Dear Nitesh Khadka The site of predatory reports looks to me a one-person operation without any legitimacy. I see numerous red flags:

-Contact info is missing essentially all info

-The image of the impressive office here is just uploaded from elsewhere see for example https://draperyindustries.com/customers/modern-conference-room-with-furniture-2/

-Their list(s) (https://predatoryreports.org/the-predatory-publishers and https://predatoryreports.org/the-predatory-journals ) is/are highly ‘inspired’ by the Beall’s lists (https://beallslist.net and related lists like the stand-alone journal list and the updated versions) without properly referring to it.

-They refer to the highly informative paper described here https://predatoryreports.org/news/f/predatory-publishing-in-scopus-scientific-database and although this paper strongly indicates that Frontiers is not predatory they include them in their predatory publishers list https://predatoryreports.org/the-predatory-publishers

-Their name misleadingly mimics the well-respected predatory reports by Cabell https://blog.cabells.com/2019/03/20/predatoryreport-criteria-v1-1/

-Furthermore, in their ‘news’ link https://predatoryreports.org/news/f/is-mdpi-a-predatory-publisher is a highly selective (read biased...) summary of (older) sources. For example, the last section is based on a study https://academic.oup.com/rev/article/30/3/405/6348133?login=false that in the meantime received an expression of concern https://academic.oup.com/rev/article/30/3/420/6360986

The first half is based on https://paolocrosetto.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/is-mdpi-a-predatory-publisher/ (Edit April 20th, 2021) which is overall still not that positive about MDPI but is way more nuanced and quite open and transparent about opposite (more positive) views (especially in the comment section) than the poor summary made by these people.

For a much better and highly informative analysis about MDPI I prefer: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/08/10/guest-post-mdpis-remarkable-growth/ and the use of the original Beall’s list.

PS. Personally I use the Beall’s list to get a fist impression and the next step could be the use of the ‘whitelist’ approach. Meaning is the journal indexed in Scopus, Clarivate’s SCIE/SSCI, PubMed, member of DOAJ etc.

Best regards.

I think some of MDPI journals are red flagged but not the ones with good impact factor(s) you can chekc the list here https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals. I am facing a serious reviewing problem since 2019, as I am receiving almost every week in my email a reviewing request from some fake journals. Pls tell me how I can block these spams forever even before receiving them. thanks,

Hi all

In addition to the first answer, it may be useful to note that the following are mentioned in Beall’s list about the MDPI journals:

“I decided not to include MDPI on the list itself. However, I would urge anyone that wants to publish with this publisher to thoroughly read this wiki article detailing their possible ethical/publishing problems”

The link to the wiki article that is mentioned in the previous excerpt is this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI#Controversies, where one reads, among other interesting things, that “MDPI was included on Jeffrey Beall's list of predatory open access publishing companies in 2014[20][21] but was removed in 2015 following a successful appeal[19][20] while applying pressure on Beall's employer.[22] Some journals published by MDPI have also been noted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Norwegian Scientific Publication Register, two major scientific bodies, for lack of rigour and possible predatory practice.[23][24][25]”

It is also worth noting that there exist publication charges for MDPI journals.

https://elpais.com/ciencia/2023-06-03/un-cientifico-que-publica-un-estudio-cada-dos-dias-muestra-el-lado-mas-oscuro-de-la-ciencia.html?prm=ep-app-cabecera

Dear Daniel Ariano-Sánchez ,

Thanks for the interesting read. For those interested I enclosed the (Google) translation of this news paper. The story is primarily focused on a number of highly ‘prolific’ scientists working in Spain. It boils down to the following malpractices:

-Publishing of papers (too) far away from the field of expertise of these researchers

-Publishing of papers where the co-authorship is questionable (either bought, provided as a ‘gift’, under the prerequisite to add the wrong affiliation (to boost the metrics/performance of a particular university) etc.

-Publishing of papers in the countless special issues of journals (with low or virtually absent editorial control)

-Etc.

In part the dubious role of MDPI (and their seemingly countless special issues they publish) is discussed. Somewhat strange is the fact that they pick out the two MDPI journals that are delisted while the decision by Clarivate to delist titles affects basically all publishers (including Elsevier, Wiley etc. See enclosed file).

Still this article addresses the serious matter of practices that seems to deflate the value of a scientific paper.

Best regards.

It is not accurate to say that all MDPI journals are predatory.It is important to evaluate each journal on its own merits and consider factors such as the journal's reputation within the scientific community, the qualifications and expertise of the editorial board, the transparency of the peer review process, and the indexing and impact factor of the journal. Journals like "Remote Sensing" and "Atmosphere" published by MDPI have gained a certain level of recognition and are often cited in scientific literature. However, it is still advisable to assess the quality and reliability of individual articles within these journals before citing or relying on them for research purposes.

