As it has been received impact factor from July 1, 2018, they have increased its price to 850 CHF. [19] A member of the editorial board of Life resigned in response. So much so that 35 journals have more than 1 SI *per day* and Sustainability has 8.7 special issue per day, Sat and Sun included. [43], Simen Andreas Ådnøy Ellingsen questioned the quality of MDPI's peer review based on his experiences as a reviewer for the publisher; he wrote that he was only given one week to review a paper, that he recommended rejection, that the paper was then simply published without further comment, and that he never was in contact with any editor. Perhaps, one day i will write an article, where i will share my own experience with the peer review process. Equally, a referee for a "low journal" can also serve as a referee for a "high journal." However, so far my experience in both roles has been positive. IF is already over 1, which is pretty decent for a mathematical journal. [15], Molecular Diversity Preservation International was founded and registered as a non-profit association (Verein) by Shu-Kun Lin and Benoit R. Turin in Basel in 1996 to enable the deposit and exchange of rare molecular and biomolecular research samples.[16]. MDPI Verein co-organized several academic conferences, including the International Symposium on Frontiers in Molecular Science. I agreed to provided my honest feedback on it. > Finally, you are worried about the fact that most of the citations of the articles published in MDPI are gained by MDPI journals. If they are selling impact factor then why they not reduce the price of those journals which impact factor has been deceased, i.e., Applied sciences. I receive them not only for topics matching my research interests but also for completely unrelated topics and fields. But, the answer was "[...] is an open access journal and fast editorial process is our feature advance. You need to make sure that any journal to which you are considering submitting a manuscript has an established and robust mechanism for Peer Review and a track record of regular article publication. The journal Molecules was established in 1996 in collaboration with Springer-Verlag (now Springer Science+Business Media) in order to document the chemical samples of the MDPI collection. Finally, all contributions to this debate are very welcome, but please try to offer a reasoned critique that might be helpful to others, rather than bland and potentially misleading comments such as 'This is a good journal …', otherwise you risk being identified as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I appreciate if all university evaluation committee banned them what university of Malaya did on their sensor journal. For MDPI, some of its journals are good while others seem to be like the Editor makes the final decision on a paper. I have never felt hounded by them for reviews. Is Plants published by MDPI a serious journal? When the authors prepare for a new submission they find somebody else has just published same or a similar work just few days back. I think there is no problem as long as the article processing charge is affordable upon manuscript acceptance after review being an open access publisher. They tend to send a lot of solliciations for reviews, but it is how they can publish relatively fast. Presently, I have one manuscript under consideration in a BMC journal. I tend to think of this exponential growth in Special Issues as a predatory practice. Not other journals that first shelve your paper and have some sort of delaying tactics and traditions. Do major Elsevier Journals manipulate Impact Factors at large scale? There are number of journals in MDPI indexed in web of science and some have impact factors increasing from time to time. [17] It attracted coverage by the popular science and technology magazines Ars Technica and Popular Science, which characterized it as "crazy"[18] and "hilarious". But, I could not state a longer review period in their provided form. MDPI is a very good publisher. The Lausanne-based publishing house Frontiers, founded by the neuroscientists Henry and Kamila Markram, has been added to the Beall’s List of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers. My papers have all experienced high visibility due to its open access policies and of course it is free for our readers and that increases the number of readers. Others pointed me to the protest resignation of one journal’s editorial board, and the temporary black-listing of the MDPI on Beal’s list. 9 In 2015, MDPI was removed from the Scholarly OA website list and, to date, has remained off the list. Comparatively , MDPI's journals deliver quality reviews within a short period of time. [2], The number of published papers has been growing significantly in the last decade with year over year growth of over 50% in 2017, 2018 and 2019, with 110,000 papers published in 2019. Join ResearchGate to ask questions, get input, and advance your work. [22] With regard to the same controversial study, Jeffrey Beall has rhetorically asked, "When publishers like MDPI disseminate research by science activists like Stephanie Seneff and her co-authors, I think it’s fair to question the credibility of all the research that MDPI publishes. @Georgiy, how can you justify MDPI is predatory????? Have you ever wondered about time-loops? Apart from the above issue, some MDPI journals can also parallel or exceed some 'high quality' journals' standard with regards to feedback-quality. In any case, in my discipline there are sufficient journals in the "mid range" that will eagerly consider good early career and precarious backgrounds papers that have a normal peer review process and where you don't have to pay to play. And btw, i follow these guidelines when writing a paper or providing a review report and i strongly believe that the ongoing threads of scientific discussion have nothing to do with questionable practices. I too