The easiest way is to use a reference manager: The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs. (https://thinkcheckattend.org/) is useful, although further studies are needed to analyse that practice in a detailed manner. A review of content output in the leading journals was not conducted. Stay away from Frontiers. 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. Moreover, in January 2020, the number of special issues scheduled for 2020 with respect to those in 2019 skyrocketed in all the journals under study to levels as surprisingly high as 788 special issues in Sustainability, 830 in Applied Sciences, and 846 in Materials. 6 ways to spot a Predatory Journal: 1. This step is greatly facilitated when a journal operates with open peer review. The Author(s) 2021. 2020). 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. 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. First, a proper systematic and structured overview of APC rates it is not available. 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). WOSPredatory Reports328Frontiers19951SCIE4SSCI223MDPI 422 ! It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. 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. Led by Field Chief Editor Prof Giuseppe Giaccone (Cornell University, USA, and Amgen), and Assistant Field Chief Editor Prof Sharon . 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). Having completed the verification of the formal criteria, Kratochvl et al. 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. before print) varies but is usually accomplished within 2 weeks (Broome 2017). 2018) with all the consequences that may entail, not only at a scientific but at a social level. JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (edition 2018, released 2019) were selected for the analysis (53 out of 218). 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). However, the Principles for Transparency and Best practices in Scholarly Publishing of COPE (2019) may well serve as a reference to evaluate journal behavior, particularly with reference to their disregard of quality assurance. 1. 2019). Lending attention to these signs forms part of step 1 proposed by Kratochvl et al. In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. Bond B. 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). Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. Only in that way will the editors decisions be based on editorial reasoning rather than any covert intention to inflate citations artificially. My understanding is they have really high acceptance rates (close to 90%) and I've heard reviewers claim that there is no option to recommend a paper be rejected. Cancers/CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians . 2018). Economics and Business Management Faculty, Business Management and Marketing Department, University of Seville, Avda. Cukier et al. dhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/materials-science/journals/fast-publication. chttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication. 2018), MEDLINE, or Embase (Hayden 2020) with the appearance of legitimate scientific journals. 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. (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. The results showed the average time from submission to first decision of JCR-indexed MDPI-journals was 19days, according to data provided in journals pages, section named Journal Statistics. (2017) warned researchers from the biomedical field that APCs lower than 150$ were suspect. 's (2019) definition. In addition, it is highly unusual to have an article accepted without revisions. Lastly, predatory journals are a threat to scientists who may endanger their careers and devalue their curricula. The librarian, Jeffrey Beall, while at the University of Colorado and now in retirement, coined the term to identify journals that, overlooking quality peer-review processes, seek to generate income exclusively through the APCs that the authors are expected to pay and who are then sent misleading information on citation indexes and spam-related marketing (Beall 2012; Laine and Winker 2017). Just in the same year 2007, the OA publisher Frontiers was . (, 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. Hence, specific recommendations are given to researchers, educational institutions and prestigious databases advising them to review their working relations with those sorts of journals. The number of special issues was over twice the number of ordinary issues in 92.45% of the MDPI-journals under analysis. 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'. The strategies of any journal are not made public in such a way that their interests and objectives can be objectively evaluated. 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. 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. Predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, sow confusion, promote shoddy scholarship and waste resources (Grudniewicz et al. 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. 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. 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). The COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME Principles for Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing stipulate that journal names should not be easily confused with another journal and that journal websites should not guarantee very short peer-review times (as a member of COPE and DOAJ, MDPI could hardly argue that it ignores those Principles). 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. All journals, except the International Journal of Molecular Science, increased self-citation rates between 2018 and 2019 (between 2.7 and 16.9 points). In addition, publication in a predatory journal implies the possible squandering of valuable resources: people, animals, and money, as Moher et al. analysed 93 checklists in a systematic review of checklists for identifying predatory journals from biomedical fields. Their new found legitimacy means that any citations will, in consequence, raise the productivity metrics (e.g. In spite of its important role in science, it was considered too subjective an aspectpartly because, as with journal quality and deceitfulness, it is impossible to assess(Grudniewicz et al. Record, verify, and showcase your peer review contributions in a format you can include in job and funding applications (without breaking reviewer anonymity). 1. It was Elsevier and the allegedly learned International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC) which allowed Raoult's illegal chloroquine quackery. Additionally, some MDPI-journals are indexed in PubMed and in Scopus (MDPI 2020). ahttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science. 