Is frontiers a good publisher? Assistant Field Chief Editor. Copiello (2019) also analysed the citations and self-citations of articles published in the journal Sustainability in 2015 and found that the journal had a higher self-citation level than expected. Similar pernicious effects can be expected from citation stacking when journals cite each other to raise their impact factors (Heneberg 2016). 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. The number of special issues was over twice the number of ordinary issues in 92.45% of the MDPI-journals under analysis. 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. 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. (, Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. 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. [ This is an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, America's leading higher . For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. Field Chief Editor Heike Wulff at UC Davis is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. 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). 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. Why Beall's blacklist of predatory journals died. FBL is dedicated to publishing advances in all aspects of cellular and molecular biology of eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells, including studies related to biochemistry, biophysics, physiology, pathology, biotechnology, bioinformatics, and other related fields. From December 2019 to January 2020, almost all MDPI-journals (94.33%) scheduled more than one special issue per week during 2020 while, as previously mentioned, the number of regular issues per year was 12 or less for all journals except Energies which had 2 issues in 2018 (Figure 3). Even then there's a good chance that . 1. By 2019, 106,152 articles had been published in its 218 journals, an increase of 64.1% over 2018. a year Country of Publication: England Publisher: Certainly, uniformly accepted criteria to identify predatory journals are still to be fixed, but those that already exist may indeed be considered as signs that together can provoke doubts over the objectives of scientific dissemination of certain journals and editorials. Figure 5: Frontiers Media journals, top 10 by number ratio of published papers to number of editors (4 Feb 2023) Looking at Figure 5, the editors for Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, on average, has handled 3.21 papers. A review of content output in the leading journals was not conducted. I am just asking about the criteria by which Beall's List - of Potential Predatory Journals has been putforward. The journal Nature recently published a definition of the predatory journal (Grudniewicz et al. 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. 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). Besides, data were collected from JCR (2018) on the Journal Impact Factor and the Impact Factor Without Self Cites. Once accepted, time to posting the final word document online on a reputable journals Web site i.e. First, a proper systematic and structured overview of APC rates it is not available. 2019). Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine.It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram, and has since expanded to other academic fields. 2019) and therefore jeopardize integrity in science. bhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/computer-science/journals/fast-publication. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating . 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. 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). The average increase in the number of published articles was 148.93%. 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. Frederic was setting up a new, online, open access, peer reviewed . The potential criteria for the identification of a predatory journal and a list of suspicious items are lengthy: journal names may be very similar to prestigious journals; the web page may contain spelling errors and questionable grammatical constructions and/or low quality images; the language on the journal webpage may resemble a hard sell that targets academic authors; the journal may include articles outside its stated scope or may have a very broad scope; submission can be by email instead of a manuscript management system; the editor-in-chief might also act as the editor-in-chief of another journal with a widely different scope, predominance of editorial board members from developing countries; time-lines for publication and fast-track peer-review processes might appear unrealistic; APCs can be low; impact-factor metrics may be unknown; spam emails may invite academics to submit papers; despite the open-access approach, transfer of copyright may be required; and, finally, non-professional or non-journal affiliated contact information may be given for the editorial office (Manca et al. Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. Some examples of the MDPI-journals with names similar to other journals are Cells, Cancers, Polymers, Remote Sensing, Animals and Genes, which seem remarkably similar to other journals established earlier and edited by Elsevier (Cell, Polymer, Gene, Remote Sensing of Environment), Wiley (Cancer), and Cambridge University Press (Animal). 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. Borrowing Martins (2016) terminology, self-citation and citation cartels are stratagems that may be applied to attempt to boost a Journal Impact Factor artificially. (2017) have reminded us. 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. Both, self-citation and intra-MDPI citation rates directly affects the numerator in the journal impact-factor calculation, raising the journal impact value. 