Predatory and exploitative behaviour in academic publishing: An assessment

Silva, Jaime A. Teixeira da; Dobránszki, Judit; Tsigaris, Panagiotis; Al-Khatib, Aceil

doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102071

Cited by 59 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…17 In scholarly OA publishing, one concern is the potentially exploitative or excessive APCs. 18 Higher APCs imply higher earnings. In particular, academics are concerned about publishers raising the APCs if the IF goes up.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the relationship between journal indexing and article processing charges of journals published by MDPI, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

Okagbue¹,

Silva²,

Anake³

2020

ESE

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The Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) is a prominent open access (OA) publisher that uses article processing charges (APCs) as its business model. Our objective was to determine the association between the APCs levied by MDPI journals and 1) their inclusion in Scopus and Web of Science databases or 2) their stature, as represented by their CiteScore (Elsevier’s Scopus) and Impact Factor (awarded by Clarivate Analytics). Among the 227 journals published by MDPI, 51 had both IF and CiteScore; 107, only a CiteScore; and 84, neither IF nor CiteScore. The charges levied by the journals varied widely, from 0 to CHF 2000 (Swiss francs), the most frequent figure (159 journals) being CHF 1000, or about €930. The amount of APCs was found to be correlated to IF (R² = 0.64; p <0.001; 107 journals) and also to CiteScore (R² = 0.619; p <0.001; 53 journals). The charges levied by journals that had both IF and CiteScore were significantly higher than those charged by journals with neither IF nor CiteScore (p <0.05). The charges were also correlated to the age of the journal: the more recently launched journals charged less than the older journals did.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the relationship between journal indexing and article processing charges of journals published by MDPI, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

Okagbue¹,

Silva²,

Anake³

2020

ESE

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“…When Clarivate Analytics acquired Publons on 1 June 2017, there was much interest in understanding if this would result in either an evolution and improvement, or commodification, of peer review. 1 , 2 The reason is because peer review tends to be exploitative, frequently extracting professional services, especially of peers and editors, for little or no monetary compensation while reaping record multi-billion dollar profits, 3 , 4 so it is expected that the services, tools, 5 and industries within and around academic journals and publishers also assume an exploitative nature. To compound this exploitative state, academia and academic publishing are currently experiencing a state of ‘fake’, including the abuse and fraud of peer review.…”

Section: The Acquisition Of Publons By Clarivate Analytics: Questions At the Heart Of Peer Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

How do Clarivate Analytics and Publons propose to fortify peer review in the COVID-19 era?

Silva¹,

Al-Khatib

2021

Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences

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“…Global publishing is a highly competitive and extremely profitable, multi-billion-dollar market with CJPs vying not only for intellectual property rights, but also a larger market space with models that can sometimes be perceived as being exploitative [42]. Editors benefit from performing their tasks (e.g., experience, knowledge mining), but the exploitation of labor arises since the market has few buyers (i.e., standalone journals or publishers) of these labor services, depressing the wage rate below what it would be if the market had many buyers [42], i.e., the proverbial "squeezing the lemon dry" [12]. However, in this scenario, it is likely that demand for highly qualified editors outweighs supply, so one can frequently observe editors who serve on the editorial boards of one or more CJPs.…”

Section: The Global Publishing Market: Editors Might Serve In Competimentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflicts of Interest Arising from Simultaneous Service by Editors of Competing Journals or Publishers

Silva

2021

Publications

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In this day and age of challenging post-publication peer review and heightened academic scrutiny, editors serve an increasingly important role in screening submissions and managing the quality of information that is published in scholarly journals. Publishers compete for an intellectual market while commercial publishers compete for a commercial share of the market. The assumption argued in this perspective is that having editorial positions in competing journals or publishers (CJPs) may represent competing intellectual, professional and/or financial interests. Thus, based on this assumption, an editor would be expected to show loyalty to a single entity (journal or publisher). Editorial positions on the editorial boards of CJPs, as well as conflicts, financial or other, should be clearly indicated for all editors on the editorial board page of a journal’s website, for transparency. In science and academia, based on these arguments, the author is of the belief that editors should thus generally not serve on the editorial boards of CJPs, or only under limited and fully transparent conditions, even if they serve as editors voluntarily. The author recognizes that not all academics, including editors, might agree with this perspective, so a wider debate is encouraged.

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Predatory and exploitative behaviour in academic publishing: An assessment

Cited by 59 publications

References 66 publications

Exploring the relationship between journal indexing and article processing charges of journals published by MDPI, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

Exploring the relationship between journal indexing and article processing charges of journals published by MDPI, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute

How do Clarivate Analytics and Publons propose to fortify peer review in the COVID-19 era?

Conflicts of Interest Arising from Simultaneous Service by Editors of Competing Journals or Publishers

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