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). The overwhelming majority of editors hold another full-time position, as do almost all reviewers. JCR-indexed MDPI-journals in (2018) and ranking/leading journal in the category. 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. ihttps://www.elsevier.com/life-sciences/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/journals/fast-publication-in-agricultural-science. 2020). 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. (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. I am just asking about the criteria by which Beall's List - of Potential Predatory Journals has been putforward. Wikipedia lists various controversies about Frontiers articles and resignations of editors. (https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalForlagInfo.action?id=26778andbibsys=false). 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. 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. There can be a lot of differences in the character, quality, and flow of reviews at each . 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. 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. 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. 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. Intra-MDPI citation rate 2018 and 2019 (top 10 citing journals). 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. It may therefore be appreciated that the reputation of MDPI Publisher has undergone ups and downs over the past few years and has both its critics and supporters, which makes it an interesting case study. According to Mr Beall (2017), a massive email campaign from MDPI directed at different managerial staff at Colorado University had the aim of excluding the editorial from the list. 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). 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. 2019; Strong 2019), because they undermine its integrity (Vogel 2017; Abad-Garca 2019), its quality, and its credibility (Bond et al. Each of us is different. 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. 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. Further research would be needed to understand how these faster times are achieved. sharon r pine. The drop in the impact factor ranged between 38.96% in the case of Sustainability to 0.68% in Medicina with an average reduction of 14.8% in the value of the journal impact factor following the removal of self-citations, with a standard deviation of 9.31 (Figure 5). 2020). 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). Once accepted, time to posting the final word document online on a reputable journals Web site i.e. Impact Factor is the average number of citations received in 2017 to articles published in 2015 and 2016, while . As such a single proxy was used in the form of the non-MDPI leading journal. We will only update links and add notes to this list. No longer merely a medium for dissemination, scientific journals are now a key foundation for appointments and funding in scientific research (Shu et al. 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. There were 53 MDPI-indexed journals in the JCR (2018), 20 of which were ranked Q1, 25 were ranked Q2, and only 8 were ranked Q3 (see Table 1). 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. Journal impact factors of MDPI-journals with and without self-citations (2018). 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. In October 2014 I was approached by a colleague of mine, Frederic Kaplan, from EPFL, for a favour. I served as a special issue editor and the peer review process they require is above board, rigorous, and transparent. Why Beall's blacklist of predatory journals died. It is therefore important to assess how each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a Journal Impact Factor. 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). The results presented above showed that the 53 MDPI-journals under analysis possess, to a greater or lesser degree, some of the criteria from various definitions for the identification of predatory journals and may deviate from best editorial and publication practices when e.g. Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. In fact, high impact factors may merely be due to citation cartels instead of true and legitimate scientific interest (Ioannidis and Thombs 2019). The average increase in the number of published articles was 148.93%. Better Service 2019). Zelenko and Raoult fall in each other's arms. These results showed that the MDPI journals under analysis fitted some features of the definition of predatory journals (Grudniewicz et al. Elseviers review speed (submission to final decision in days). This investigation has approached the study of MDPI-journals that are ranked in the 2019 edition of JCR. 1) Frontiers in Oncology IF:5.7382 2) Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology IF:6.0814 3) Frontiers in Genetics IF:4.7722 4) Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences IF:6.1134 5) Frontiers in Immunology IF:8.7864 Frontiers 14/29=0.3148% 2/3=0.6666% Three different sources of information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal web pages, WOS, and JCRs. The formal criteria together with the analysis of the citation patterns of the 53 journals under analysis all suggest they may be predatory journals. Its average APC amounts to 1,138USD (OMICS 2020). 2020). Besides, JCR-indexed MDPI-journals mimicking names and publicly claimed rapid publication is in direct breach of the COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/WAME Principles for Transparency and Best Practices in Scholarly Publishing. Frederic was setting up a new, online, open access, peer reviewed . 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. 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. Frontiers is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers. Scope. 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. (2017) have reminded us. 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). Editors decisions be based on editorial reasoning rather than any covert intention inflate... Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, medicine., a proper systematic and structured overview of APC rates it is not available would., as do almost all reviewers List - of Potential predatory journals frontiers in oncology predatory been.! Further research would be needed to understand how these faster times are achieved special issues was over the! Of the definition of predatory journals are a threat to scientists who may endanger their careers and devalue their.... 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