MDPI’s Post

#SustainablityMDPI invites you to explore the 2023 citation metrics in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). We are pleased to share that 237 MDPI journals earned an Impact Factor! Learn more about the impact of #SustainablityMDPI and other MDPI journals at https://brnw.ch/21wKSPM #academicresearch #impactfactor #impact #MDPI #openaccess

On Frontiers Media journals (or carefully evaluate where you publish). I am a big believer in people reading the paper and not the journal title. But some journals and publishers have challenging reputations and histories. I was poked for picking on #mdpi It’s true that there are other publishers with difficult reputations. I would also approach with caution papers published in Frontiers journals: https://lnkd.in/e4fgcY9G It accepts roughly 60 percent of papers in 90 days. Despite 9.4 million citations and 2.8 billion article views, it seems to suffer from lots of glitches. Check out the wiki: https://lnkd.in/eNGVCGpU Like I said read the papers, look at the journal’s board, but take special care if the journal is sponsored by Frontiers. #researchintegrity

#ChristosPetrou asked whether the papers that vanished from #MDPI and #Frontiers were legitimate all along since Journals like #Heliyon and #Plos1 have since seen a surge in publications? So where do these papers come from? The editorial criteria for considering research on "inclusive" journals like #Frontiers, #MDPI, #Heliyon, #Discover and #ScientificReports are different to "selective" journals; inclusive journals do not make judgement on the editorial significance of the research, they allow the community to decide how useful the research is to them. This is very different to selective journals where editors are striving to publish only the most "interesting/significant" 5-20% of submissions received. Rejecting 80-90% of all research received at most journals coupled with estimates that ~50% of research is never published - presents an enormous cost to funding agencies and a waste of researcher time and effort. There will be a publishable component of this 50% unpublished research which comprises more descriptive results, negative data or smaller advances. The incremental building blocks in research publishing that allow discovery to be faster, as seen during Covid. Inclusive journals have given a home to this type of research as well continuing to accomodate the more significant advances. It's vital publicly funded research is shared and verified by the community - preprint servers alone do not fill this gap. Peer review on both journals groups should be rigorous - technical accuracy and transparency in reporting combined with #opendata should continue to be the gold standard. Our research publishing landscape needs both types of journal to accelerate the pace of discovery; both types of journal are worthy.

On journal quality. The #finnish publication forum (#jufo) downgraded several publications as a signal they lacked high quality peer review processes. Some by #mdpi, some by #frontiers and some by #wiley. You can find the report on Retraction Watch here: https://lnkd.in/eSN6BMcA You can find the list here: https://lnkd.in/etNAQqwm Notably, retraction watch reports that ‘In 2023, JUFO downgraded MDPI’s Sustainability to level 0 over doubts about the journal’s “procedures to ensure scientific quality work reliably,” as we reported. At JUFO’s June meeting, the group discussed the possibility of downgrading all MDPI journals to level 0 but did not take any action on the idea. MDPI did not respond to our request for comment.’ They have considered downgrading all #mdpi journals. Frontiers has responded its journals have support in the relevant scholarly journals. It is unclear if the group has considered downgrading all #frontiers journals - but I would not be surprised if it happened. What is different about this downgrading, is it considered voices from the scholarly community and author experiences. What does this mean? If you are willing to speak up, stakeholders listen. If you are asked about a journal, and have had a bad experience, report it. If you are aware of misconduct of a journal editor, report it. If you are aware of a problematic board member, report it. The system will get better if people stand up and say misconduct by journals is not ok! So join me and speak up! It’s the only way to build a better world for the next generation of scholars! #academiclife #academiccareers

Trustworthiness, integrity and reliability are perennial themes of research publishing, and among the key qualities that journals such as RBMO work hard to ensure at every stage of the submission and publishing journey of a paper. Peer review is a crucial part of this science publishing process, implemented to scrutinize new findings and ensure the rigour and reliability with which new knowledge is founded and presented; however, as this process is not perfect, readers of scientific papers – even in high-impact journals – need to be aware and critical of the limitations and potential biases inherent in scientific publications. This Commentary article from RBMO Editors and Board members Barbara Lawrenz, Peter Humaidan, Christophe Blockeel, Juan A. García Velasco, and Human M. Fatemi,MD,PhD aims not only to highlight how shortcomings might be evident in studies published in high-impact journals, but also to illustrate how critical reading can reveal overlooked details of high quality.  Read it for free from our in-press articles section  https://lnkd.in/eYzspJ-n #RBMOcommentary #ResearchPublishing #ScientificIntegrity #RandomizedControlledTrials #HighImpactJournals #CriticalAssessment

📢Exciting Update: Compare Functionality in #Scilit Rankings Navigate the publishing landscape effortlessly with our enhanced Compare function. Users now have the ability to readily compare the performance of different publishers, journals and organizations, gaining valuable insights into the scholarly landscape: https://lnkd.in/gxY4vDmC

Journal Impact Factors are among the top considerations for academic authors. Of the 237 MDPI journals awarded a Journal Impact Factor in the release of the Journal Citation Reports by Clarivate, 72% (171) ranked above average, in either Q1 or Q2. MDPI recently surveyed the scientific community and found that a significant 78% of respondents confirmed that Impact Factor is a key factor in their journal selection process. This highlights the importance of these metrics in the publication process. Find out more about the impact of MDPI journals: https://brnw.ch/21wLjz4 #MDPI #ImpactFactor #Impact #AcademicResearch #OpenAccess

It always raises an eyebrow (sometimes two) when I hear MDPI and Frontiers papers described as nothing more than coerced outputs. If this were true, and their numbers dropped, presumaly those papers would vanish into the scholarly ether, never to be seen again. MDPI's and Frontiers paper output has indeed declined: • MDPI is projected to publish 230,000 papers in 2024, about 60,000 down from the previous two years • Frontiers might end up with just over 80,000 articles, a dip from 90,000 last year and 125,000 the year before Meanwhile, some other journals are having a field day: • Scientific Reports is on track for 28,000 papers, up by 6,000 year-on-year • PLOS One is gearing up for 18,000, up by 3,000 and highest output since 2019 • Heliyon has taken off for 21,000 articles, up by a whopping 10,000 Could it be that most of the 'vanished' papers from MDPI and Frontiers were legitimate all along and they have just found new venues? Does the narrative about these portfolios need a bit of a rewrite?

🔔 Welcome you to read one of our papers published "Identifying #Soccer Teams’ Styles of Play: A Scoping and Critical #Review" by Dr. Spyridon Plakias et al. 🔗 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤 for 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫: https://brnw.ch/21wLPT1 🎓 The objectives of this review are: (i) to critically examine how the term is used in the #international literature, how research is conducted on this #topic and what are the main objectives of the research, and (ii) to identify and analyze knowledge gaps in order to contribute to future research and a future systematic review. #MDPI #openaccess #openscience #publishing #review

💡 Welcome to read the #highlycited paper: "Shapley Feature Selection" written by Alex Gramegna and Paolo Giudici from University of Pavia https://lnkd.in/dHGtr3Pb #callforreading #mdpi #machinelearning