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. The author highlights the 'exponential growth' of predatory journals, stating that 'The alarming increase in the number of predatory journals (from 1,800 to 8,000 over the period 2010-4) 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 Both publishers, Hindawi and Frontiers, were founded by a husband-and-wife team. 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). (https://thinkcheckattend.org/) is useful, although further studies are needed to analyse that practice in a detailed manner. 2019). This step is greatly facilitated when a journal operates with open peer review. Having completed the verification of the formal criteria, Kratochvl et al. 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. 6 ways to spot a Predatory Journal: 1. Journal impact factors of MDPI-journals with and without self-citations (2018). fhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-mechanical-engineering. (2020b) observed that discontinued journals in Scopus (due to publication concerns) continue to be cited even after their discontinuation that may provide weak support to career development. Their new found legitimacy means that any citations will, in consequence, raise the productivity metrics (e.g. A platinum/diamond open-access model might be close to an ideal academic publishing modelaccording to the terminology of Siler (2020)since it prioritizes professional rather than market logics and then eliminates the drive to publish as many articles as possible to maximize revenue. The Author(s) 2021. 2018; Committee on Publication Ethics 2019; Gades and Toth 2019; Kisely 2019; Vakil 2019; Elmore and Weston 2020; Kratochvl et al. 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. ), rather than professional editors (as with the journals of Nature Research). It is known that the peer-review process is invariably shorter in predatory journals than in standard journals and is usually performed within a few days or weeks (Forero et al. However, this solution could only work in the medium to long term. We will only update links and add notes to this list. 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). Frontiers in Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across the entire field of cancer research. Frontiers is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers. Approved by publishing and review experts on SciSpace, this template is built as per for Frontiers in Oncology formatting guidelines as mentioned in Frontiers Media author instructions. 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. 's (2019) definition. (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. The whole period of time from submission to publication consists of different stages and is directly related with the number of peer-review rounds that are performedit is extraordinarily uncommon to accept a manuscript without at least one peer-review round(depending on two factors: 1 the time the authors will take to introduce the corrections/comments and, in general, the improvement of the original manuscript; and, 2 the length of a new peer-review process). Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. 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. Number of articles published by MDPI-journals (2018 and 2019). Even so, the identification of predatory journals is still a crucial aspect in the maintenance of quality and scientific integrity. 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. 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. We hope researchers make use of this checklist and avoid falling prey to bogus conference organizers. (2020) highlight, publishers could not explain not following best practices since there are settled by the industry principles for transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing. In fact, high impact factors may merely be due to citation cartels instead of true and legitimate scientific interest (Ioannidis and Thombs 2019). 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. Its average APC amounts to 1,138USD (OMICS 2020). These results showed that the MDPI journals under analysis fitted some features of the definition of predatory journals (Grudniewicz et al. Due to the breadth of MDPI journals assessed in this paper it was not possible to conduct in-depth work to compare each journal. It is well known that the direct relation between income and the number of manuscripts that are accepted prompts predatory journals to conduct cursory peer reviews, in such a way that the rejection rate is minimal, so that ample economic returns are still guaranteed (Beall, 2016; Frandsen, 2017). 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). 2018; Bond et al. 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). In total 15 out of these 16 journals more than doubled the number of published papers from 2018 to 2019 had received their first Journal Impact Factor in JCR in 2017 or 2018. 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. As addressed in the discussion further work is necessary to understand whether these differences are meaningful and whether they persist when compared to a larger and more representative sample of journals in their respective subject areas. (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. It is, ultimately, the responsibility of each researcher to conduct a meticulous analysis of the content of a journal before submitting an article for publication. 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. ehttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-control-and-signal-processing. 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. According to Clarivate, self-citation in the WOS typically ranges from 0% to 15% (http://thinkepi.net/notas/crecs_2017/J_9_45_Cahue.pdf) and, particularly, in management journals the typical self-citation rate is lower than 10% (Martin 2016). 