Besides, an increasingly high rate of citations from other MDPI-journals was observed. ahttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science. 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. Due to the breadth of MDPI journals assessed in this paper it was not possible to conduct in-depth work to compare each journal. 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. Besides, the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishersjointly operated by The National Board of Scholarly Publishing and the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD) in the framework of the NSD downgraded MDPI to 0 over various months in 2019 and later upgraded to 1 again2. Take a look at their peer review process and publication timelines 6. Although highly variable between journals, Teixeira da Silva and Dobrnszki (2017) found no great variation between science, technology, engineering and medicine publishers: 3-4weeks for peer review means about 6weeks until to the first editorial decision (Teixeira da Silva and Dobrnszki 2017). Data were collected between 2 December 2019 and 4 January 2020. Solomon and Bjork (2012) analysed the APCs of 1,370 journals included in the Open-Access Directory in 2010 and found APCs ranging between 8 and 3,900 USD with an average APC of 904USD. Mutual citations between journals has led Clarivate to suppress several titles from JCR each year for citation stacking (see, e.g. 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. Despite the fact that impact-factor manipulation may result in criminal liability according to Fong et al. Such journals possess borderline, uncertain, contested and/or ambiguous legitimacy. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and . 2020) for inclusion in an objective definition. 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). 2018; Bond et al. (, Forero D. A., Oermann M. H., Manca A., Deriu F., Mendieta-Zern H., Dadkhah M., Bhad R., Deshpande S. N., Wang W., Cifuentes M. P. (, Grudniewicz A., Moher D., Cobey K. D., Bryson, G. L., Cukier, S., Allen, K., Arden, C., Balcom, L., Barros, T., Berger, M., Buitrago Ciro, J., Cugusi, L., Donaldson, M. R., Matthias, E., Graham, I. D., Hodgkinson, M., Khan, K. M., Mabizela, M., Manca, A., Milzow, K., Mouton, J., Muchenje, M., Olijhoek, T., Ommaya, A., Patwardhan, B., Poff, D., Proulx, L., Rodger, M., Severin, A., Strinzel, M., Sylos-Labini, M., Tamblyn, R., van Niekerk, M., Wicherts, J.M., Lalu, G. M. (, Kratochvl J., Plch L., Sebera M., Korikov E. (, Manca A., Cugusi L., Cortegiani A., Ingoglia G., Moher D., Deriu F. (, Manca A., Martinez G., Cugusi L., Dragone D., Dvir Z., Deiru F. (, Manca A., Moher D., Cugusi L., Dvir Z., Deriu F. (, Moher D., Shamseer L., Cobey K. D., Lalu, M. M., Galipeau, J., Avey, M. T., Ahmadzai, N., Alabousi M., Barbeau, P. Beck, A., Daniel, R., Frank, R., Ghannad, M., Hamel, C., Hersi, M., Hutton, B., Isupov, I., McGrath, T. A., McInnes, M. D. F., Page, M. J., Pratt, M., Pussegoda, K., Shea, B., Srivastava, A., Stevens, A., Thavorn, K., van Katwyk, S., Ward, R., Wolfe, D., Yazdi, F., Yu, A. M., Ziai, H. (, Oerman M. H., Nicoll L. H., Ashton K. S., Edie, A. H., Amarasekara, S., Chinn, P. L., Carter-Templeton, H., Ledbetter, L. S. (, Shamseer L., Moher D., Maduekwe O. Turner, L., Barbour, V., Burch, R., Clark, J., Galipeau, J., Roberts, J., Shea, B. J. 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. 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). 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. Days from submission to first decision (median, minimum and maximum) of MDPI-journals. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating . Elsevier provided a framework to assess time from submission to first decision in relative terms (Table 5). Aurora, United States. As Siler (2020) asserts the subordination of professional logics to market logics is in clear breach of academic norms and indicative of an illegitimate academic niche. Each of us is different. In Falagas and Alexiouss (2008) words, it is not only potentially insulting to the authors, but may also cancel the original meaning and value of references in scientific writing [] and distort the true ranking of the journal in the scientific literature (p. 224), which is relevant, in so far as journal metrics are key in both academic decision-making and research funding allocations. Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, with other offices in London, Madrid, Seattle and Brussels. Frontiers is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers. Just in the same year 2007, the OA publisher Frontiers was . 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). 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. I served as a special issue editor and the peer review process they require is above board, rigorous, and transparent. Grudniewicz et al. However, this solution could only work in the medium to long term. 2020). Lastly, predatory journals are a threat to scientists who may endanger their careers and devalue their curricula. 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). Besides, data were collected from JCR (2018) on the Journal Impact Factor and the Impact Factor Without Self Cites. Frontiers Media is a publisher of open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. The results serve to point out how self-citation rates and intra-MPDI citation rates both followed a rise between 2018 and 2019. The impact score (IS), also denoted as Journal impact score (JIS), of an academic journal is a measure of the yearly . Furthermore, no less importantly, the analysis showed that a large number of the citations that they receive are from other MDPI-journals. 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. 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. However, they've done a pretty good job maintaining reputation, though it certainly differs per-journal. More specifically, 84.9% of analysed journals stated that they provided a first decision within <19days. I had worked with Frederic on running DH2014, still the largest ever international meeting of Digital Humanities scholars. These lists very soon become outdated and incomplete, especially if the resources to keep them updated are scarce. Led by Field Chief Editor Prof Giuseppe Giaccone (Cornell University, USA, and Amgen), and Assistant Field Chief Editor Prof Sharon . 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. 2020b). It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. 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. WOSPredatory Reports328Frontiers19951SCIE4SSCI223MDPI 422 ! 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. 2018; Committee on Publication Ethics 2019; Gades and Toth 2019; Kisely 2019; Vakil 2019; Elmore and Weston 2020; Kratochvl et al. 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). 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. 2019; Cukier et al. ), rather than professional editors (as with the journals of Nature Research). 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. 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). 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. 1. Chorus and Waltman (2016) investigated the effect of self-citations on impact factors during the period 19872015 in all fields of the Sciences and the Social Sciences from WOS data and concluded that self-citation malpractice generates an inflated importance of journals and biased journal rankings (Chorus and Waltman 2016). 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. In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. 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). The overwhelming majority of editors hold another full-time position, as do almost all reviewers. These facts suggest that MDPI has been open to question, a publisher that has been moving within a grey zone. BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. sharon r pine. analysed 93 checklists in a systematic review of checklists for identifying predatory journals from biomedical fields. In particular, the 400 or so conferences that MDPI sponsored in 2019 (MDPI 2020) should all be carefully scrutinized. 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. Editorial Board size and self-citation rates (2018, 2019). 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. 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