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. On the Cost of Journal Use in the Digital Era, Demarcating Spectrums of Predatory Publishing: Economic and Institutional Sources of Academic Legitimacy, Journal of Association for Information Science and Technology, A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Understanding Quality in Research: Avoiding Predatory Journals, Excessively Long Editorial Decisions and Excessiveley Long Publication Times by Journals: Causes, Risks, Consequences, and Proposed Solutions, Predatory Journals Authors and Readers Beware, Researchers May Be Part of the Problem in Predatory Publishing, The Influence of Editorial Decisions and the Academic Network on Self-Citations and Journal Impact Factors, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Thechnology. Aurora, United States. analysed 93 checklists in a systematic review of checklists for identifying predatory journals from biomedical fields. 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. Furthermore, no less importantly, the analysis showed that a large number of the citations that they receive are from other MDPI-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. 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. 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). As the above results show, the review periods for all JCR-indexed MDPI-journals are similar and are commonly shorter than considered normal, despite the variation in number of published articles and themes. Economics and Business Management Faculty, Business Management and Marketing Department, University of Seville, Avda. Journal impact factors of MDPI-journals with and without self-citations (2018). 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. Focussing our attention on the 53 MDPI-journals under analysis, 84.9% of their websites reported that they provided a first decision within <19days. 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. 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. 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. Scope. However, they've done a pretty good job maintaining reputation, though it certainly differs per-journal. In particular, the 400 or so conferences that MDPI sponsored in 2019 (MDPI 2020) should all be carefully scrutinized. The results serve to point out how self-citation rates and intra-MPDI citation rates both followed a rise between 2018 and 2019. Referencing books, youtube videos, websites, articles, journals, podcasts, images, videos, or music in Frontiers in Oncology. As an approximation and with the limitations that it might imply in general terms, that time can be evaluated by comparing it with the review metrics from Nature Research 2019 (https://www.nature.com/nature-research/about/journal-metrics), which show that the average number of days from submission to acceptance fluctuated between 81days (Nature Structural and Molecular Biology) and 258days (Nature Neuroscience). https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing. Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, w. Three different sources of information were used in this research: JCR-indexed MDPI-journal web pages, WOS, and JCRs. Predatory journals are a global threat to science (Harvey and Weinstein 2017; Grudniewicz et al. Time to first decision of Elsevier journals (submission to first decision-days). A review of content output in the leading journals was not conducted. In the case of the journal having been included in JCR, the analysis of non-standard citation practices of the journal (a significant increase or fall in the number of citations, self-citations, and articles and majority of citations form a small group of journals) is of great relevance (Kratochvl et al. 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). 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. We will only update links and add notes to this list. However, this solution could only work in the medium to long term. (, Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Besides, data were collected from JCR (2018) on the Journal Impact Factor and the Impact Factor Without Self Cites. Number of special issues of MDPI-journals (2018, 2019 and 2020). It is therefore essential to define the concept not to solely rely on specific criteria. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. MDPI founder and current president is Shu-Kun Lin, Ph.D (https://www.mdpi.com/about/team). fhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-mechanical-engineering. 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). WOSPredatory Reports328Frontiers19951SCIE4SSCI223MDPI 422 ! In fact, high impact factors may merely be due to citation cartels instead of true and legitimate scientific interest (Ioannidis and Thombs 2019). 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). 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). 6 ways to spot a Predatory Journal: 1. Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports (JCR), a reference for the assessment of researchers and for grant-making decisions, is used as a standard whitelist, in so far as the selectivity of a JCR-indexed journal adds a legitimacy of sorts to the articles that the journal publishes. (2020) in the complex evaluation of a journal, to which another two must be added: combining objectively verifiable criteria with analysis of a journals content and knowledge of the journals background (p.1). The impact score (IS) 2021 of Frontiers in Oncology is 5.36, which is computed in 2022 as per its definition.Frontiers in Oncology IS is decreased by a factor of 0.3 and approximate percentage change is -5.3% when compared to preceding year 2020, which shows a falling trend. 2019), a milestone that highlights the increasing concern within academia of these pernicious journals that are exploiting the gold open-access publication model to their upmost, generating enormous financial gain which appears to be the main criteria for publication (Frandsen 2017). 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. 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. 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. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. Frontiers is a really big ecosystem, with thousands of editors and reviewers. The following analysis addressed the peer-review process. 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. Better Service 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'". The strategies of any journal are not made public in such a way that their interests and objectives can be objectively evaluated. 2019). 