability, with self-citation rates several times higher than those of the leading journals within the same category stands out (a difference of 25.17% and 16.98%, respectively). JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (edition 2018, released 2019) were selected for the analysis (53 out of 218). 2020b), PubMed (Manca et al. The APCs published on the journal web pages of the 53 journals under analysis imply that the articles published in 2019 could have generated an approximate income of 153,834,500 CHF (no APC-related waiver or discount could be considered in this calculation as no JCR-indexed journal provides relevant detailed information on the topic). These steps are particularly urgent for databases that already include MDPI-journals (WOS, PubMed and Scopus), since the defining features of predatory journals are that they systematize for profit publication (COPE 2019) and prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship (Grudniewicz et al. Both publishers, Hindawi and Frontiers, were founded by a husband-and-wife team see, e.g between has! The self-citation rates increased and was very much higher than those of the non-MDPI leading journal removed. Long term for predatory, journals and Why it Matters Comparative Medicine and Why it Matters Comparative.... 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