After quite a few reviews, I have just published an artucle with them ( Croatia, economics and business). I think they are a big industry that has turned the traditional publishing upside down. I am not sure I like it their way, but I see that they follow procedures and are indexed well. On the other hand, you need money to publish with them, no matter how good your paper is - and it is a lot of money, at least in Croatian terms

After quite a few reviews, I have just published an artucle with them ( Croatia, economics and business). I think they are a big industry that has turned the traditional publishing upside down. I am not sure I like it their way, but I see that they follow procedures and are indexed well. On the other hand, you need money to publish with them, no matter how good your paper is - and it is a lot of money, at least in Croatian terms

Dear Dr Carlos, I agree with Dr Leko-Simic, I do not see anything wrong with MDPI journal despite the controvesy. I have not published with them, they are expensive, their impact factor is okay. I like their call for special issues.

These journals are very expensive. I always prefer to publish in thoose journals who did not demand APC.

Hi Dr Carlos De Las Heras-Pedrosa . It is the first time knowing about this type of journals . Is it Scopus or Web of Science indexed. Is it have impact factor?

Dear Aref Wazwaz ,

MDPI journals refers to the publisher. MDPI is a publisher fully dedicated to open access scientific journals (https://www.mdpi.com/). As indicated by Carlos De Las Heras-Pedrosa there is, despite good indexing performances of most of their journals, quite some controversy around this publisher. Just search for MDPI here on RG and you find numerous questions and discussions.

The facts are:

-MDPI publishes 365 academic journals

-Including 95 journals with an impact factor (SCIE/SSCI)

-111 journals indexed in ESCI

-177 journals are Scopus indexed

-MDPI journals are currently included DOAJ (often used as ‘whitelist’)

-MDPI is a member of the OASPA and of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Still the current situation is that the attitude towards this publisher is a rather black and white, either you like them or you ‘hate’ them. In part this has to do with the sentiment that open access means that authors need to pay, and publishers might have an incentive to accept more papers (meaning more income). This should be considered as an obsolete discussion and a bit of a rearguard action since the inevitable ‘trend’ is that ‘we’ all go to open access. Meaning that in the (near) future the costs for publishing are no longer covered by paying for licences but universities, research institutes (and sometimes researchers themselves) pay an APC. All this because there is a notion that research should be freely available for those interested in scientific progress. Personally, I think that when a journal/publisher fulfil all criteria to get assigned the above-mentioned indexing and memberships this is the maximum possible guarantee that things might not be flawless (which is true for every publisher or journal) but certainly fulfil internationally established scientific standards.

Best regards.

Thank you so much Rob Keller for the information.

Interesting discussion, i totally agree with Dr. Rob Keller

Dear Rob Keller

Indeed I agree with you. In the case of Spain these journals are currently very persecuted. Not because of the APC but because of their rapid publication which is causing many colleagues to write there. They doubt that they are rigorous.

I personally am a reviewer for many of them and my reviews are exactly the same as those I do for journals from other publishers.

As an author I can say that my articles in these journals are highly cited.

When I asked the question it was to try to know the situation in other countries.

Dear Aref Wazwaz

I saw that Rob Keller answered your question.

Thank you very much

Business

MDPI has been a subject of evaluation and criticism. Recently, an article appeared in Research Evaluation (Oxford Academics) to shed light on MDPI

Oviedo-García, M. "Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)." Research Evaluation (2021). It concluded that researchers must be careful of some MDPI's journals. Also, MDPI, though excluded from Beall's list of Predatory Publishers, but there is a strong warning to researchers to evaluate their journals (a case by case). They also promised to include some of their journals in the Beall's list of predatory journals. Rob Keller has put it together a fair, unbiased evaluation here and should also be considered.

Thank you so much Carlos De Las Heras-Pedrosa because you saw Rob Keller answered my question. Wish you the best always.

Always we are doing. One of the best publishers.

Dear Osaretin Christabel Okonji Thank you very much for your comments

Dear Hayder Ibrahim Mohammed thank you very much for your comments

Dear Moustafa El-Araby thank you very much for your comments.

My question would be: Is there a war between editorials and researchers are suffering from it?

Dear Akhtar Rasool, thank you very much for your comments.