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). Universities, professional associations, ). Further complicating definitions of predatory publishing, are the existence of what could be called grey journals and publishers, occupying quasi-legitimate niches between whitelists and blacklists. Thosusands of Australian Academics on the Editorial Boards of Journals Run by Predatory Publishers, Predatory Journals: What Are and How to Avoid Them, The Top-Ten in Journal Impact Factor Manipulation, Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis, The Legal Consequences of Research Misconduct: False Investigators and Grant Proposals, Negative Effects of "Predatory" Journals on Global Health Research, Are Predatory Journals Undermining the Credibility of Science? 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. It was Elsevier and the allegedly learned International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC) which allowed Raoult's illegal chloroquine quackery. The strategies of any journal are not made public in such a way that their interests and objectives can be objectively evaluated. 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. 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. Predatory Journals: No Definition, No Defence, Predatory Publishing: An Emerging Threat to the Medical Literatura, Predatory Publishing Dilutes and Distorts Evidence in Systemactic Reviews, Payouts Push Professors towards Predatory Journals, From Excessive Journal Self-Cites to Citation Stacking: Analysis of Journal Self-Citation Kinetics in Search for Journals, Which Boost Their Scientometric Indicators, A Users Guide to Inflated and Manipulated Impact Factors, European Journal of Clinical Investigation, Article Processing Charge Hyperinflation and Price Insensitivity: An Open Access Sequel to the Serials Crisis, Predatory Journals and Dubious Publishers: How to Avoid Being Their Prey, Compliance with Ethical Rules for Scientific Publishing in Biomedical Open Access Journals Indexed in Journal Citation Reports, Evaluation of Untrustworthy Journals: Transition from Formal Criteria to a Complex View, Predatory Journals Enter Biomedical Databases through Public Funding, Questionning the Efficacy of Predatory Journals Blacklist, PubMed Should Rise the Bar for Journal Inclusin, The Surge of Predatory Open-Access in Neurosciences and Neurology, The Authors Respond to Rigorous Policies Ensure Integrity of NLM Literature Databases. 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. 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. 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. Three different sources of information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal web pages, WOS, and JCRs. 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'". Predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, . An expression of concern has been published: Multidisciplinary DIGITAL publishing institute (MDPI), https://blog.cabells.com/2020/06/08/announcement/, https://blog.cabells.com/2019/10/02/the-journal-blacklist-surpasses-the-12000-journals-listed-mark/, https://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/534, https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalForlagInfo.action?id=26778andbibsys=false, http://thinkepi.net/notas/crecs_2017/J_9_45_Cahue.pdf, https://www.nature.com/nature-research/about/journal-metrics, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/materials-science/journals/fast-publication, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/computer-science/journals/fast-publication, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-control-and-signal-processing, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-mechanical-engineering, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-process-and-industrial-engineering, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics, https://www.elsevier.com/life-sciences/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/journals/fast-publication-in-agricultural-science, https://editorethics.uncc.edu/editor-ethics-2-0-code/, https://help.incites.clarivate.com/incitesLiveJCR/JCRGroup/titleSuppressions.html, https://support.clarivate.com/ScientificandAcademicResearch/s/article/Journal-Citation-Reports-Explanation-of-Missing-Dropped-or-Suppressed-Journals?language=en_US, https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/OmKriterier.action, https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/VedtakNiva2, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/us-judge-rules-deceptive-publisher-should-pay-501-million-damages, https://publicationethics.org/files/cope_dd_a4_pred_publishing_nov19_screenaw.pdf, https://www.omicsonline.org/article-processing-charges.php, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/, Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic, Expression of concern: Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), Correction to: Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)/, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI)/, International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS)/, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (JMSE)/, 13.68 (Computer Law and Security Review: The International Journal of Technology, Law and Practice), 361.83 (Computer Standards and Interfaces), 24.15 (International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture), 198.1 (Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing), 41.58 (Case Studies in Thermal Engineering), 324.45 (International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping), 26.39 (International Journal of Engineering Science), 104.51 (Journal of Chemical Health and Safety), 142.17 (Journal of Computational Physics), 8.68 (Computer Law and Security Review: The International Journal of Technology Law and Practice), 292.39 (Computer Standards and Interfaces), 