All the journals under analysis increased the numbers of their published articles between 2018 and 2019, while 37 of the 53 journals more than doubled the number of published articles within 1 year. COPE and OASPA have retained Frontiers as a member after concerns were raised. 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). All journals published by a predatory publisher are potentially predatory unless stated otherwise. Field Chief Editor Giuseppe Giaccone at Georgetown University is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. 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'. mimicking names. The problem is that each of these criteria, above all if taken in an isolated way, are questionable and may occur singly or together in non-predatory 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. The number of articles published during 2019 appeared to have no effect on the average duration of peer review. 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). Bond B. Copiello (2019) also analysed the citations and self-citations of articles published in the journal Sustainability in 2015 and found that the journal had a higher self-citation level than expected. At the same time, oversight of peer review is challenging, because it is rarely publicly observable (Siler 2020). More specifically, 84.9% of analysed journals stated that they provided a first decision within <19days. Predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, . However, as previously shown, some MDPI journals name are very similar to other publishers journals breaching the required condition of not been easily confused with another journal. Frederic was setting up a new, online, open access, peer reviewed . Figure 5: Frontiers Media journals, top 10 by number ratio of published papers to number of editors (4 Feb 2023) Looking at Figure 5, the editors for Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, on average, has handled 3.21 papers. Lending attention to these signs forms part of step 1 proposed by Kratochvl et al. The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is owned by the German publishing house Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which is also the partial owner of Frontiers. In fact, high impact factors may merely be due to citation cartels instead of true and legitimate scientific interest (Ioannidis and Thombs 2019). Predatory Journals Are Infiltrating Citation Databases, Potential Predatory and Legitimate Biomedical Journals: Can You Tell the Difference? (2019), so as to recognize predatory journals (and not to fall prey to them), it nevertheless omits an express reference to the quality of peer revision. No longer merely a medium for dissemination, scientific journals are now a key foundation for appointments and funding in scientific research (Shu et al. In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. For example, they no longer have webs with typographic errors, but with a much more sophisticated appearance, converting themselves into a non-evident/hidden predatory publisher, in view of their editorial behaviour. 2019). 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'". Editorial Board size and self-citation rates (2018, 2019). Frontiers in Oncology. 2020). 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). Where an MDPI-journal was ranked in more than one category, the leading journal with a higher impact factor in those categories in 2018 was selected for comparison (Table 2). The formal criteria together with the analysis of the citation patterns of the 53 journals under analysis all suggest they may be predatory journals. 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. Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. I had worked with Frederic on running DH2014, still the largest ever international meeting of Digital Humanities scholars. It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (2018)/leading journal in the category. 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. In summary: 1 researchers should neither send papers for their publication, nor cite them, nor act as reviewers for them, nor form part of their editorial committees; 2 research institutions should inform researchers of the reality of predatory journals and their iniquitous consequences at an individual and general level; and, 3 evaluation agencies and committees should ignore the registers that refer to predatory journals. We aim to facilitate the dissemination of high-quality research in the area of biomedical science. Such journals possess borderline, uncertain, contested and/or ambiguous legitimacy. Their characteristics are therefore examined to see whether they are equitable with certain definitions of predatory journals. However, this fact only partially could explain the notable increase in output content for just 43.39% of 53-MDPI journals received their first impact factor in 2017 or in 2018 while the increase in output content is observed for the all 53-MDPI journals. 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. Moreover, the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series, and Publishers downgraded MDPI to 0 in 2019 and later upgraded it to 1 again. Incorporation on the WOS and having a Journal Impact Factor provides a veneer of quality to the journal that extends to the authors that publish in it. At the same time, if there is a lack of awareness of predatory journals among scientists, then they will evaluate those publications as if they were legitimate and may naively send papers to predatory journals. 1. A Bibliomtric Analisis of Citers, How to Avoid Becoming Easy Prey for Predatory, Journals and Why It Matters Comparative Medicine. chttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication. 