(2017) warned researchers from the biomedical field that APCs lower than 150$ were suspect. 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, . 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. 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). Frontiers Media is a publisher of open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. Comparable data from other publishing houses, which they rarely publish as aggregate figures, would be of interest, without which any comparison is impossible. before print) varies but is usually accomplished within 2 weeks (Broome 2017). Unfortunately, there is no information available on the time from submission to the final decision for the 53 journals under analysis, only minimum and maximum times from submission to first decision, as shown in Figure 4. 2019). We hope researchers make use of this checklist and avoid falling prey to bogus conference organizers. 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). In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. The APCs published on the journal web pages of the 53 journals under analysis imply that the articles published in 2019 could have generated an approximate income of 153,834,500 CHF (no APC-related waiver or discount could be considered in this calculation as no JCR-indexed journal provides relevant detailed information on the topic). 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. analysed 93 checklists in a systematic review of checklists for identifying predatory journals from biomedical fields. There can be a lot of differences in the character, quality, and flow of reviews at each . 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). Finally, self-citation and intra-MDPI citation rates artificially increase the impact factors of JCR-indexed MDPI-journals that is quite clearly in breach of best practice and integrity in science. The APC in JCR-indexed MDPI-journals (from 1000CHF to 2000 CHF) needs to be contextualized. 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. Days from submission to first decision (median, minimum and maximum) of MDPI-journals. 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. The following analysis addressed the peer-review process. Zelenko and Raoult fall in each other's arms. 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). It would be of interest to enlarge the time span for the analysis of these journals and to observe their behavioural patterns with regard to their citation practices. The size of the editorial board is remarkably higher in all 53-MDPI journals analysed than in control leading journals. 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. (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. A Cross-Sectional Comparison, Predatory Open Access: A Longitudinal Study of Article Volumes and Market Charateristics, Is It Such a Big Deal? 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 investigation has approached the study of MDPI-journals that are ranked in the 2019 edition of JCR. 10 Point checklist to identify predatory publishers. 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. The increase in the number of journals and articles published had no effect on time from submission to first decision. 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. 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. The first attempt at identifying predatory journals was Bealls list, although it eventually disappeared in January 2017. A review of APCs for the leading journal control group was not conducted. Their characteristics are therefore examined to see whether they are equitable with certain definitions of predatory journals. However, some articles from some predatory journals are in fact indexed, both in PubMed (Manca et al. As shown in Figure 1, the number of articles published in 2019 in each journal varied highly, ranging from 226 in Vaccines to 7,414 in Sustainability. Therefore, these Principles, supported by different institutions, are useful for detecting deviation from best practices in publishing. 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. This mega-publisher appeared on Bealls list and was subsequently excluded. (2019) and COPE (2019). 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. (2017) have reminded us. None declared. Hence, specific recommendations are given to researchers, educational institutions and prestigious databases advising them to review their working relations with those sorts of journals. Cortegiani et al. 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. COPE and OASPA have retained Frontiers as a member after concerns were raised. 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. I was not allowed to handle articles of authors who I'd worked with in the past (for some articles we brought in another editor we knew, for others Frontiers supplied a handling editor). 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. ahttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science. Check. Editorial Board size and self-citation rates (2018, 2019). 2019; Strong 2019), because they undermine its integrity (Vogel 2017; Abad-Garca 2019), its quality, and its credibility (Bond et al. 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). Besides, an increasingly high rate of citations from other MDPI-journals was observed. He is the person who analyzed and observed a growing number of the exploitative academic journals charging author fees without the proper quality and the published papers. As indicators of their objectives and strategy, this study analysed journals' behavior in relation to the following measures: similarity of journal name, content output, APCs, frequency of publication, editorial board size, peer review process (particularly peer review time as peer review is the most common procedure to assure published manuscript quality), journal Impact Factor, and self-citation (due to its direct impact on journals' reputation metrics). A further relevant aspect worth focussing upon is the size of the Journal Editorial Board. Journal impact factors of MDPI-journals with and without self-citations (2018). 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'". Frontiers in Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across the entire field of cancer research. 2019). Further research would be needed to understand how these faster times are achieved. (, 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. 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. We will only update links and add notes to this list. [ This is an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, America's leading higher . 2020) for inclusion in an objective definition. Frontiers in Oncology. From a prescriptive viewpoint, Teixeira da Silva and Dobrnszki (2017) understood that the initial review could not reasonably last longer than 12months, to which another 12months have to be added for subsequent revision of the paper, amounting to as many as 8months, in the case of a process with three revisions. 2020b), PubMed (Manca et al. 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. 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. 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 . BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. With respect to the formal criterion of the composition of the Editorial Board, it has not been possible to evaluate whether all the members who form part of these boards are in fact aware of their roles, due to their very high numbers (16,223 individuals), which could be approached in future research. In addition, publication in a predatory journal implies the possible squandering of valuable resources: people, animals, and money, as Moher et al. WOSPredatory Reports328Frontiers19951SCIE4SSCI223MDPI 422 ! As a control group for comparison with JCR-indexed MDPI-journals, the top ranked journal by Impact Factor in each relevant subject category were selected (all under the joint name of non-MDPI-journals in this study) (Table 1). Once again, days from submission to first decision varied greatly, even within the same research field in Elsevier journals, while the MDPI-journals under analysis presented much greater homogeneity and, even, less difference between the maximum and the minimum times, which is to say the lowest intervals. Peer review is a system of safeguards which, despite its limitations, fulfils its function reasonably well of ensuring that false research, of low quality, with serious flaws or inaccurate information is not disseminated, thereby avoiding misinformation (Elmore and Weston 2020; Siler 2020). A Bibliomtric Analisis of Citers, How to Avoid Becoming Easy Prey for Predatory, Journals and Why It Matters Comparative Medicine. (2020). 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. 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. As depicted in Figure 5, the impact factors of all journals were reduced when self-citations were removed. More specifically, 84.9% of analysed journals stated that they provided a first decision within <19days. IMR Press All research efforts deserve support and recognition IMR Press is a publisher of open access peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences journals. 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). Rotten System. 2019), as their behaviour indicated that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices. Deceptive or scamming journals are also the other name of the . Search for other works by this author on: Plagiarism and Predatory Journals: A Threat to Scientific Integrity, Publishing in Predatory Tourism and Hospitality Journals: Mapping the Academic Market and Identifying Response Strategies, Supporting a Definition of Predatory Publishing, Predatory Publishers Are Corrupting Open Access, Predatory Journals and the Breakdown of Research Cultures, Dangerous Predatory Publishers Threaten Medical Research, Faculty Applicants Attempt to Inflate Cvs Using Predatory Journals, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Predatory Publishing is Everyones Concern, A Large-Scale Analysis of Impact Factor Biased Journals Self-Citations, On the Skeweness of Journal Self-Citations and Publisher Self-Citations: Cues for Discusin from a Case Study, Inclusion of Predatory Journals in Scopus is Inflating Scholars Metrics and Advancing Careers, Predatory Journals and Conferences: Why Fake Counts, Citations and Metrics of Journals Discontinued from Scopus for Publication Concerns: The GhoS(t)copus Project, Checklists to Detect Potential Predatory Biomedical Journals: A Systematic Review. 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). Frederic was setting up a new, online, open access, peer reviewed . 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. 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. Stay away from Frontiers. 2020). 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