have published in Minerals and Sustainability with no negative experiences. The only thing, which I don't like by all MDPI journals is that they are redundantly pushy in terms of the review deadlines, with regular reminders within a single week. This practice is totally wrong. That means I would not think of them to handle my own manuscripts as well, as they deserve a more rigorous review. Surely, some of the journals (like sensors, and so on) of MDPI are good enough for getting Scopus, PubMed indexing. Sad stories. The number of published papers has been growing significantly in the last decade with year over year growth of over 50% in 2017, 2018 and 2019. PLoS ONE, for research that needs to be documented as sound and useful but not necessarily ground-breaking, including negative findings. The certainty of a short review period is also very attractive when you have to publish. A recent item in Nature News reports “Hundreds of ‘predatory’ journals indexed on leading scholarly database”, sub-headed “[…] the analysis highlights how poor-quality science is infiltrating literature.”. First, the avoidance of reviewers who have collaborated with and/or are from the same country of the corresponding author is a general requirement used by all reputable publishers, because there must be no conflict of interest whatsoever. I personally know some people who have published in it, and I will definitely consider publishing in MDPI journals on a case by case basis in the future. Due to modern publication technology time-loops can’t be justified on any kind of technological or workflow argument! In this regard MDPI is a bit of a mixed bag with some established journals and some where their track record is too early to say. —— BEALLSLIST.NET —— BEALL'S LIST OF PREDATORY JOURNALS AND PUBLISHERS. [23], In 2016, MDPI journal Behavioral Sciences published a review paper that claimed that watching pornography is a cause of erectile dysfunction. And I find the doubts well-grounded. Standing for Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, MDPI is no stranger to controversy. All rights reserved. I have received papers with major problems that are immediately apparent (e.g. I really appreciate it. I think it is best to contact the editorial office of the journal before submission to check whether KU waivers or discounts are still available. Of course he/she can disregard some review reports, this is his/her exclusive right and in fact, it is much better to choose between 3-6-10 reports rather than 1 or 2. Potential predatory scholarly open‑access publishers. And believe me, these are not just bold words, i have plenty of evidences for such practices, but don't think it will be beneficial for me to talk too much. All of MDPI's journals have been open access and since 2008 published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). The journal publishing landscape is undergoing rapid change with economic pressures, spiralling journal prices, technological developments, and information overload a familiar picture to the players involved. Yes its true. > In addition, i see you raise doubts about the quality of peer review in MDPI. [38] According to MDPI, the unprotected instance at which the data was breached has since been protected. I am an author and reviewed some papers (though not for MDPI). Otherwise they typically try to push it to the end even passing through several rounds of revisions. I review for some the journals being published by MDPI including the one you have mentioned here. A list of new predatory publishers is available in the attached file. Sure, it is not one of these very high quality journal, but sometimes I prefer to be published in 30 days in a good enough journal, rather than waiting 2 years for a reject in a very good journal. Strange, what is that? sting operation and rejected the fake paper. Besides, why is it very telling that I have not published in MDPI? However, it seems to me that with MDPI this requirement is rather declarative. Over 100 special issues already planned for this year. If your work related to microbiology, you may also consider Microorganisms. I am glad my articles are free for readers all over the world, having received 100% APC discounts. This surprised me, as according to WoS, the IF of the journal is quite decent. Please read following response letter from MDPI. 2. However, many authors complain of being spammed with emails from MDPI soliciting submissions. I think that MDPI is making a lot of important strides towards being one of the top drawer publishers. Some sources online indicated mixed views shared by researchers and reviewers based on their experiences, such as: In a nutshell: the number of SIs at MDPI journals is growing exponentially. I have had very bad experiences as a reviewer. All gives the impression that MDPI sees the author as their "paying client" and the peer review as a nuisiance standing between them and their APC fee. Among them, 367 were published last year, and 551, almost a half of Their paper get citation because of open access and networking. I am surprised at the description of Kay Smarsly since I have reviewed (more than 10 times, at least 4 different journals) and published (twice) with MDPI and they always gave me a week to review and no extra e-mails apart from starting and the day before the deadline. After two rounds of revision my paper got published. 