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. Its average APC amounts to 1,138USD (OMICS 2020). 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. (2020b) observed that discontinued journals in Scopus (due to publication concerns) continue to be cited even after their discontinuation that may provide weak support to career development. Field Chief Editor Heike Wulff at UC Davis is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. 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. 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. 2019), with those articles likely not to have undergone an acceptable editorial and peer-review process. (2020) indicated that in Step 2, the analysis of the content of the journal has to be approached, in order to check that the journal content is focused mainly on its professional quality rather than on bad grammar or spelling (p. 11), in order to judge both the scientific quality of the published articles and the editorial work of the journal. 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. 2020b). 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. (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. IMR Press All research efforts deserve support and recognition IMR Press is a publisher of open access peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences journals. Peer review is used to evaluate the article for significance of the topic, relevance, rigor, analytic methods, conclusions, depth of discussion, and validity of conclusions based on data/arguments in the article (Broome 2017), although predatory journals rarely invite experts who are experts in the field (Broome 2017). The results serve to point out how self-citation rates and intra-MPDI citation rates both followed a rise between 2018 and 2019. The APC in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (from 1000CHF to 2000 CHF) needs to be contextualized. Due to the breadth of MDPI journals assessed in this paper it was not possible to conduct in-depth work to compare each journal. 6 ways to spot a Predatory Journal: 1. Researchers should answer the above questions and attend the conference or submit their abstract only if they are satisfied and can answer 'yes' to most of the questions. The following analysis addressed the peer-review process. It is usually thought that predatory journals charge low APCs (COPE 2019)on average 178$ according to the results of Shen and Bjork (2015), while Shamseer et al. Universities, professional associations, ). Based on a series of . The potential criteria for the identification of a predatory journal and a list of suspicious items are lengthy: journal names may be very similar to prestigious journals; the web page may contain spelling errors and questionable grammatical constructions and/or low quality images; the language on the journal webpage may resemble a hard sell that targets academic authors; the journal may include articles outside its stated scope or may have a very broad scope; submission can be by email instead of a manuscript management system; the editor-in-chief might also act as the editor-in-chief of another journal with a widely different scope, predominance of editorial board members from developing countries; time-lines for publication and fast-track peer-review processes might appear unrealistic; APCs can be low; impact-factor metrics may be unknown; spam emails may invite academics to submit papers; despite the open-access approach, transfer of copyright may be required; and, finally, non-professional or non-journal affiliated contact information may be given for the editorial office (Manca et al. IJERPH, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health; IJGI, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information; IJMS, International Journal of Molecular Sciences; JCM, Journal of Clinical Medicine; JMSE, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. 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). Original list Go to update This is an archived version of the Beall's list - a list of potential predatory publishers created by a librarian Jeffrey Beall. Cukier et al. (, Fong A. E., Wilhite A. W., Hickman C., Lee Y. 2015; Beall 2016; Alrawadieh 2020). The COPE definition of predatory journals is no different in essence to the definition of Grudniewicz et al. (2017) have reminded us. 1088 Email Press 2425 Publishers A platinum/diamond open-access model might be close to an ideal academic publishing modelaccording to the terminology of Siler (2020)since it prioritizes professional rather than market logics and then eliminates the drive to publish as many articles as possible to maximize revenue. Further complicating definitions of predatory publishing, are the existence of what could be called grey journals and publishers, occupying quasi-legitimate niches between whitelists and blacklists. because it is used as a proxy for both quality and integrity. Even though it is also behind a paywall, it may be an additional resource, in order to identify predatory journals. The author highlights the 'exponential growth' of predatory journals, stating that 'The alarming increase in the number of predatory journals (from 1,800 to 8,000 over the period 2010-4) 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 Each of us is different. Even though, on the one hand, the Journal Impact Factor is qualified by Ioannidis and Thombs (2019) as the most widely used, misused and abused bibliometric index in academic science, it is, on the other hand, a widely used tool for curricula evaluation and