Behind the elimination of many journals by SCIE: the problems caused by the large-scale increase of special issues (with Hindawi's latest catalog of SCI & SSCI journals under inspection)

In recent years, MDPI has greatly expanded its publications by opening a large number of special journals . For example, its International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Sustainability have 3514 and 3512 special journals, respectively, which are due to call for papers in 2023, with an average of 9 special journals published every day. Hindawi announced in September 2022 that 511 articles would be retracted , and the retracted articles appear to be mainly published in special issues.

On March 30, 2023, Christos Petrou, the founder and chief analyst of Scholarly Intelligence, published an article on this special issue model, arguing that the special issue model promoted the rise of MDPI, but also pushed Hindawi off the cliff.

Note: Christos is a former analyst for Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Group and Springer Nature's Open Access portfolio.

Publishers MDPI and Hindawi refer to this model as Special Issues , publisher Frontiers calls it Research Topics , and Springer Nature calls it Collections . In this article, Christos calls it the Guest Editor model , that is, a journal invites one or a group of scholars to serve as guest editors for a series of themed papers and publish articles. This guest-editing model fueled the rise of MDPI, but it also led to MDPI's reputation being called into question and also pushed Hindawi off a cliff.

Accelerated growth in MDPI and Frontiers

Christos wrote in 2020 that the number of MDPI papers will increase significantly and is optimistic about the increase in the number of MDPI papers. The number of papers at MDPI has indeed grown from 110,000 in 2019 to 303,000 in 2022.

But its analysis ignores the importance of the guest-editing model to MDPI, which has become a mainstay model of MDPI. In recent years, the number of manuscripts published in this form accounts for 60% or more of the number of MDPI papers .

Frontiers is another emerging Swiss publisher that relies heavily on the guest-editing model. Borrowing from MDPI, the publisher has expanded its guest editing business, with 70% of papers now guest-edited , up from 49% in 2016.

Figure 1. The number of papers published by MDPI and Frontiers through guest editing mode and the proportion of total papers; the data comes from the publisher's website

Disaster in Hindawi

Hindawi, as a latecomer to adopting the guest editor model, coincided with the time when its four largest journals were included in the early warning list of Chinese Academy of Sciences journals (2021). At that time, a Hindawi executive also expressed dissatisfaction, believing that the entry of journals into the early warning list would affect performance. In fact, Hindawi's performance in 2021 was saved thanks to its large-scale adoption of the guest-editing model (contrary to other journals such as IEEE Access). But this also has a price to pay, and now, the price has appeared .

Figure 2. The number of papers published by Hindawi through guest editing mode and the proportion of total papers; the data comes from the publisher's website and the Dimensions database

As detailed in Retraction Watch, Hindawi's guest-editing model was exploited by the paper mill, resulting in more than 500 retractions between November 2022 and March 2023. Of the 20 retracted articles randomly selected , half of them were submitted in 2021, which means that when Hindawi started to adopt the guest editor model on a large scale, the paper factory also started to work.

It comes at bad timing for publisher Wiley, which acquired Hindawi in January 2021 for a whopping $298 million. In response to the paper mill, Wiley not only withdrew related articles, but also suspended Hindawi's guest editing program , resulting in a quarterly revenue drop of $9 million and an expected full-year loss of $30 million. Shares of Wiley fell 17% on the release of the results, to their lowest level since 2009 (barring a one-year plunge during the COVID-19 pandemic).

But while Wiley and Hindawi's financial performance has gotten worse, research integrity has gotten better.

Wiley and Hindawi recently said they would retract another 1,200 papers from the special issue

In January 2021, publisher Wiley acquired Hindawi for a whopping $298 million. In September 2022, Wiley announced that Hindawi would retract 511 articles published after August 2020. Since the announcement, 501 papers have been retracted across 23 Hindawi journals.

In April 2023, Hindawi's parent company Wiley issued another statement, planning to withdraw 1,200 papers . These papers are all from the special issue, and come from the same journal as the last batch of more than 500 retracted articles . This retraction is a follow-up to the previous retraction.