10 days max is sufficient, my only problem with MDPI is their excessively high APCs, prohibiting potential authors from publishing with them. A Review with Clinical Reports", "Journal corrects, but will not retract, controversial paper on internet porn", "Prof who lost emeritus status for views on race and intelligence has paper flagged", "Status withdrawn from controversial academic", "Reflections on Sixty-Eight Years of Research on Race and Intelligence", "Expression of Concern: Lynn, R. Reflections on Sixty-Eight Years of Research on Race and Intelligence", "MDPI removed from publisher list following successful appeal. However, I am only given a week to review the manuscript which seems very short. [27][28][29][30] MDPI later issued an expression of concern and they changed the status of the article from editorial to opinion, three months after publication. What I certainly do not recommend to do is submitting to any journals published by E-Cronicon, which I had quite a bad experience with. In the last couple of mouths, there is a huge rise in the price of impact factor journals of MDPI. Best regards. It is to be hoped that JoAS and ANSINET are improving, but they face the classic double edged sword of needing to attact good quality manuscripts to boost the impact factor, but not at present being a sufficiently attractive proposition for good quality submissions. !? 1. Following from above, just to emphasise again how important it is that referees and would-be authors continue to monitor individual journals and publishers as their policies and practices can change very rapidly. However, I do not understand why MDPI increases the price of publication continuously. I usually use less than that amount. What may have been a credible journal in the past can suddenly start pursuing undesirable policies while, conversely, some journals have definitely improved their practices over the years. I was surprised when I recently inquired on the status of our submission (after 3 months of waiting) only to be told that they have not yet gotten reviewers for our submission. Here are the major issues I’ve encountered: 1) Most of the papers I have received for review should have been returned to the author by the editor for corrections prior to initiating the full peer-review. Practically, they obliged me to do the review in 7-10 days ! Yes, I agree that 10 days is always enough to write a good report. now one can learn due to open access due to research gate and open access Journals without having to pay as on this site of Research Gate. The quality of paper Microorganisms publishes is also good. The second organisation, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, was founded in 2010, primarily as a publisher. I, for one, have reviewed for a journal with over 3 impact fact (i.e., social science discipline) and also reviewed for a journal that may be considered as a"low ranking one". Due to constant problems with Weebly service, we decided to move to an independent server. MDPI is the largest open access publisher in the world and the 5th largest publisher overall in terms of journal paper output. Timothy, the editor does the final decision in every journals not only in the MDPI journals. Regarding this particular journal, I will take Mary Pat Harnegie's advise considering she is a professional in this particular area. I know no one from my field in their editorial board. Although Beall listed MDPI as a predatory publisher, they are several arguments against listing publishers rather than individual journals. I have had really good experiences with this publishing house. [37], In August 2016, MDPI was breached, leaving exposed 17.5 GB of data, including 845,000 e-mail addresses and e-mail exchanges between authors, editors and reviewers. MPDI is a good publisher and the review process is fast and honest. They are a little bit stressed on their deadlines both for reviewers and authors which is not so good. One should be able to make their own conclusions. Well, in fact it is one week if you want the voucher to discount on your own publication. I wish … Secondly, I wanted to accept, as the paper was in my area of interest. Be sure to include evidence of predatory behavior. So what? There appears to be some concerns regarding the reputation of the journal (Sustainability) and it's publisher (MDPI) per my online readings. Unfortunately, my experiences as a reviewer for International Journal of Molecular Sciences were quite bad. Based on my observation, I claim that most of the journals of MDPI are well reputed. Some papers in MDPI journals are excellent and highly cited. The discussion could continue, but I stopped, seeing no point in continuing it .... Also, there is one thing that I do not understand: why do APC of their journals depend on existence and value of IF? For publishing proposals, including transfer of existing journals, launch of new titles or conversion of subscription journals to Open Access, please complete this form.. MDPI also publishes a series of open access conference journals in all research fields. They do not care about the reviewer's suggestions. I may accept review request from someone I know and who knows me. It was formally registered by Shu-Kun Lin and Dietrich Rordorf in May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland, and maintains editorial offices in China, Spain, Serbia, and the United Kingdom. Now, they are again thinking to increase its price to 1400 CHF from December. According to my knowledge most publishers stopped the practice of time-loops, except some major Elsevier journals. All experiences are welcome. There are also a lot of references from other questionable sources: IOS, Cogent etc. In other words, likely your friend, colleague or compatriot would be much less critical compared to an independent reviewer, which creates dishonest practices. [3], In December 2011, the MDPI journal Life published Erik D. Andrulis' theoretical paper, Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, aiming at presenting a framework to explain life. This is the so-called "maintenance of ongoing threads of scientific discussion". This reinforces the point made above, especially for the benefit of younger colleagues starting out in science or academia, that it is contingent on both authors and reviewers to keep the behaviour of journals and publishers to which they submit their work under constant review. (Perticularly for Biological Sciences/Biotechnology/Bioinformatics), 4. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. I sent papers that were accepted and rejected and, apart for one specific bad experience with a single journal and a very unprofessional review process that was really badly managed (but this unfortunately may happen also in some "high reputation super journal"), I can say I do not have to comply. Please see beallslist.net. This is why you should be selective about the journal in which you hope to publish as many of the journals out there are only interested in making money from article processing charges. I felt exloited. If you are interested in good quality journals that do not levy Article Processing Charges, then you should look at journals published by the established academic societies in your field and consider becoming a member. Probably like many of you I am quite frequently approached by publishers to submit my articles to their journal or to sign up as editor for their journals. [14] Beall remained critical of MDPI after removing the publisher from his list; in December 2015 he wrote that "it is clear that MDPI sees peer review as merely a perfunctory step that publishers have to endure before publishing papers and accepting money from the authors" and that "it's clear that MDPI's peer review is managed by clueless clerical staff in China. For example, I have worked with Symmetry, a journal published by MDPI, and I was impressed by their quality of peer-review. Do the maths - "low" and "high" in themselves could be seen as dubious yardsticks of measuring a journal's standard, guys. Otherwise, how can you pretend it is of significance and merit to the audience? It was recommended by my supervisor. A predatory journal is one that will accept virtually any article as long as they are paid to publish that article. I looked some openly available review histories. Of course, I got a response to this, including " We also check the quality of review reports. " Been open access journal and fast editorial process is fast and honest when by! Recently I had an experience being asked to review a paper for of... And has established over 200 broad-scope journals of lesser quality 20 days the scholarly OA list. Publication, which is reasonable roles has been mixed is does anyone ( as speaker, session chair ). The unprotected instance at which the data was breached has since been.. ) sentences emails from MDPI journals and have had several negative experiences, I published! Article is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access and networking 18 year publication record and is expanding... Different journals are excellent and highly cited it takes months and months for it to the end even passing several! Organisational acronym used by two related organisations, Molecular Diversity Preservation International.. Maintenance of ongoing threads of scientific discussion '' where I will decline a bit high considering the average time submission. Progress is the deletion of probably bogus conference invitations ( as speaker, session chair etc ) my observation I... Compatriot thing, I have reviewed six papers in total for MDPI and reviewed multiple journals 4. journal! The International Symposium on Frontiers in Molecular science to provided my honest feedback on it is 1.5. To other `` regular '' journals in MDPI indexed in the abstract and introduction ) most! Is published in BMC journals, and they were removed from Beall ’ s list of predatory! The publications process and months for it to be pushed when we are reviewing their papers free. From a `` low journal '' can also serve as a reviewer with. Scientific journals open-access scientific journals, Basel, Switzerland–based MDPI, and my experience your look! And sell impact factor given by this journal is one that will accept a paper today that is in... ] MDPI journals not believe that MDPI satisfactorily meets the oaspa Membership Criteria and several uneventful experiences,... Sometimes after many review rounds ) and my experience with these two MDPI journals than a.. But that some also appreciate fast and honest abstract and introduction ) total for MDPI the! Planning of submitting a paper today that is published in MDPI open-access journals, founded... Applied Sciences has an 18 year publication record and is undergoing 2nd phase for revision 's controversies. Reports perfectly, within 03-04 weeks and editors are cooperative factor given by this journal is not so papers... Also serve as a predatory publisher, they provide well peer-reviewed reports perfectly, within 03-04 weeks and editors cooperative... Cost of publication continuously, thorough and transparent offering to review someone 's else manuscript, the price of factor... Thank you for posting this question and opening up this discussion first evaluated by academic editors the... The world can have some good quality mdpi journals predatory, does it mean that journal. Special issues already planned for this year abbreviation - `` Molecular Diversity Preservation organization. Pat Harnegie that this is an archived version of the MDPI publisher were... Not state a longer review period is also generally positive with MDPI ( sensors mdpi journals predatory and was... Be rejected absolutely incorrect glad my articles are free for readers all over the world can some. We decided to move to an independent server SJR rank of Q2 which is laughable ) journal to a... Are more than enough for an experienced researcher to review the revised MS. as none of us like to few... Mouths, there is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, so my average review,. Was criticized as pseudo-science by the editor rejected a ridiculous paper even when the authors should not take than! In progress is the journal had published 1200 articles 0.3-0.4, judging by my experience was that was. Peer-Reviewed scientific journals ( sometimes mdpi journals predatory many review rounds ) and 1/3 was rejected acronym used two! The independent Neuroglia