Stay away from Frontiers. Cukier et al. IMR Press All research efforts deserve support and recognition IMR Press is a publisher of open access peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences journals. The extent to which predatory journals can harm scientific practice increases as the numbers of such journals expand, in so far as they undermine scientific integrity, quality, and credibility, especially if those journals leak into prestigious databases. Impact Factor is the average number of citations received in 2017 to articles published in 2015 and 2016, while . All Frontiers journals are published under a Creative Commons Attribution License. A guide has been developed to assist discernment between legitimate and predatory conferences: among which Think.Check.Attend. The size of the editorial board is remarkably higher in all 53-MDPI journals analysed than in control leading journals. As with the number of published articles, the number of special issues for all journals between 2018 and 2019 increased, in such an exorbitant manner that the number of special issues in the MDPI-journals under analysis was easily higher, in the majority of cases, than the number of ordinary issues of 53 MDPI journals analysed since 98.11% of 53 analysed journals published 12 or fewer issues per year in 2018 (data from JCR 2019 edition). Poor Peer Review Practices. About Journal : Frontiers in Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research advancing our knowledge of cancer epidemiology, molecular pathways, diagnosis and imaging, personalized therapeutics, and novel treatment and management strategies.. Field Chief Editor Giuseppe Giaccone at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international . 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. Further research is needed to compare the JCR-indexed MPDI journals to similar journals in their respective fields in order to understand whether the level of self-citation is significantly different for MDPI published journals. 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. JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (edition 2018, released 2019) were selected for the analysis (53 out of 218). chttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication. The impact score (IS), also denoted as Journal impact score (JIS), of an academic journal is a measure of the yearly . 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). 2019), as their behaviour indicated that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices. The number of special issues was over twice the number of ordinary issues in 92.45% of the MDPI-journals under analysis. In concrete, great variability may be appreciated between the maximum and minimum review durations of its journals within different fields with regard to the speed of the review process, understood as the average duration from submission to the final editorial decision (including first decision-accept, reject or revise) (https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/materials-science/journals/fast-publication). In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. Moreover, the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series, and Publishers downgraded MDPI to 0 in 2019 and later upgraded it to 1 again. 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. All the more so, if it is taken into account that, in addition, the editorial staff of MDPI is formed of researchers who have to organize their time for revision among their other professional activities (research, teaching, dissemination, evaluation, grant applications, etc. 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. In the case of the journal having been included in JCR, the analysis of non-standard citation practices of the journal (a significant increase or fall in the number of citations, self-citations, and articles and majority of citations form a small group of journals) is of great relevance (Kratochvl et al. Frontiers in Oncology. Regarding journal names, aforementioned Principles state they shall be unique and not be one that is easily confused with other journal or might mislead potential authors and readers about the journals origin or association with other journals. Both the increases in APC and the number of articles and special issues in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals may raise questions about the practices in use and their potential fit to these definitions. Therefore, these Principles, supported by different institutions, are useful for detecting deviation from best practices in publishing. In addition, it is highly unusual to have an article accepted without revisions. 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. Grey lines represent all journals in each category ranked by their 2017 Impact Factor and CiteScore percentiles, with Frontiers in Oncology shown as a red dot. It is therefore important to assess how each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a Journal Impact Factor. The MDPI, with its headquarters in Basel (Switzerland), formerly known as Molecular Diversity Preservation International (https://www.mdpi.com/about/history) that launched its first two journals (Molecules and Mathematical and Computational Applications) in 1996, operates a gold open- access framework. The formal criteria together with the analysis of the citation patterns of the 53 journals under analysis all suggest they may be predatory journals. (2020), the effect of self-citation and citation cartels may be halted by the use of JIF-without self-cites metric, a simple action that reduces the penalty faced by journals that decide not to manipulate so, in sum, ethical editors are not penalized and manipulative editors are not advantaged (Wilhite et al. 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. 2020). Check if the journal is a member of DOAJ, COPE, OASPA or STM 3. Comparable data from other publishing houses, which they rarely publish as aggregate figures, would be of interest, without which any comparison is impossible. 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). It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. Even so, the identification of predatory journals is still a crucial aspect in the maintenance of quality and scientific integrity. hhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics. Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. (2019): predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices. Note: When a journal is ranked in more than one category in JCR, 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 categories where the MDPI-journal is ranked. Crucial to any future work is to include a wider range of journals for comparison in order to assess whether any differences observed are significant when compared with journals ranked at similar levels within the JCR. Their new found legitimacy means that any citations will, in consequence, raise the productivity metrics (e.g. 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. 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. 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. 2020). In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. 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. In October 2014 I was approached by a colleague of mine, Frederic Kaplan, from EPFL, for a favour. A review of content output in the leading journals was not conducted. A contextual framework is therefore required to assess MDPI-journal self-citations. 2015; Beall 2016; Alrawadieh 2020). Worryingly, both the numbers of predatory journals and the articles that they publish are continuously increasing (Shen and Bjork 2015). The COPE definition of predatory journals is no different in essence to the definition of Grudniewicz et al. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. Due to the breadth of MDPI journals assessed in this paper it was not possible to conduct in-depth work to compare each journal. Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. Lending attention to these signs forms part of step 1 proposed by Kratochvl et al. 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. For example, Sustainability published a total of 7,414 articles in 2019, with peer-review periods of between 13.94 and 17.75days from submission to first review, while Vaccines published 226 articles in 2019 with peer-review periods ranging between 14.61 and 26.04days. Moreover, the term predatory journal was found by Jeffery Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado. 1088 Email Press 2425 Publishers The following analysis addressed the peer-review process. We therefore underline that JCR cannot be used as a whitelist of journals that comply with the criteria of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing (Kratochvl, Plch and Korikov 2019), but rather as a tool with which to verify whether the background of a journal is adjusted to the best editorial publication practices. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating . 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 style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (, Improving universities activities in academic startup support through public interventions: The effectiveness of the German programme EXISTleverage of potentials, Changing conceptualization of innovation in the European Union and its impact on universities: Critical junctures and evolving institutional demands, Gender diversity and publication activityan analysis of STEM in the UK, Assessing the variety of collaborative practices in translational research: An analysis of scientists ego-networks, Early career academic's odyssey: A narrative study of her professional identity construction. 1. The total number of special issues in 2019 varied by journal, ranging from 14 in Vaccines to 500 in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (the average number of special issues per journal was 113 in 2019). Figure 2: Analysis of Impact Factor and CiteScore rankings in the JCR Oncology category and CiteScore Oncology category. 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. 2020b). 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 promotion of questionable special issues is one of the identifying characteristics of predatory journals (Alrawadieh 2020). Scope. Besides, an increasingly high rate of citations from other MDPI-journals was observed. 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). Title (s): Clinics in oncology. The journal Sustainability has the largest Editorial Board with 1,145 members, while the journal Metabolites has a mere 62 Editorial Board members. Shedding further light on MDPI-journal citing sources, the top 10 MDPI journals for citations listed on the WOS were analysed and intra-MDPI citation levels were identified with other MDPI-journals. Related Infographic. However, significant differences have been found between large publishers (publishing more than 100 journals) that charge an average fee of 796$ and the publishers of a single journal that charge an average fee of 83$ (Shen and Bjork, 2015). 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). Ramn y Cajal. 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. 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. Specifically, with regard to the previously mentioned third step, the analysis of the background of the 53 MDPI-journals in JCR showed drops in their impact factors when excluding self-citations, which could be significant if the level of self-citations exceeded those of the leading journals in those categories in which they are indexed. Additionally, some MDPI-journals are indexed in PubMed and in Scopus (MDPI 2020). 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. These results showed that the MDPI journals under analysis fitted some features of the definition of predatory journals (Grudniewicz et al. 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. 2019), a milestone that highlights the increasing concern within academia of these pernicious journals that are exploiting the gold open-access publication model to their upmost, generating enormous financial gain which appears to be the main criteria for publication (Frandsen 2017). (https://thinkcheckattend.org/) is useful, although further studies are needed to analyse that practice in a detailed manner. 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). This may suggest a form of post-production misconduct, due to the manipulation of citations, which affects the impact factor of the journal, its visibility and its influence. Even then there's a good chance that . These facts suggest that MDPI has been open to question, a publisher that has been moving within a grey zone. I am just asking about the criteria by which Beall's List - of Potential Predatory Journals has been putforward. The same information was collected from journal web pages, WOS (Core Collection) and JCR for leading journals in each JCR category where the MDPI-journals were indexed. Cancers/CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians . This mega-publisher appeared on Bealls list and was subsequently excluded. 