The special issues of these journals are the target of paper mills, and there are problems of academic misconduct such as peer review and manipulation of authorship and content falsification.

Figure 3. Screenshot of Wiley’s recent statement https://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Wiley-statement.pdf

On April 4, 2023, Jay Flynn, executive vice president of Wiley, stated in a blog that in order to deal with the paper factory problem and ensure the quality of journals, publishers are "designing a new retraction process, which may help to quickly respond to large-scale retractions." A new era of manuscripts". But details about the new process have not been released.

WoS excludes some journals

Inclusion in the Web of Science (WoS) index is an important goal of the journal. Few journals can succeed without an impact factor. For example, when Oncotarget was eliminated, its number of published articles dropped from about 9,000 to less than 1,000 .

Figure 4. Oncotarget's annual paper volume (k) data comes from the Dimensions database

In March, Clarivate Analytics announced that Web of Science had removed more than 50 journals, including 19 from Hindawi. These 19 journals account for 50% of Hindawi's total papers in 2022 . Hindawi may not publish more than 20,000 articles in 2023, given that its full range of journals no longer uses the guest-editing model.

Figure 5. The number of papers published by Hindawi's excluded journals and the proportion of total papers; the data comes from the publisher's website and the Dimensions database

It is worth mentioning that so far, 5 of the 19 journals have reported no retractions in 2022 and 2023, while the 4 journals remaining in WoS have reported 4~25 retractions in the same period . For Hindawi and Wiley, this may not be the end of the story.

MDPI's reputation problem

When Christos wrote about MDPI in 2020, he found that MDPI had a bad reputation, but showed that it was improving. But unexpectedly, the reputation of MDPI has been repeatedly challenged since then. For example, 22 journals have been included in the early warning list of journals of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which leads to the mediocre performance of MDPI in China in 2021; Indexes newly created X-rated categories (i.e. publication channels are questioned).

Excessive reliance on the guest editor model has also led to people questioning MDPI . Many people wonder whether MDPI has really found a way to fight the paper mill, whether it has less exposure to Chinese researchers than Hindawi and avoids the paper mill, or whether it has been affected by the paper mill, but has not been noticed . However, MDPI's largest journal, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ( IJERPH ), has also been dropped by WoS.

IJERPH is a journal with an impact factor higher than 4, and its ranking is in the top 25% or top 50% of its category. The journal did not meet the criteria for 'content relevance', meaning that the content of the published paper was not consistent with the journal's stated scope. MDPI may be delisted for publishing papers that are out of scope .

MDPI's annual revenue loss is expected to exceed $30 million due to the removal of IJERPH, and researchers may be increasingly reluctant to submit articles to MDPI's other journals, further hurting its performance. MDPI's business is facing decline just like Hindawi, and the difference between the two in the same way is only a paper factory.

They may take some comfort in the fact that the number of MDPI journals with an impact factor is projected to more than triple. Currently, MDPI has 97 journals with impact factors, and due to the new policy of WoS, more than 200 journals may receive impact factors this summer. The reputational damage caused by the removal of IJERPH journals may be compensated by newly awarded journals.

Guest Editing Mode: Good or Bad?

Whether MDPI declines or retains its position as the third largest journal publisher, its guest editorial model is here to stay. Its speed has created a paradigm shift, and other publishers are examining their operating models to close the gap with MDPI. The guest editing model is slowly being adopted by large traditional publishers and more rapidly by OA publishers .

Hindawi's implementation of the guest-editing model, which ended in dramatic failure, begs the question: is weakening editorial integrity a feature or a flaw of the model? Will paper factories be found in the operation of MDPI and Frontiers? Or is the guest-editing model used by Hindawi poorly implemented, giving the paper mill a chance?

In any case, publishers that adopt the guest-editing model on a large scale should disclose the safeguards they are putting in place to maintain editorial integrity. Do they have technical solutions and rigorous processes to prevent malicious behavior? Ever looked for anomalies in historical articles after the article was published?

The article is compiled from: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/03/30/guest-post-of-special-issues-and-journal-purges/