As an AI language model, I can provide some insights into the topic. MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a publisher known for its open-access journals. While it is important to exercise caution when considering any journal for publication, it is not accurate to categorize all MDPI journals as predatory. The predatory publishing model typically involves unethical practices such as poor peer review, excessive publication fees, and misleading metrics. While MDPI has faced criticism in the past regarding some of its journals' quality control and peer review processes, it is important to evaluate each journal individually rather than making blanket assumptions. Journals like Remote Sensing and Atmosphere have established reputations within their respective fields, and their articles should be assessed based on their scientific merits. Researchers should carefully examine the quality, credibility, and impact of individual articles and journals, regardless of the publisher. It is always advisable to consider multiple factors, including the reputation of the journal, the expertise of the authors, and the content of the article itself, before making decisions regarding publication, reading, or citation.

Here, I want to post my short opinion on MDPI journals, as an author, Editorial Member of Diversity, and Guest Editor of Life:

Paying for publishing.

I never paid for a publication, neither in MDPI nor in any other journals. This is a clear shortcoming for me and for several authors without funds for publishing. Being an Editorial Member or being invited by any other Guest Editor (GE), or even playing the role of GE for a Special Issue (SI), is an interesting possibility to publish your research in average journals without paying, in a Gold Open Access (GOA) manner. These kinds of articles are accessible to anyone around the world, simply having an Internet connection, which is a very good fact for investigators in underdeveloped countries. However, APCs are relatively low in MDPI journals… What about 10.000€ for publishing in GOA in Nature? As can be obvious, open-access articles are more downloaded and more cited. So, this can be a reason for high citations of MDPI journals? This strategy (GOA) is now accepted as a hybrid in several journals in which there were no previous APCs. With more income and citations, a good business!!!

In my case, I am not a first-level author, I consider myself on average, despite Researchgate saying that I have a Research Interest Score >97% of the people on that web. I don’t believe that much…, but I have seen several reputed authors acting as EM and GE, and publishing in MDPI journals in a regular way. This strategy undermines their credibility as reputed authors? I don’t think so, if they have a mixed strategy, publishing in either MDPI or other reputed journals.

My experience as an Editorial Board Member for Diversity:

I have been acting as an EBM from 2019 until the present, and I was able to pre-review papers to see if they had enough quality to go to peer review. Also, I acted as a reviewer, when the topic of the submitted article was interesting for me. As editor, I have the chance to publish a paper per year free of APC, which I see as a very interesting reward for Editorial members. As far as I know, no other journal uses that policy to reward the members of the Editorial team…

My experience as a Guest Editor for Life:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/life/special_issues/Small_Mammals_Predators

The possibility of handling an SI of a topic that you can decide on is a very appealing way of attraction a scientific journal. In my case, I was able to have control of the publication review process and publication final decisions (Accept/Reject). For the start, we had 300% of publication for free, which means that the editorial can accept three articles with full waivers (or six with 50% waivers), but they were increased to 1000% in a few months!!! This means that almost all the articles published in my GE-SI were for free… what a business!!! Unfortunately, publishing for free is not enough for several authors, and I received very poor responses to my offer of publication in the SI.

Of course, as far as MDPI journals reputation goes down, it goes down the possibility of recruiting reputed authors and reviewers, and having good submissions and reviews. Nonetheless, the GE also plays a role and can complement the reviews to reach a final decision on the fate of the article, being published or not. In my SI, I was able to handle 11 articles, and only one was rejected. I would like to say that all articles published had merits to be published, and maybe some of them would not be published in “standard” journals, but in my opinion, all they well deserved publication… Before banning unambiguously all MDPI research, please have a look at a particular article, read it, and decide if it deserves or not a citation. Be aware that some authors are non-professionals, and maybe this can be the only way of publishing their research.

I need to clarify that I was never obliged to cite some papers of the journal Life in my own publications, but at one time I was suggested to do that in a non-MDPI journal… It is certainly true that my articles published in MDPI journals received more citations than the others for a similar time being published.

My experience as a reviewer

I reviewed about ten papers for MDPI journals, and I received a voucher for each review (irrespective of its quality). This is an interesting way of “paying” the reviewers’ task, no other journals do that, even those with similar GOA strategies such as PLos One. Unfortunately, vouchers have a deadline, so they cannot be accumulated for a long time and are not very useful, in spite you doing 20 reviews a year!!!

In conclusion, I don’t see that the strategy of MDPI was predatory, trying to make a business at any cost, without having a look to publication's final quality. I know that rejection is about 50% in MDPI journals, and owing to the fact that most articles published in SIs are for free, there is not a clear commercial strategy for that. Maybe the business is in the standard issues…