*, n (%) (n=142). Conflict of interest statement. 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). 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. 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. ED is often a symptom of another health problem or health-related factor. (3) Advertising: Is a rapid peer-review process advertised or guaranteed? 2020). 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). Despite the fact that impact-factor manipulation may result in criminal liability according to Fong et al. *, n (%) (n=169), Are you scientifically active at the moment?, n (%), Which arguments are the most important for you if considering a specific journal for publication of your scientific work?, yes, n (%), Which arguments would you include in the grading of the reliability of a specific scientific journal?, yes, n (%), Indexing of the journal (Pubmed, Web of Science, ), Cooperation with international organisations/societies, Publishing experiences of other colleagues, Further information on the peer-review process, Third party experience (eg, Blog entries/Google entries), Do you know the open-access system?, n (%), If yes, did you publish anything in an open-access journal yet? FOIA Similar pernicious effects can be expected from citation stacking when journals cite each other to raise their impact factors (Heneberg 2016). (2017) warned researchers from the biomedical field that APCs lower than 150$ were suspect. *, n (%) (n=139), Are you aware of the Bealls List?, n (%), If yes, did you already actively use Bealls list to see if an unknown journal is a predatory journal? Diagnosis. 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. 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. (2017) have reminded us. Article, Review, Research Letter, )?, n (%), If yes, how many invitations do you receive each month? As a consequence of the new context generated by the proliferation of predatory journals, it becomes necessary to review the evaluation policies (Beall 2016). 2020). Number of articles published by MDPI-journals (2018 and 2019). Predatory Journals Are Infiltrating Citation Databases, Potential Predatory and Legitimate Biomedical Journals: Can You Tell the Difference? sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal Predatory journals are a global threat to science (Harvey and Weinstein 2017; Grudniewicz et al. Knowledge and influence of predatory journals in dermatology: a Pan-Austrian survey, The surge of predatory open-access in neurosciences and neurology, Pubmed should raise the bar for Journal inclusion, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/, Do you read scientific literature (original articles, reviews, )? PURPOSE Reporting racial/ethnic disparities in aggregate obscures within-group heterogeneity. are all necessary, although not sufficient conditions for proper identification of a predatory journal. before print) varies but is usually accomplished within 2 weeks (Broome 2017). 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). 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). It is therefore important to assess how each journal achieves the ranking that is published by Clarivate each year as a Journal Impact Factor. fhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/engineering/journals/fast-publication-in-mechanical-engineering. Cancer MDPI - Publisher of Open Access Journals Journals. We invite and encourage original Research Articles and Short Reports. Systemic therapies for GC, including chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, have evolved significantly in the past few years. Answers of all participants on the topic of predatory publishing. WebPrecision medicine is a way health care providers can offer and plan specific care for their patients, based on the particular genes, proteins, and other substances in a persons body. 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. WebGynecologic Oncology, an international journal, is devoted to the publication of clinical and investigative articles that concern tumors of the female reproductive tract. (2019) and COPE (2019). Predatory publishing solicitation: a review of a single Reasons to publish in an open-access journal were (1) higher visibility of the published articles (n=117, 62.2%), (2) prestigious reputation of the respective journal (n=93, 49.5%) and (3) a fast publication process (n=61, 32.4%). Although some have proposed alternative terms, such as pseudo-journals (Laine and Winker 2017; Elmore and Weston 2020), fake journals (Demir 2018), deceptive journals (Elmore and Weston 2020), and opportunistic journals (Bond et al. being able to get an erection sometimes, but not every time you want to have sex. hhttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/physics-and-astronomy/journals/fast-publication-in-physics. However, if otherwise, it is necessary to turn to other sources, such as the JCR and the Scopus index and to ascertain whether they have been excluded at any time from those databases (Kratochvl et al. Editorial Board size and self-citation rates (2018, 2019). (, 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. Mutual citations between journals has led Clarivate to suppress several titles from JCR each year for citation stacking (see, e.g. Financially, the publishing houses behind predatory journals profit from the high article-processing charges but on cost of not conducting a proper peer-review of submitted papers.2 The term Predatory journal was accentuated by Jeffrey Bealla librarian at the University of Coloradosince he founded a list of journals and publishers that are suspicious for being predatory.3 However, Beall included almost exclusively open-access journals on his list. 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). 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. Bond B. Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment (TCRT) is a peer-reviewed, gold open access journal (featured in SCIE (Web of Science), PMC, and PubMed: MEDLINE) which focuses on the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of cancer. 2015; Beall 2016; Alrawadieh 2020). Against that backdrop, the objective of this study is to analyse the behaviour of 53 MDPI-journals that were JCR indexed in 2019, in order to elucidate whether these journals could be considered predatory. Diagnosis and Management of Breast Cancer More specifically, 84.9% of analysed journals stated that they provided a first decision within <19days. the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health. We gratefully thank all colleagues who participated in this study. Having completed the verification of the formal criteria, Kratochvl et al. only free of charge (1), depends on the quantity and quality of the photo material. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. 98.9% of participants indicated to actively read scientific articles and consider them in clinical decision-making (96.3%). Department of Thoracic Oncology, Thoraxklinik at Heidelberg University Hospital, Translational Lung Research Centre Heidelberg (TLRC-H), Heidelberg, Germany, 8 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. In patients with hormone receptorpositive early-stage breast cancer, adjuvant endocrine treatment administered for up to 5-10 years after diagnosis significantly reduces the risk of recurrence and death. These lists very soon become outdated and incomplete, especially if the resources to keep them updated are scarce. 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. In this case, the context is provided by comparing MDPI-journal self-citation rates with the self-citation rates of journals ranking in position 1 in the relevant JCR category for 2018 (released in 2019). chttps://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication. 