for making grant awards, as well as being used as a selection criterion for the dissemination of scientific results. This analysis of the practices of MDPI is of relevance to researchers and for research institutions and funding bodies as well as for JCR itself, which could see its prestige compromised, if it incorporated predatory journals among its indexed journals. These journals are analysed, not only to contrast the formal criteria for the identification of predatory journals, but taking a step further, their background is also analysed with regard to self-citations and the source of those self-citations in 2018 and 2019. It is difficult however to contextualize the analysis of APC in JCR-indexed MDPI journals for two reasons. JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (edition 2018, released 2019) were selected for the analysis (53 out of 218). It is necessary to point out that the conclusions of this work must be assessed in the light of its limitations that likewise offer opportunities for new research work. I am just asking about the criteria by which Beall's List - of Potential Predatory Journals has been putforward. I don't see Frontiers as predatory. 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. 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. More specifically, it was remarkable that the number of articles published in some journals skyrocketed in 2019 (a growth of 100% or more between 2018 and 2019 in 23 journals) and some more than doubled or even tripled their production: JMSE (202.5%), Metabolites (228.57%), Electronics (229.66%), Foods (231.48%), Mathematics (239.13%), Antioxidants (240%), Pathogens (253.68%), Processes (254.28%), Cancers (280.25%), JCM (287.77%), Animals (391.2%), Biomolecules (391.7%), Plants (463.24%), Microorganisms (486.36%), Cells (498.97), and Medicina (554.91%). Selective databases, such as Scopus, PubMed, and Journal Citation Reports (JCRs), form an index of journals, a sort of whitelist that is used for the purposes of assessing researchers and taking decisions on grant funding (Cortegiani et al. Better Service Certainly, the number of special issues published or scheduled in 1 year reveals no quality-related information, although the fact that the number of special issues in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals is so much higher than the number of ordinary issues per year coupled with their constant increase since 2018 inevitably awakens suspicions of a lucrative business aim. (2020), e.g. Stay away from Frontiers. The scientific community must remain alert and must carefully examine the publications in which they wish to make known the results of their investigations, the seed banks for generating the knowledge base to approach specific research questions. Thus, universities, funding institutions, or any institution that evaluates scientific activity can disincentivize the submission of manuscripts to predatory journals and the acceptance of roles on their editorial committees, ignoring these milestones in the evaluation process of a curriculum vitae (Forero et al. Predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, sow confusion, promote shoddy scholarship and waste resources (Grudniewicz et al. 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). 2018) with all the consequences that may entail, not only at a scientific but at a social level. B., Brown S. D., Stewart D. W., Roane D. S., Harirforoosh S. (, Cortegiani A., Manca A., Lalu M., Moher D. (, Cortegiani A., Ippolito M., Ingoglia G., Manca A., Cugusi L., Severin A., Strinzel M., Panzarella V., Campisi G., Manoj L., Gregoretti C., Einav S., Moher D., Giarratano A. 2020). 2020). The number of special issues was over twice the number of ordinary issues in 92.45% of the MDPI-journals under analysis. The aim of this investigation is to assess whether the subset of MDPI-journals that are indexed in JCR fit various criteria used in some definitions of a predatory journal. Frontiers in Pharmacology is a leading journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across disciplines, including basic and clinical pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, pharmacy and toxicology. However, this solution could only work in the medium to long term. Both publishers, Hindawi and Frontiers, were founded by a husband-and-wife team. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and . With the exception of the journal Minerals that had a self-citation rate of 10.75% in 2018, compared to 12.98% for the leading journal (International Journal of Rock Mechanisms and Mining Science) in that category, all the self-citation rates of all the other MDPI-journals were above those of the leading journals within each category. We hope researchers make use of this checklist and avoid falling prey to bogus conference organizers. Recently, Copiello (2019) focussed attention on the analysis of journal self-citations and publisher self-citations published in the MDPI-journal Sustainability. Finally, the intense proliferation of predatory journals has given rise to predatory/fake conferences, equally pernicious for academia, and the subject of warnings from COPE (2019), as predatory journals and conferences are two sides of the same coin (Cortegiani et al. 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). Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, with other offices in London, Madrid, Seattle and Brussels. Second, only limited insights are possible because not all the journals in the control group are in the framework of gold open access (which would allow a direct comparison). In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. For example, the APC can be higher than 1,000 USD (as happens for OMICS), there is no specific limit to the number of editorial board members from developing countries that is considered a proper way of distinguishing between legitimate and predatory journals, the content of the web page can appear suspect, and titles may inevitably be mimicked when the journal specialism is very narrow (Kratochvl et al. 2017a, b)an alarmingly high number of them in the opinion of Manca et al. Henry and Kamila launched Frontiers with a vision to make science open, peer-review rigorous, transparent, and efficient and harness the power of technology to truly serve researchers' needs. The speed to publication is dependent on several things, but primarily on how many reviewers accept an editors invitation to review, how many of those who do accept actually complete a review, and how quickly the editor can make a decision based on their own read of the article and the reviewers comments. First, a proper systematic and structured overview of APC rates it is not available. The increase in the number of published articles between 2018 and 2019 ranged from 554.91% in Medicina to 18.3% in the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI). 2019) and therefore jeopardize integrity in science. (2020). 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). 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. It is commonly observed that, after getting its first impact journal, journals increase the number of submissions and, depending on acceptance rate maintenance, perhaps an output content increase also. Furthermore, the low variability of timeframes for peer review regardless of the scope of the journal, the size of its editorial board and the volume of published articles all raise questions over the levels of quality assurance required from a legitimate journal/publisher. So, another aspect deserving further investigation are the impressive numbers of faculty staff on the Editorial Boards of MDPI-journals, above all if compared with the leading journals from each category. The analysis of journal self-citations is relevant (see Table 2), because the increase in the numerator of the Journal Impact Factor4 boosts it and may be a stratagem to improve the position of a journal in the ranking through coercive citations, online queuing and self-cited editorials (Martin 2016; Wilhite et al. 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. Ramn y Cajal. Even so, the identification of predatory journals is still a crucial aspect in the maintenance of quality and scientific integrity. In October 2014 I was approached by a colleague of mine, Frederic Kaplan, from EPFL, for a favour. 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). (, Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. 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). It was Elsevier and the allegedly learned International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC) which allowed Raoult's illegal chloroquine quackery. Frontiers in Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across the entire field of cancer research. 2019), data show analysed journals have a completely different pattern in this matter when compared with leading journals in the category. Approved by publishing and review experts on SciSpace, this template is built as per for Frontiers in Oncology formatting guidelines as mentioned in Frontiers Media author instructions. The lack of content analysis is a limitation of this study and could be performed in future research with a random sample of articles published in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals in line with Step 2 proposed by Kratochvl et al. Assistant Field Chief Editor. The overwhelming majority of editors hold another full-time position, as do almost all reviewers. The complete, comprehensive guide shows you how easy citing any source can be. Record, verify, and showcase your peer review contributions in a format you can include in job and funding applications (without breaking reviewer anonymity). Deceptive or scamming journals are also the other name of the . A guide has been developed to assist discernment between legitimate and predatory conferences: among which Think.Check.Attend. The limitations of the available resources have meant that the analysis has been restricted to the behaviour of MDPI-journals in JCR over 2 years, 2018 and 2019, as well as the information available for 2020 in January 2020. Moreover, the term predatory journal was found by Jeffery Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado. (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). 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. The increase in APCs was qualified as hyperinflation by Khoo (2019) and was not exclusive 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, he found overall APC rises in all of them ranging between 17% and 220% and, likewise, observed a rise in the number of articles per journal. All journals, except the International Journal of Molecular Science, increased self-citation rates between 2018 and 2019 (between 2.7 and 16.9 points). Furthermore, no less importantly, the analysis showed that a large number of the citations that they receive are from other MDPI-journals. Both, self-citation and intra-MDPI citation rates directly affects the numerator in the journal impact-factor calculation, raising the journal impact value. 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. Size and self-citation rates and intra-MPDI citation rates both followed a rise between 2018 and 2019 and intra-MDPI rates... 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