IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v120y2019i2d10.1007_s11192-019-03153-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is the soundness-only quality control policy of open access mega journals linked to a higher rate of published errors?

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh

    (University of Malaya)

  • Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva

Abstract

Open access mega journals (OAMJs) are broad and centralized open access journals that have come to represent profitable outlets for accumulating large volumes of research from multiple fields of study, including papers that are rejected from other journals by the same publisher. Some OAMJs charge hefty (exceeding US$1000) article processing fees. One characteristic of OAMJs is a large editorial board. In 2015, Björk indicated that a primary characteristic of an OAMJ was its prepublication soundness only peer review, i.e., novelty, significance, relevance and impact are assessed only post-publication. However, such a premise ignores the inherent nature of peers’ bias. This controversial claim is challenged in this paper by assessing whether there is a link between research output (number of papers published in each OAMJ) and number of errata, including retractions. We assessed 16 OAMJs indexed in Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science and found wide variation in published errata and retractions across OAMJs between 2012 and 2018. PLOS ONE had the highest correction rate (3.159%), followed by Medicine (3.158%), BMJ Open (2.949%) and Scientific Reports (2.896%). In contrast, PeerJ, Elementa, and Science of the Anthropocene did not publish any errata in 2012–2018 but IEEE Access had a correction rate of 0.059%. Regarding the retraction rate, the highest share of retracted publications was seen in Medicine (0.079%), Cell Reports (0.035%) and PLOS ONE (0.030%), while nine out of the 16 studied OAMJs did not have any retracted publications during 2012–2018. We conclude that there is wide variation in “quality control”, as assessed through errata and retractions, among OAMJs. We recommend, therefore, that the “soundness only peer review” prerequisite for OAMJs should be scrapped.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh & Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva, 2019. "Is the soundness-only quality control policy of open access mega journals linked to a higher rate of published errors?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 917-923, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:120:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-019-03153-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-019-03153-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-019-03153-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-019-03153-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carole J. Lee & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Guo Zhang & Blaise Cronin, 2013. "Bias in peer review," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 2-17, January.
    2. Carole J. Lee & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Guo Zhang & Blaise Cronin, 2013. "Bias in peer review," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 2-17, January.
    3. Simon Wakeling & Peter Willett & Claire Creaser & Jenny Fry & Stephen Pinfield & Valerie Spezi, 2017. "Transitioning from a Conventional to a ‘Mega’ Journal: A Bibliometric Case Study of the Journal Medicine," Publications, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-11, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Judit Dobránszki & Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva, 2019. "Corrective factors for author- and journal-based metrics impacted by citations to accommodate for retractions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 387-398, October.
    2. György Csomós & Jenő Zsolt Farkas, 2023. "Understanding the increasing market share of the academic publisher “Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute” in the publication output of Central and Eastern European countries: a case study o," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 803-824, January.
    3. Robin Haunschild & Lutz Bornmann, 2021. "Can tweets be used to detect problems early with scientific papers? A case study of three retracted COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5181-5199, June.
    4. Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva & Aceil Al-Khatib & Panagiotis Tsigaris, 2020. "Spam emails in academia: issues and costs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 1171-1188, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jürgen Janger & Nicole Schmidt-Padickakudy & Anna Strauss-Kollin, 2019. "International Differences in Basic Research Grant Funding. A Systematic Comparison," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61664, April.
    2. Rodríguez Sánchez, Isabel & Makkonen, Teemu & Williams, Allan M., 2019. "Peer review assessment of originality in tourism journals: critical perspective of key gatekeepers," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-11.
    3. Zhentao Liang & Jin Mao & Gang Li, 2023. "Bias against scientific novelty: A prepublication perspective," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(1), pages 99-114, January.
    4. Elena Veretennik & Maria Yudkevich, 2023. "Inconsistent quality signals: evidence from the regional journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(6), pages 3675-3701, June.
    5. Meyer, Matthias & Waldkirch, Rüdiger W. & Duscher, Irina & Just, Alexander, 2018. "Drivers of citations: An analysis of publications in “top” accounting journals," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 24-46.
    6. Seeber, Marco & Alon, Ilan & Pina, David G. & Piro, Fredrik Niclas & Seeber, Michele, 2022. "Predictors of applying for and winning an ERC Proof-of-Concept grant: An automated machine learning model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    7. Feliciani, Thomas & Morreau, Michael & Luo, Junwen & Lucas, Pablo & Shankar, Kalpana, 2022. "Designing grant-review panels for better funding decisions: Lessons from an empirically calibrated simulation model," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(4).
    8. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2017. "What do Editors Maximize? Evidence from Four Leading Economics Journals," NBER Working Papers 23282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. J. A. García & Rosa Rodriguez-Sánchez & J. Fdez-Valdivia, 2016. "Why the referees’ reports I receive as an editor are so much better than the reports I receive as an author?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 967-986, March.
    10. Dietmar Wolfram & Peiling Wang & Adam Hembree & Hyoungjoo Park, 2020. "Open peer review: promoting transparency in open science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1033-1051, November.
    11. Andrada Elena Urda-Cîmpean & Sorana D. Bolboacă & Andrei Achimaş-Cadariu & Tudor Cătălin Drugan, 2016. "Knowledge Production in Two Types of Medical PhD Routes—What’s to Gain?," Publications, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-16, June.
    12. Oleksiyenko, Anatoly V., 2023. "Geopolitical agendas and internationalization of post-soviet higher education: Discursive dilemmas in the realm of the prestige economy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. Rosa Rodriguez-Sánchez & J. A. García & J. Fdez-Valdivia, 2018. "Editorial decisions with informed and uninformed reviewers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 25-43, October.
    14. Randa Alsabahi, 2022. "English Medium Publications: Opening or Closing Doors to Authors with Non-English Language Backgrounds," English Language Teaching, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.
    15. Yuetong Chen & Hao Wang & Baolong Zhang & Wei Zhang, 2022. "A method of measuring the article discriminative capacity and its distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3317-3341, June.
    16. Qianjin Zong & Yafen Xie & Jiechun Liang, 2020. "Does open peer review improve citation count? Evidence from a propensity score matching analysis of PeerJ," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 607-623, October.
    17. Thomas Feliciani & Junwen Luo & Lai Ma & Pablo Lucas & Flaminio Squazzoni & Ana Marušić & Kalpana Shankar, 2019. "A scoping review of simulation models of peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 555-594, October.
    18. Stephen A Gallo & Joanne H Sullivan & Scott R Glisson, 2016. "The Influence of Peer Reviewer Expertise on the Evaluation of Research Funding Applications," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-18, October.
    19. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2020. "What Do Editors Maximize? Evidence from Four Economics Journals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 195-217, March.
    20. Weinhold, Ines & Gurtner, Sebastian, 2014. "Understanding shortages of sufficient health care in rural areas," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 201-214.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:120:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-019-03153-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.