On August 18, 2022, a blog post by Clarivate indicated that Publons has been fused into Web of Science (WoS): "Publons™ has joined the Web of Science™"
https://clarivate.com/blog/the-next-generation-of-web-of-science-researcher-profiles/
Access to the Publons website now redirects to a WoS page, so that:
https://publons.com/
is now
https://publons.com/wos-op/
Clarivate claims that all information (and supposedly data) has been integrated into WoS, but is that true if the public can no longer access the "publons.com" URL?
I have some questions for debate:
1) Will the Publons URL cease to exist?
2) Will WoS introduce paid services or paid access to access what was previously freely and publicly available information at Publons?
3) How will Clarivate reward reviewers?
4) Will the Publons brand be phased out, including things like the Publons Academy, Publons Peer Reviewer Award, etc?
I wish to raise an important issue that all 15 million RG academics should be concerned about, even more so if they are RG members and/or with a previous Publons account, receiving "rewards". This is because the attempt to control peer review rewards by Clarivate has massive repercussions for peer review and journal integrity, even more so for those that have a Clarivate journal impact factor, are COPE/ICMJE members, etc.
I focus the discussion on a single academic researcher, as a prominent example.
On August 9, 2022, the highest performing researcher on the globe was Kaveh Ostad-Ali-Askari, of Isfahan University of Technology, in the IR Iran:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kaveh-Ostad-Ali-Askari-2
According to the old and now dysfunctional website, this researcher had 14 publications, but 1195 peer reviews in the last 12 months (August 2021 - August 2022), or just under 100 peer reviews per month, or roughly 3 per day for every day of the year, according to this now-defunct URL:
https://publons.com/wos-op/researcher/?is_core_collection=1&is_last_twelve_months=1&order_by=num_reviews
The old URL for this researcher was:
https://publons.com/wos-op/researcher/1217819/kaveh-ostad-ali-askari/
and has now become
https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/708302
On the WoS profile the following very prominent public fact is visible: 238 "Verified peer reviews" for Springer Nature's Arabian Journal of Geosciences.
However, according to the journal's own website, dozens if not hundreds of papers have been retracted due to peer review fraud:
https://link.springer.com/search?query=retraction&search-within=Journal&facet-journal-id=12517
The following two questions now remain to be answered (by the academic, by the journal, by the publisher, by COPE, by Clarivate and Publons):
1) How many of the peer review reports associated with this highest performing academic globally were also associated with retracted papers in Arabian Journal of Geosciences?
2) Where are the actual peer review reports corresponding to the 238 "Verified peer reviews". If they are not open access (so open peer review), then how can the public verify that they are actual "peer review reports"?
Absent answers to these questions, 15 million academics should start to become very worried about the Clarivate peer reviewer-related system.
Dear Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva ,
You are right to worry, what I initially read at the time as a “nothing will change for you and things will only improve” turns out to be vastly different. They (Clarivate) follow the same pattern as Elsevier’s Scopus. The free version is well..., nothing but a cut-down-to-the-bone version of the paid version:
-Only the first 10 ten publications can be viewed (in some detail), same happened with Scopus (ID)
-Additional features like author impact beam plot (whatever that may be) are hidden behind a paywall (premium version), a bit like the SciVal service that is only available with a Scopus license
In other words, indeed as you said, “introduce paid services or paid access to access what was previously freely and publicly available information at Publons”. It is matter of wait and see for how long and to what extent the Publon peer review system (what was basically their main objective) will remain unaltered. I’m not optimistic, ultimately Clarivate (like Elsevier) is ‘just’ a company and is not out there for the greater good but to make some money.
Best regards.
It seems also you need to register on clarivate then add your review rather than having them automatically added like before,it's terrible platform terrible design and interface for reviewers profiles, I had one paper I reviewed recently auto added then the other one never and I get error once I try to login. So sad and even not motivating researchers to review since their work is not recognized
I suggest looking into the shareholders of Clarivate Analytics, the information speaks for itself (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=CLVT&subView=institutional). Poublons is dead for good. Do not expect from a company specialized in scientific intelligence and backed by some well know Int. related funds/vehicles to offer gifts and free stuff. Charity is not their primary job IMO :)
Catalin, indeed. A "curious" background for one investor in particular:
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-know-about-blackrock-larry-fink-biden-cabinet-facts-2020-12
Indeed, they have shares at Elsevier, Taylor&Francis(through Informa), Wiley. There are other strange "investors" there but I don't think it is appropriate to expand the topic here.
A more definitive discussion about Publons here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363666108
Article The Role of Publons in the Context of Open Peer Review
Equally important is that they provided paid services to Publishers/Journals to become "Official Partners" where the reports of the journal`s reviewers will be verified an visible. They/Clarivate collected millions of USD from that and decided to shut down all the journals` profiles on Publons without any explanation nor compensation.
Jovan, good point. Formal requests in September/October (2022) to Clarivate and Jo Wilkinson, who was the former Head of Communications at Publons, were not answered.
Dear Emanuel/ Jaime7 Jovan etc.
I am researcher graduated in economics and technical physics, with 40 years of experience, in some 4-5 countries,, and in different sectors.
I have seen many epochs in science policy (I am also expert of international research bodies). All this, (Bublons etc) independently of their name is simply TRASH, that will disappear with their names.
Doing research you ask two questions:
1. Have I discovered anything?
2. Has my paper made happier anyone?
Greetings
Grzegorz Karwasz (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland)
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