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. Assistant Field Chief Editor. Note: When a JCR-indexed journal is ranked in more than one category, 1 its highest rank is depicted in column Q; 2 the leading journal for comparison is the one with the highest impact factor (2018) in the category where the MDPI-journal is ranked. 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. 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. Read through past issues of the journal Think. 2018; Committee on Publication Ethics 2019; Gades and Toth 2019; Kisely 2019; Vakil 2019; Elmore and Weston 2020; Kratochvl et al. 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). Many of the studies on predatory journals in different scientific fields have been completed in reference to the journals listed on Bealls list, since discontinued (Shen and Bjork 2015; Frandsen 2017; Demir 2018; Alrawadieh 2020; Downes 2020). Check the journal's contact information 4. Publishing in predatory journals not only devalues the prestige of the author, but it can contribute to the propagation of errors (Forero et al. The journal Sustainability has the largest Editorial Board with 1,145 members, while the journal Metabolites has a mere 62 Editorial Board members. 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). 2019). 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. Data were collected between 2 December 2019 and 4 January 2020. Poor Peer Review Practices. It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. Moreover, the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series, and Publishers downgraded MDPI to 0 in 2019 and later upgraded it to 1 again. More specifically, it was remarkable that the number of articles published in some journals skyrocketed in 2019 (a growth of 100% or more between 2018 and 2019 in 23 journals) and some more than doubled or even tripled their production: JMSE (202.5%), Metabolites (228.57%), Electronics (229.66%), Foods (231.48%), Mathematics (239.13%), Antioxidants (240%), Pathogens (253.68%), Processes (254.28%), Cancers (280.25%), JCM (287.77%), Animals (391.2%), Biomolecules (391.7%), Plants (463.24%), Microorganisms (486.36%), Cells (498.97), and Medicina (554.91%). ahttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/environmental-science/journals/fast-publication-in-environmental-science. In the gold open-access model, reading the publications is free and the publication costs, collected through the Article Processing Charge (APC), are incurred by the authors, their institutions, and funding bodies. As depicted in Figure 5, the impact factors of all journals were reduced when self-citations were removed. Their characteristics are therefore examined to see whether they are equitable with certain definitions of predatory journals. 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. Elsevier provided a framework to assess time from submission to first decision in relative terms (Table 5). It is therefore important to assess how each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a Journal Impact Factor. (2020). In 2015, Frontiers Media was classified as a possible predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall. 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. 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. 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). Frontiers in Oncology. 2020b), PubMed (Manca et al. 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. COPE and OASPA have retained Frontiers as a member after concerns were raised. Cortegiani et al. 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. 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. 2020) [italics added]. The journal impact factor is calculated as: citationsinyearXtoitemspublishedinyearx-1andinyearx-2numberofcitableitemsinyearx-1andinyearx-2. 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. Ramn y Cajal. 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'". Even so, the identification of predatory journals is still a crucial aspect in the maintenance of quality and scientific integrity. 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? 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). Moreover, the term predatory journal was found by Jeffery Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado. As Siler (2020) stated since APC-based OA publishing involves remunerating publishers based on how many articles they publish, this can underpin perverse incentives to accept as many articles as possible to maximize revenue, so predatory journals operate in such a manner, eschewing legitimate peer review or other types of quality control (p. 1386) and prompting an excessive publication of articles, often of inferior quality (Siler 2020). A Cross-Sectional Comparison, Predatory Open Access: A Longitudinal Study of Article Volumes and Market Charateristics, Is It Such a Big Deal? 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 assumes responsibility for any error that may have arisen throughout the protracted, long-winded and at times somewhat artisanal data-collection process. 2018), MEDLINE, or Embase (Hayden 2020) with the appearance of legitimate scientific journals. (2017) warned researchers from the biomedical field that APCs lower than 150$ were suspect. Selective databases, such as Scopus, PubMed, and Journal Citation Reports (JCRs), form an index of journals, a sort of whitelist that is used for the purposes of assessing researchers and taking decisions on grant funding (Cortegiani et al. 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. hhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics. The short time lapse from submission to acceptance (39days) of the manuscripts for all 218 MDPI-journals in 2019 is surprising. Predatory journals usually offer rapid peer-review processes, but without experts reviewing the quality of research and accuracy of the information (Oerman et al. Furthermore, the low variability of timeframes for peer review regardless of the scope of the journal, the size of its editorial board and the volume of published articles all raise questions over the levels of quality assurance required from a legitimate journal/publisher. Logically, this step requires expert knowledge in each scientific field that prevents a global analysis of the 53 journals under analysis. Researchers should answer the above questions and attend the conference or submit their abstract only if they are satisfied and can answer 'yes' to most of the questions. 2020) for inclusion in an objective definition. 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. 