Science reported last month:
Nearly two dozen journals from two of the fastest growing open-access publishers, including one of the world’s largest journals by volume, will no longer receive a key scholarly imprimatur. On 20 March, the Web of Science database said it delisted the journals along with dozens of others, stripping them of an impact factor, the citation-based measure of quality that, although controversial, carries weight with authors and institutions. The move highlights continuing debate about a business model marked by high volumes of articles, ostensibly chosen for scientific soundness rather than novelty, and the practice by some open-access publishers of recruiting large numbers of articles for guest-edited special issues...
Clarivate initially did not name any of the delisted journals or provide specific reasons. But it confirmed to Science the identities of 19 Hindawi journals and two MDPI titles after reports circulated about their removals. The MDPI journals include the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, which published about 17,000 articles last year. In 2022, it had a Web of Science journal impact factor of 4.614, in the top half of all journals in the field of public health.
This is not the first time that MDPI has been singled out for dodgy publishing practices (see my post on this from 2021). Many of these journals operate a pay-to-publish model, which is antithetical to genuine and high-quality scholarly research. They incessantly spam academics with requests to join editorial boards, become a guest editor, submit papers (most often to special issues of dubious validity), and review papers.
To give you a sense of the scale of the spam, consider my own experience. I have blocked Hindawi and Frontiers from my emails, but I still receive requests from MDPI. Since the start of this year, I have received two requests to be a guest editor, six calls for papers for special issues, and seven requests to review papers. I rejected all of them. The requests to review are about one third of all of the requests to review papers that I have received this year, just from one publisher. And most of them were for articles where I am not an expert.
It is that last point that is of most concern. Reviewers are supposed to be acknowledged experts in the field. Otherwise, the quality of review is unlikely to be good, which limits the validity of the editorial process. This is compounded by the seven-day turnaround that these publishers expect from their reviewers.
Academics need to be vigilant in standing up to these predators, and in coaching their postgraduate students and junior colleagues to avoid these journals as outlets for publication. As the article linked above notes, Web of Science has stripped some journals of their impact factors, which limits their value in tenure or promotion decisions. One Chinese university has stopped counting publications with Hindawi, MDPI, and Frontiers in evaluating academic staff for career progression. The Norwegian National Publication Committee now gives no credit for publications at Frontiers. No doubt, there will be more sanctions to come. The negative signal from being associated with these journals could damage new academics' blossoming careers, unless they can successfully avoid the temptation to get involved with them.
[HT: Peter Newman]
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