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Decision to downgrade
271 journals on quality and operating model concerns sparks debate
December 20, 2024
Twitter: @jgro_the
Finland is downgrading almost 300 Frontiers and MDPI
journals to its lowest rating – a
de facto blacklisting move that might soon be replicated in other
countries, according to an expert.
Announcing its
downgrading of 271 open
access journals from January, Finland’s Publication Forum said the
decision was the result of a policy set in September that sought to
downgrade so-called “grey journals” – which, it says, “make use of the APC
(article processing charge) operating model” and “aim to increase the
number of publications with the minimum time spend for editorial work and
quality assessment”.
At its meeting, the
Publishing Forum, known as Jufo in Finnish, which uses discipline-specific
expert panels to rate the quality of journals, noted how “one of the most
important changes in scientific publishing in Finland is the sharp
increase in the number of articles published, especially in MDPI and Frontiers open access
journals operating with APC fees”.
“The scientific
community’s key concern is whether the costs of open access publishing increase
unreasonably, and whether the increase happens at the expense of a thorough
quality assessment,” it added.
Among the 271 journals
to be downgraded is Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology,
which gained attention earlier this year when it published a paper featuring
garbled artificial intelligence-created text and a striking picture of rat
with a penis twice the size of its body – which was also generated using
AI.
The paper, with the
rat image widely circulated on social media, was condemned by science integrity
expert Elisabeth Bik as a “sad example of how scientific journals, editors and
peer reviewers can be naive – or possibly even in the loop – in terms of accepting
and publishing AI-generated crap”.
Frontiers
A stem cell research
paper published in the journal Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology
sparked debate about how the robustness of peer review and how generative Ai
was being used to write scientific papers
The decision to
downgrade the Frontiers and MDPI journals to zero is the most drastic action
taken by a national body against an academic publisher over quality concerns.
In June, the Finnish classification body announced it was downgrading 60
journals to its lowest rating, while Norway removed MDPI’s Sustainability from its
register of approved journals last year, with Jufo
taking similar action.
In March 2023,
Clarivate’s Web of Science delisted two journals published by MDPI – including
the International
Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, which had published about
17,000 articles in 2022 – as it erased dozens
of journals from its influential index.
However, the move by
Finland’s Publication Forum might be seen as more controversial because it
states that a “publisher’s operating model can be considered in evaluations” –
a departure from its previous policy that “each journal is evaluated independently”.
It notes,
for instance, that “problems with individual journals, such as MDPI
Sustainability, may be due to the operating model of the publisher by
which the publisher seeks to increase the volume and rate of publication”.
The ratings are
potentially significant in terms of research funding as the Jufo
classifications will affect the weighting of publications in the funding model
of Finnish universities between 2025 and 2028, with papers published in level
zero outlets given less weight than higher-rated ones.
The move comes amid growing concern over quality at
Frontiers and MDPI, both headquartered in Switzerland, following rapid
expansion in recent years. One
MDPI publication, the Journal of Clinical Medicine, published 44
papers in 2017 but 4,367 in 2021, according to analysis by the Grenoble-based
economist Paolo Crosetto published
last year, which also found that some journals were opening so-called
“special issues” at a rate of nine a day.
Mark Hanson, a
researcher at the University
of Exeter who has researched the rise of MDPI and other open access
publishers, said it was “quite possible” that other countries might follow
Finland’s lead, with concerns raised about publication practices in Poland,
Spain and Italy.
“Scientific bodies in
China are thinking about publishing destinations and what guidance they should
provide to researchers to maintain a global reputation for research quality,”
he added.
However, a
spokesperson for Frontiers condemned the move by Finland’s classification body,
saying the “decision can only be interpreted as an attack on a publishing
model, rather than as an assessment of journal quality”.
“After many years of
successful collaboration with the ministry, founded on a common vision of the
needed transition to open science, we find ourselves frustrated and bewildered
by Jufo’s hasty decision to broadly classify Frontiers as a ‘grey publisher’,”
she said, adding: “We communicated in good faith with Jufo, and our concerns
about the original decision remain unanswered."
Jufo’s current stance,
Frontiers added, was “based on a vague categorisation of ‘operating model’ that
overrides individual journal assessment – all downgraded Frontiers journals
meet Jufo’s level one criteria when evaluated – and thus gives unjustified preference
to those publishers”.
Criticising Jufo’s
“biased approach”, Frontiers said it had “received no substantial feedback from
Jufo about any Frontiers journal that we can specifically address, which is the
core criterion of any evaluation process. Instead, the response points to hearsay,
anecdote and discredited lists.
“We will maintain our
dialogue with Jufo concerning this decision and ask all concerned researchers
to do so as well.”
A MDPI spokesperson
said it was “deeply concerned” by Jufo's decision, claiming its “simultaneous
downgrade of 271 journals suggests a generalised evaluation process rather than
a fair assessment of each journal’s merit”.
“Singling out fully
open access publishers appears inconsistent and risks undermining global open
access initiatives,” it continued, claiming the move also “conflicts with
Finland’s national open access policies, which emphasise immediate access to
publicly funded research”.
MDPI, which said it worked with323 Finnish editorial board members across 151
or its 455 journals, urged “ranking systems like Jufo to adopt consistent,
transparent, and industry-wide evaluation criteria that account for the
evolving diversity of modern academic publishing”.
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