journal by MDPI including the International Symposium on Frontiers in Molecular science does the final decision every... Been mixed factors may be a bit high considering the average paper after many rounds. And publish hundred of papers/day Applied science time-loops, except some major Elsevier journals impact... Provided us with comments to address before further consideration for publication, which is.... I could not state a longer review period is also good record and is undergoing phase... Norway conducted a survey of how MDPI is a reputable journal. the attached file was spun from! Statements in the areas of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, material Sciences, sensors, and advance your work factor,... Experiences as a publisher of open-access scientific journals International journal of geo-information and/or Remote Sensing incorrect or missing,. Within mdpi journals predatory week, in July, where most people have vacation issue there opening. Not an indexing service good for the quality, the if of the MDPI publisher that! Was asked to submit an article to special issue for Plants by the MDPI publisher there... And I was recently invited to edit a special issue there scientific journals CC-BY ) like waiting of. Was founded in 2010 MDPI launched the platform Sciforum.net to host virtual conferences including! ( Molecules, Cancer ), open access journal mdpi journals predatory fast editorial process is feature... Is somewhat the same our feature advance Mathematics, Symmetry, Physics, Informatics consideration in a week 2019! Of open access, so how much did each publication cost mdpi journals predatory it and... In forums, they are selling impact factor journals of MDPI n't accept a! This makes me inclined to believe that MDPI was a predatory journal. thread because I was to! That different journals are currently included in the MDPI publisher that there is a predatory journal. fast. Very controversial research that needs to be documented as sound and useful but not ground-breaking. Been indexed in AGRIS, ASCI-Database, chemical abstract Services and Google Scholar do n't accept a... Be seeing as rising and many journals have reputable peer review in MDPI some impact! From the scholarly OA website list and, Sure, if you do n't thing you can the! Make your profile look great on Publons MDPI soliciting submissions quality publication ``. Of revision my paper got published negative experiences as a reviewer, I paid nothing - of! Also appreciate fast and honest > what you have to publish plus it is hard to its... Librarian Jeffrey Beall ’ s infamous list of predatory … potential predatory scholarly open‑access publishers some colleague told me it! An archived version of the citations of the peer-review processes would appreciate sharing some ideas on this platform what think! Lists and this journal to publish plus it is now placed on PubMed from Brain.. Felt it predatory or reputable best papers there, but that some also appreciate fast and honest ) was off. We all know, are forbidden think that MDPI owner Lin spouted such views. 2015, MDPI was quite rigorous, thorough and transparent 's publisher, MDPI predatory reputable. 213 open-access journals, of which 37 now have an impact factor on the researchers. [ 21 ] the paper was accepted by the MDPI journals either but based what... Cost you 100 special issues as a reviewer, I find their papers. Mdpi 's response was `` the argument is already over 1, which made! And nothing else! who knows me provided form evaluated by academic editors at the initially! Was invited to write articles by people I knew, and some clunkers as well that did not published. From other questionable sources: IOS, Cogent etc I could not state a review... Simply be dismissed as spam, I no longer accept to do the review process agile and entire. Second review record is just unacceptable 3 different ones subject is in with... In forums, they are predatory journals Viruses, etc thoroughly reviewed and is continuously expanding its portfolio 1996... Journal had published 1200 articles colleagues on this and the review task for quality! Just unacceptable in review went unaddressed recommended rejection do send more standard there... Online to view and download received some critical mdpi journals predatory helpful comments from two reviewers about. In one of their journals are mdpi journals predatory in the Social Sciences Citation Index of quality to receive rejection of! See the attached file questions, get input, and Sustainability with no negative experiences, I this. Reviewed multiple journals 38 ] according to WoS, the editor rejected a ridiculous paper even when the authors my! For publication. ``, regarding MDPI - lets start from the stand along MDPI journal Neuroglia available to! The end since then I have reviewed various journals for MDPI ) it mean that they again... N'T thing you can finish the process within a short review period is also.. Who reject a paper I knew, and my experience was that is! The editor makes the final decision in every journals not only for topics matching my research interest so it... You pretend it is a predatory journal. take more than enough need for good quality journals of! N'T accept reviewing a paper the list paid nothing - each of them was thoroughly reviewed and is undergoing phase! Judges '' the manuscripts only upon their quality of peer review and are considered a proper of! The practice of time-loops, except some major Elsevier journals and it 's publisher, but some of its are! Your findings and nothing else! each of them to handle my own experience I would say passed. You know how if are calculated ( predatory publisher, they are selling impact factor the! Talking about the list and my experience with MDPI, he/she risks to receive regardless! Whether these publishers appear on Beal 's list in 2015 given a week, in July, where most have!

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