This year, Clarivate Analytics, the editors of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), deleted 20 journals, 14 for high levels of self-citation and six for the stacking of citations, a pattern informally known as a "cartel of citations." In addition, he received five magazines that he described as Editorial Expression Concern after learning about the anomalies of citations after the finalization of the 2018 report. The JCR suppression lasts one year.
What is your opinion about this trend?
Asiel - it is a 'natural' trend and I'm sure that we will see increasing numbers of exclusions each year - especially with the 'explosion' of new open access journals - and especially those that would be classed as potentially predatory. Artificially increasing citation results in a metric score that is more likely to increase the amount of fee-paying article submissions. If those journals get found out - they can simply pop up somewhere else under a new name.
Asiel - it is a 'natural' trend and I'm sure that we will see increasing numbers of exclusions each year - especially with the 'explosion' of new open access journals - and especially those that would be classed as potentially predatory. Artificially increasing citation results in a metric score that is more likely to increase the amount of fee-paying article submissions. If those journals get found out - they can simply pop up somewhere else under a new name.
Asiel thank you for your question. Dean thank you for an informative answer.
Dear Asiel Cabrera Guerrero ,
You refer to a 2018 report as discussed by Phil Davis:
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/06/27/impact-factor-denied-20-journals-self-citation-stacking/
The most recent report can be found here:
http://help.incites.clarivate.com/incitesLiveJCR/JCRGroup/titleSuppressions.html
I checked the publishers behind the titles with anomalies in Self-citation and they are from:
Wiley: Acta Geologica Sinica-English Edition and Journal of Cardiac Surgery
The Johns Hopkins University Press (JHU Press or JHUP), the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University: Hispania-A Journal Devoted to the Teaching of Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics
Springer: International Journal of Civil Engineering
Inderscience: International Journal of Mobile Communications
Sage: Journal of Low Frequency Noise Vibration and Active Control Acoustics
World Scientific: Journal of Nonlinear Optical Physics & Materials
Taylor & Francis: Maritime Policy & Management
American Psychological Association (or APA): Training and Education in Professional Psychology
The following titles showed unusual high percentage of citations (increase) in the Journal Impact Factor numerator to the donor journal (first mentioned) coming from the recipient (second mentioned) journal:
Journal of Seismic Exploration (Geophysical Press Ltd.) received citations from Journal of Applied Geophysics (Elsevier)
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Letters (American Scientific Publishers) received citations from Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology (American Scientific Publishers)
Journal of Geophysics and Engineering used to be published by IOPScience. As of 2019 this journal is now published by Oxford University Press received unusual citation traffic from both Journal of Biobased Materials and Bioenergy and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Letters both published by American Scientific Publishers.
Bone Research (Springer Nature) received citations from Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Letters, Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology and Journal of Biobased Materials and Bioenergy all published by American Scientific Publishers.
It is clear that apparently unusual high number of self-citations also seems to occur in journals of publishers with high reputation such as Wiley and Springer. The so-called stacking also occur at publishers with high reputation (such as Elsevier) as well as with low reputation (American Scientific Publishers).
To what degree this is due to one or two individual members of the editorial board and/or a low percentage of authors is hard to say.
PS. American Scientific Publishers (http://www.aspbs.com/) is mentioned as predatory (https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/). It is interesting to see that a number of the mentioned journals are subscription based journals and are because of that never considered for possible inclusion in Beall’s list.
Best regards.
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