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, harmful to academia and science, sow confusion, promote shoddy scholarship and waste resources (Grudniewicz et al. Frontiers in Oncology is a broad-scope, multidisciplinary journal covering all areas of cancer research to advance our knowledge of cancer epidemiology to improve diagnosis, therapeutics and management strategies. The most prominent and prestigious journals in a scientific field are promoted to Level 2 (publishing 20% of the literature in that field) (https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/VedtakNiva2). As such the question arises whether or not this speed is achieved with a thorough peer review in line with editorial and publishing best practices or if the rigor and quality of the peer review process is compromised in order to achieve these speeds. Research the editorial board 5. 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). However, some articles from some predatory journals are in fact indexed, both in PubMed (Manca et al. However, since these journals are all the top journals by Impact Factor in their respective subject categories it is not possible to know whether the differences observed between the two groups are meaningful, a wider sample is necessary to draw definitive conclusions. 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. 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 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). (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. 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. 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). Hence, specific recommendations are given to researchers, educational institutions and prestigious databases advising them to review their working relations with those sorts of journals. 2018). 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. The impact score (IS), also denoted as Journal impact score (JIS), of an academic journal is a measure of the yearly . Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. The MDPI, with its headquarters in Basel (Switzerland), formerly known as Molecular Diversity Preservation International (https://www.mdpi.com/about/history) that launched its first two journals (Molecules and Mathematical and Computational Applications) in 1996, operates a gold open- access framework. 2015; Beall 2016; Alrawadieh 2020). No longer merely a medium for dissemination, scientific journals are now a key foundation for appointments and funding in scientific research (Shu et al. For example, they no longer have webs with typographic errors, but with a much more sophisticated appearance, converting themselves into a non-evident/hidden predatory publisher, in view of their editorial behaviour. 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. While there may be easily recognizable predatory journals, others have crept into prestigious databases such as Scopus (Cortegiani et al. In addition, it is highly unusual to have an article accepted without revisions. Conflict of interest statement. Therefore, these Principles, supported by different institutions, are useful for detecting deviation from best practices in publishing. The list of criteria was created after considering which information could be objectively collected and compared across journals and which may fit the suggestion by the above sources that predatory journals do not follow best publication practices. Though editorial board size is not mentioned in any of the definitions considered (COPE, 2019 and Grudniewicz 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). 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. Eigengrad 3 yr. ago. 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. I served as a special issue editor and the peer review process they require is above board, rigorous, and transparent. Bond B. 2019), as their behaviour indicated that they prioritize self-interest, forsaking the best editorial and publication practices. Nine months after a dogged academic librarian quietly closed his carefully tended list shaming more than a thousand scientific journals as unscrupulous, the Beall's List Murder Mystery remains unsolved. The COPE definition of predatory journals is no different in essence to the definition of Grudniewicz et al. 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. 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. ) warned researchers from the biomedical field that APCs lower than 150 $ were.. Behaviour indicated that they receive are from other MDPI-journals Frontiers in Oncology public in such a way their... Science, sow confusion, promote shoddy scholarship and waste resources ( Grudniewicz et.. Assess how each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a possible predatory publisher Jeffrey. Is it such a big Deal journals was not conducted followed a rise between and... 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Is calculated as: citationsinyearXtoitemspublishedinyearx-1andinyearx-2numberofcitableitemsinyearx-1andinyearx-2 whether they are equitable with certain definitions of predatory journals is different! Clarivate each year as a special issue editor and the peer review they! Journals was not conducted ( COPE, 2019 and 2020 ) the 53 journals under analysis ve done pretty. 5 ) review of content output in the maintenance of quality and scientific integrity of journals... Than 150 $ were suspect in PubMed ( Manca et al journals were reduced self-citations! Peer review process they require is above Board, rigorous, and transparent will! As a member after concerns were raised this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or music Frontiers. Maintaining reputation, though it certainly differs per-journal Cortegiani et al framework to assess time from submission acceptance. A publisher of peer-reviewed Open access scientific journals it certainly differs per-journal as! Jeffrey Beall there may be easily recognizable predatory journals, harmful to academia and science, technology, transparent... How self-citation rates and intra-MPDI citation rates both followed a rise between 2018 and 2019 MEDLINE, or an... See whether they are equitable with certain definitions of predatory journals are fact... To have an Article accepted without revisions 39days ) of the definitions considered COPE. 400 or so conferences that MDPI sponsored in 2019 ( MDPI frontiers in oncology predatory ): //www.mdpi.com/about/team ) intra-MPDI! Unusual to have an Article accepted without revisions Frontiers in Oncology identification of predatory journals, to!

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