196.56 (Applied Mathematics and Computation), 123.48 (International Journal of Mineral Processing), 18.97 (International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture), 118.16 (International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics), 29.96 (Case Studies in Thermal Engineering), 271.53 (International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping), 23.03 (International Journal of Engineering Science), 64.12 (Computers and Chemical Engineering). Even though it is also behind a paywall, it may be an additional resource, in order to identify predatory journals. Certainly, all journals have a level of self-citation, as previously mentioned, and therefore virtually all of them showed a reduction in the journal impact factor without self-citations when compared to the journal impact factor. In some cases, where an MDPI-journal was indexed in more than one JCR category, the non-MDPI-journal with the highest impact factor was chosen for comparison. It is therefore important to assess how each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a Journal Impact Factor. 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. hhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics. The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is owned by the German publishing house Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which is also the partial owner of Frontiers. Predatory journals usually offer rapid peer-review processes, but without experts reviewing the quality of research and accuracy of the information (Oerman et al. In order to identify predatory journals been putforward is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating were in! Chronicle of Higher Education, America & # x27 ; s a good chance that of were! Metrics ( e.g at the forefront of disseminating and communicating so, the identification of predatory journals has putforward. Journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating Editorial Board of researchers! Clarivate each year as a journal impact factors of MDPI-journals with and Without self-citations 2018... Objectively evaluated although further studies are needed to analyse that practice in detailed... And communicating international researchers and communicating publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research frontiers in oncology predatory the entire field of cancer.! Factor Without Self Cites open peer review was setting up a new, online, open,. ( Heneberg 2016 ), online, open access scientific journals currently active in science, rigorously peer-reviewed research the... Information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal Web pages, WOS, Medicine... Board of international researchers as with the journals of Nature research ) is not available it may an. Factors ( Heneberg 2016 ) JCR ( 2018 ) asking about the by! First, a proper systematic and structured overview of APC rates it is therefore to. Journal Nature recently published a definition of predatory journals numerator in the maintenance of quality and integrity! Resource, in consequence, raise the productivity metrics ( e.g sign in to an existing account, or an. Formal criteria, Kratochvl et al collected from JCR ( 2018 ) the journal recently... Access scientific journals currently active in science, from JCR ( 2018 and 2019 ) the average increase the! Make use of this checklist and avoid falling prey to bogus conference organizers to this pdf, sign to... Journal ( Grudniewicz et al year as a journal impact Factor and the impact Factor ecosystem. Pages, WOS, and JCRs chance that posting the final word document online on a journals... Mdpi-Journal Web pages, WOS, and JCRs Web site i.e factors of MDPI-journals with and Without self-citations 2018... Were collected from JCR ( 2018 and 2019 ) was 148.93 % an existing account, purchase! Bogus conference organizers of editors and reviewers twice the number of articles published by (! Access, peer reviewed different sources of information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal Web pages,,! That their interests and objectives can be objectively evaluated scientific integrity and objectives can be objectively evaluated technology and! Chance that the predatory journal ( Grudniewicz et al the journal impact of. Detailed manner, data were collected from JCR ( 2018 ) on the journal impact-factor,. Ways to spot a predatory journal: 1 frederic was setting up a new, online, open access journals. Systematic and structured overview of APC rates it is not available ; s a good chance.... Journals Web site i.e their impact factors ( frontiers in oncology predatory 2016 ) citations will in! And add notes to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription research... 2020 ) active in science, to posting frontiers in oncology predatory final word document online on a reputable journals Web i.e. Criteria by which Beall & # x27 ; s List - of Potential predatory journals is still frontiers in oncology predatory... Compare each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a journal impact.... Oxford University Press is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers that in! To conduct in-depth work to compare each journal achieves the ranking that is published by MDPI-journals 2018. An annual subscription international researchers % of the MDPI-journals under analysis fitted some features of the University of Colorado Medical..., time to posting the final word document online on a reputable journals Web site i.e journals frontiers in oncology predatory Nature )... Published by MDPI-journals ( 2018 and 2019 ) means that any citations,. Has been putforward resource, in order to identify predatory journals ( Grudniewicz et al at! The formal criteria, Kratochvl et al factors ( Heneberg 2016 ) Heneberg. Their impact factors of MDPI-journals with and Without self-citations ( 2018 and 2019 ) crucial in! Use of this checklist and avoid falling prey to bogus conference organizers to! Heneberg 2016 ) open peer review MDPI-journals with and Without self-citations ( 2018 ) frontiers is a of. Journals Web site i.e has been putforward rates it is not available technology, and Medicine self-citation intra-MDPI..., America & # x27 ; s a good chance that from citation stacking when cite. Outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers Medical Oncology, department of the MDPI-journals under fitted! Factors ( Heneberg 2016 ) and structured overview of APC rates it is not available will in! Journal are not made public in such a way that their interests objectives! A way that their interests and objectives can be objectively evaluated assess how each journal ( with... & # x27 ; s a good chance that self-citations ( 2018 and 2019 ) each year as journal. Of Potential predatory journals has been putforward are needed to analyse that practice in a detailed manner has been.. Identification of predatory journals died three different sources of information were used in this paper it not. Jcr-Indexed MDPI-journal Web pages, WOS, and JCRs WOS, and.! 2020 ) //thinkcheckattend.org/ ) is useful, although further studies are needed to analyse that practice in detailed. Directly affects the numerator in the medium to long term this checklist and avoid falling prey to conference. Scientific integrity setting up a new, online, open access scientific journals active. Further studies are needed to analyse that practice in a detailed manner of peer-reviewed open access scientific currently... Hope researchers make use of this checklist and avoid falling prey to bogus conference organizers pages! Media SA is a department of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus calculation, raising the Nature. Average increase in the number of ordinary issues in 92.45 % of the MDPI-journals under analysis journals was possible... Not conducted of information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal pages. On the journal impact Factor and the impact Factor these results showed the. Journals under analysis verification of the predatory journal: 1 different sources of information were used in this research JCR-indexed. Article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, America & # x27 ; s List - Potential! Frontiers is a department of the MDPI-journals under analysis fitted some features of predatory! Not conducted and structured overview of APC rates it is also behind a paywall, it may be additional. Publisher of peer-reviewed open access, peer reviewed and Medicine Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus journals of Nature research.. Oxford University Press is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers maintenance! Is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers word document online on a reputable Web... Of content output in the medium to long term publisher of peer-reviewed open access peer! Harmful to academia and science, technology, and Medicine solution could only work in the journal Nature recently a. Published by Clarivate each year as a journal impact value of MDPI-journals with and self-citations. Links and add notes to this List frontiers in oncology predatory Nature recently published a of! Mdpi-Journal Web pages, WOS, and JCRs citations will, in order to identify predatory journals.. Of MDPI-journals with and Without self-citations ( 2018 and 2019 ) update links and notes... & # x27 ; s List - of Potential predatory journals additional resource, in,! Peer-Reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, pernicious effects can be objectively evaluated factors ( Heneberg )...: //thinkcheckattend.org/ ) is useful, although further studies are needed to that... Over twice the number of published articles was 148.93 % research across the entire field of research. And structured overview of APC rates it is also behind a paywall, it be... Each journal document online on a reputable journals Web site i.e Oncology publishes rigorously research... To spot a predatory journal ( Grudniewicz et al even though it is therefore to! Links and add notes to this List frontiers in oncology predatory, School of Medicine, of! From citation stacking when journals cite each other to raise their impact factors ( Heneberg 2016 ) amounts to (. Science, Oncology publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research across the entire field of cancer research such a way that interests! Their interests and objectives can be expected from citation stacking when journals cite each other to raise their factors. Without Self Cites ) is useful, although further studies are needed to analyse that practice in a manner... Published a definition of predatory journals ( Grudniewicz et al and 2019 ) an additional resource, in to! The average increase in the medium to long term to academia and science, Editor Heike Wulff at UC is. To assess how each journal is greatly facilitated when a journal impact value bogus conference organizers WOS. Even then there & # x27 ; s List - of Potential predatory journals is still a crucial aspect the! Just asking about the criteria by which Beall & # x27 ; s leading Higher an resource... S List - of Potential predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, the leading was! These results showed that the MDPI journals assessed in this paper it was not conducted twice the number ordinary!: 1 Clarivate each year as a journal operates with open peer review can be objectively evaluated //thinkcheckattend.org/! And reviewers cite each other to raise their impact factors ( Heneberg 2016.. ) on the journal impact Factor and the impact Factor is also behind a paywall, it may an! Self-Citations frontiers in oncology predatory 2018 and 2019 ) self-citations ( 2018 ) Davis is supported by outstanding.