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. Cancer screening. WebPredatory Journals Definition. 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. However, this benefit comes with the cost of short- and long-term side effects that may negatively affect patients' quality of life (QoL) and Additionally, some MDPI-journals are indexed in PubMed and in Scopus (MDPI 2020). Borrowing Martins (2016) terminology, self-citation and citation cartels are stratagems that may be applied to attempt to boost a Journal Impact Factor artificially. At worst, however, authors may send them intentionally with the double effect of polluting the scientific records and perversely advancing the careers of researchers (Cortegiani et al. Data availability statement: Data are available on reasonable request. WebCancer Journal (Journal of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis) is an International peer reviewed open access journal publishing original research, reviews, commentaries, case rep ED is often a symptom of another health problem or health-related factor. (2020), e.g. WebOnly Open Access Journals Only SciELO Journals Only WoS Journals Careers, Unable to load your collection due to an error. Therefore, we aimed to explore the awareness of predatory journals among oncologists. For If our attention is focussed on the intra-MDPI citation rate trends between 2018 and 2019, we see that 46 out of the 53 journals increased their intra-MDPI citation rates. WebCancer Treatment and Research Communications is an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to providing comprehensive basic, translational, and clinical oncology research. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help 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). Once accepted, time to posting the final word document online on a reputable journals Web site i.e. * yes, n (%) (n=186), German institute for medical documentation and information, If yes, do such articles influence your diagnostic/therapeutic decisions? 8600 Rockville Pike Mortality due to cancer treatment delay: systematic review and (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. Obesity Is Associated with Immunometabolic Changes in Adipose Tissue That May Drive Treatment Resistance in Breast Cancer: Immune-Metabolic Reprogramming and Novel Therapeutic Strategies. Cancer Diagnosis Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Article, Review, Research Letter, )? 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. The influx of predatory publishing along with the substantial increase in the number of predatory journals pose a risk to scholarly communication [ 1, 2 ]. Predatory journals often lack an appropriate peer-review process and frequently are not indexed [ 3 ], yet authors are required to pay an article processing charge. Department of Medicine I, Clinical Division of Oncology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, 11 Recently, Copiello (2019) focussed attention on the analysis of journal self-citations and publisher self-citations published in the MDPI-journal Sustainability. A further relevant aspect worth focussing upon is the size of the Journal Editorial Board. Articles - Cancer Treatment Journal | Cancer Diagnosis Journal 2020) for inclusion in an objective definition. Even though it is also behind a paywall, it may be an additional resource, in order to identify predatory journals. In 2019, 24 journals out of 53 had self-citation rates as high as 15%, which is the upper end of the normal range set by Clarivate (Table 2). It is important that academia and scholars become aware both of the risks of falling into the networks of predatory journals and, in addition, academics should be capable of properly identifying these journals, without presupposing that their inclusion in a prestigious database is a sort of quality hallmark that guarantees the integrity of their authorship, and both their peer-review and their editing processes (Severin and Low 2019; Cortegiani et al. A review of APCs for the leading journal control group was not conducted. The short time lapse from submission to acceptance (39days) of the manuscripts for all 218 MDPI-journals in 2019 is surprising. 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. Journal of Cancer Prevention is a multi-disciplinary journal that aims to promote an increased awareness of all aspects of cancer research that ultimately leads to cancer prevention. In daily clinical practice, 139 (73.9%) participants stated that they have been challenged by patients with scientific literature/studies and 19 (13.7%) participants stated that such studies came from potentially predatory journals. Peer review is used to evaluate the article for significance of the topic, relevance, rigor, analytic methods, conclusions, depth of discussion, and validity of conclusions based on data/arguments in the article (Broome 2017), although predatory journals rarely invite experts who are experts in the field (Broome 2017). 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. Cancer - Diagnosis and treatment - Mayo Clinic 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. WebCurrent Cancer Therapy Reviews. Systemic therapies for GC, including chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy, have evolved significantly in the past few years. 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 Swedish childhood tumor biobank: systematic collection and 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. These facts suggest that MDPI has been open to question, a publisher that has been moving within a grey zone. Ninety-three potential predatory journals, 99 open access journals, and 100 subscription-based journals were included in the analysis. Logically, this step requires expert knowledge in each scientific field that prevents a global analysis of the 53 journals under analysis. 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). predatory journals, survey, oncology, oncologist, knowledge, influence, Publication pressure and scientific misconduct: why we need more open governance, Controversial website that lists predatory publishers shuts down, ESMO OpenCancer Horizons and the future of oncology, The history of open access medical publishing: a comprehensive review, Open access takes root at National cancer Institute. All the more so, if it is taken into account that, in addition, the editorial staff of MDPI is formed of researchers who have to organize their time for revision among their other professional activities (research, teaching, dissemination, evaluation, grant applications, etc. 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. 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. h-index) of their authors, generating inflated curricula and doped academic careers (Cortegiani, Manca and Giarratano, 2020a). Elseviers review speed (submission to final decision in days). Data sources Published studies in Medline from 1 January 2000 to 10 April 2020. Percentages have been calculated from all valid given answers. Association of nutrition with psychological health and quality of life 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. Published by Oxford University Press. 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. WebThe International Journal of Cancer ( IJC) is the official journal of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). (, Shu F., Mongeon P., Haustein S., Siler K., Alperin J. P., Larivire V. (, Xia J., Harmon J. L., Connolly K. G., Donnelly R. M., Anderson M. R., Howard H. A. Methods: An online survey among oncologists working in Germany or Austria of various professional By 2019, 106,152 articles had been published in its 218 journals, an increase of 64.1% over 2018. Effect of astragalus polysaccharides (PG2) treatment of adjuvant 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.
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