Carlos De Las Heras-Pedrosa I have suspicions that there some smelly stuff going on with and from this publisher. However, publishing is sadly becoming more and more dirtier. Researchers often get cold blood desk rejections especially if they affiliate to a Third World country. Recently, we submitted a manuscript and a reviewer send us not only a rejection, but also an allegation of data manipulation (shocking? Yes and it hurts). The Editor endorsed the Reviewers allegations although No evidence was given of where we did the alleged manipulation. It is unbelievable feeling if you know that we started this project in 2013 and I kept, as the PI, refusing to submit any manuscript until we make sure of 1) Results confirmed and reproduced and 2) The quality of the research is as high as possible. The only issue I can see then is that we are all from the same Third World University. Before anyone jump in, I want to tell that I am aware of submissions from the third world and their tendency to have poorer quality than western submissions. But, a fair comparison to the quality of papers of the intended journal, one get strong impressions of double standard. Also, Editors/Reviewers should judge the work, not people because this is called racism.

Even serious researchers, in this case, need to get around this blockade. To do so, we either add a western "Parachute Co-Author" with good connections. Regretfully, under a pressure to get a funded project to a closure, I did it once myself and, sadly, it worked. In return, I had to give up the correspondence (I no longer became the father of this paper, which really hurt me). Another common tactic is that we go to Open Access Journals e.g. mdpi, bmc, Frontier, etc. who are willing to give us a chance when other cold blood rejectors deny it.

Some journals of MDPI publisher are very good. For example: The journal "International Journal of Molecular Sciences" of MDPI publisher is ranged Q1 (OA) and IF=5.542 in 2020.

Reference:

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=25879&tip=sid&clean=0

There are no great controversies that I have personally encountered, and have worked with about five or so different journals. My fields are international relations and mass communication. I have published, reviewed and am a special issue guest editor.

Perhaps the one 'controversy' that has already been mentioned is the APC, though in many instances this seems to be competitive to the market of similar open access journals. Also had one strange desk rejection for an article (poorly and inaccurately articulated) that was subsequently welcomed and published in another MDPI journal.

My experience has been that the journals are open minded and willing to take on topics and perspectives other mainstream journals do not touch. This gives authors a potential venue for their works when not mainstream in their ideas or views.

I heard about some troubles but in my case publication went smooth and was handled professional. And open access is always expensive…

I heard about some troubles but in my case publication went smooth and was handled professional. And open access is always expensive…

Dear Moustafa El-Araby thank you very much for your comments.

Dear Greg Simons thank you very much for your comments.

At this moment in Spain there is an open debate about MDPI.

There are some papers such as Sustainability that are penalized.

Best regards

Dear Tobias Köllner thank you very much for your comments.

MDPI publishers are very good journals and very fast. For example: "International journal of environmental research and public health" of MDPI publisher is ranged Q1.

Also, Sustainability Journal is highly recommended

I really recommended MDPI Publisher.

True

NO

I see that the following paper appears all over the place here on RG https://academic.oup.com/rev/advance-article/doi/10.1093/reseval/rvab020/6348133 a paper that received an expression of concern https://academic.oup.com/rev/advance-article/doi/10.1093/reseval/rvab030/6360986. This is because the paper is highly suggestive and performed with poor scientific standards.

Among the many flaws two shocking points are hard to miss where one wonder how it is possible that this ‘slipped’ the peer reviewers (and editor’s) attention:

-Why compare a multidisciplinary journal like IJMS with “Chemical Review”? Not only is it a methodological flaw to compare journals with different impact factors, but “Chemical Reviews” (one of the best (if not the best) journals in the field of chemistry specialized in publishing reviews) is exclusively focussed on (specialized) reviews and consequently has an intrinsically different citation pattern when it comes to its references (one expect hardly any citations/references to their own journal).

-Mentioning the high APC's of MDPI while the paper is published open access in a journal with an APC higher than any of the MDPI journals is well… not that strong

It would not surprise me when this paper will end up in a retraction.

Best regards.

Yes, I do

Yes, I do

My publication in Sustainability last year went without any problems. Detailed and helpful referee feedback, a highly regarded editor whose judgement I would trust implicitly, and a production team that could not have been more helpful. All in all, a very positive experience.