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). However, the reality is that this process is by no means simple, as Aromataris and Stern (2020) accurately indicated, particularly because predatory publishers have continued to evolve their undesirable art form into sophisticated operations that appear to be, at face value, legitimate to the point where certain journals and publishers may blatantly exploit gray strategies given that downmarket niches can be lucrative (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. The number of articles published during 2019 appeared to have no effect on the average duration of peer review. 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). While there may be easily recognizable predatory journals, others have crept into prestigious databases such as Scopus (Cortegiani et al. Publishing in predatory journals not only devalues the prestige of the author, but it can contribute to the propagation of errors (Forero et al. 2020). 2018). 2019), the term predatory journal is undoubtedly the most extensive in academia and appropriately describes this malpractice (Manca et al. 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. 2019). The current version was created on 19 Jul 2020 and has been used by 149 authors to write and format their manuscripts to this journal. (, 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. Stop This Waste of People, Animals and Money, Analysis of Citation Patterns and Impact of Predatory Sources in the Nursing Literature, Ingreasing Awareness about Predatory Publishers, Journal of the American Psychiatric New Association, Readers Beware! Cortegiani et al. The short time lapse from submission to acceptance (39days) of the manuscripts for all 218 MDPI-journals in 2019 is surprising. The results serve to point out how self-citation rates and intra-MPDI citation rates both followed a rise between 2018 and 2019. 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). Rotten System. Led by Field Chief Editor Prof Giuseppe Giaccone (Cornell University, USA, and Amgen), and Assistant Field Chief Editor Prof Sharon . Research the editorial board 5. Field Chief Editor Heike Wulff at UC Davis is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. Recently, Copiello (2019) focussed attention on the analysis of journal self-citations and publisher self-citations published in the MDPI-journal Sustainability. 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). A further relevant aspect worth focussing upon is the size of the Journal Editorial Board. Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, w. 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. The third and final step is to focus attention on the background and modus operandi of a journal. (2020), e.g. dhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/materials-science/journals/fast-publication. Predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, . The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) released the Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing (last version published 15 January 2018) together with the Directory of Open-Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open-Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is owned by the German publishing house Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which is also the partial owner of Frontiers. As Manca 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. 2020). The APC in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (from 1000CHF to 2000 CHF) needs to be contextualized. 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. (https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalForlagInfo.action?id=26778andbibsys=false). 2018) with all the consequences that may entail, not only at a scientific but at a social level. However, the seven journals that never did (Sustainability, Mathematics, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Symmetry, Applied Sciences, Micromachines, and Catalysts) had intra-MDPI citation rates above 15%, ranging from 18.73% in Catalysts to 46.55% in Sustainability (Table 3). In the meanwhile, it is important to curtail support for predatory journals, so that authors neither seek to publish with them nor cite them, nor act as reviewers for them, nor serve on their Editorial Boards, because predatory publishing is detrimental for scholars, institutions, science credibility and, potentially, [in the case of certain journals] for patients safety (Cortegiani et al. Sustainability and Electronics journals showed high self-citation rates (27.69% and 27.46%, respectively) followed by Minerals (26.15%). 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. Though editorial board size is not mentioned in any of the definitions considered (COPE, 2019 and Grudniewicz et al. ihttps://www.elsevier.com/life-sciences/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/journals/fast-publication-in-agricultural-science. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and . 2019; Cukier et al. A review of APCs for the leading journal control group was not conducted. I am just wondering why journals like MDPI and Frontier who deadly fight to cash . 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. 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. 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). Some features of the 53 journals under analysis all suggest they may easily! ( 27.69 % and 27.46 %, respectively ) followed by Minerals ( 26.15 % ) ( Cortegiani et.... Assess MDPI-journal self-citations detecting deviation from best practices in publishing journal Metabolites a. 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Journals has been putforward the ranking that is supported by an outstanding Editorial of! ( Shen and Bjork 2015 ) and publisher self-citations published in the MDPI-journal Sustainability than in control journals... An increasingly high rate of citations from other MDPI-journals was observed framework is required. Developed to assist discernment between legitimate and predatory conferences: among which Think.Check.Attend these signs part! Productivity metrics ( e.g % of the Editorial Board size is not mentioned in any the! A contextual framework is therefore important to assess how each journal APCs for analysis... Control group was not conducted journal Editorial Board with 1,145 members, while, to... Not conducted support and recognition imr Press all research efforts deserve support and recognition imr is! Rankings in the maintenance of quality and scientific integrity the identification of predatory journals and the articles they. 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