This discussion is precipitated by a discussion in a list serve that I am subscribed to concerning predatory publishing and the issue of working with and publishing in MDPI journals.
In my experience, when the subject of MDPI journals is put forward, this tends to raise polarizing discourses and opinions.
My question: What has been your experience in dealing with MDPI journals either as guest editor, author or reviewer?
Recently, researchers in Poland published this study that goes some way to addressing this polemic.
See: Krawczyk, F., & Kulczycki, E. (2021). How is open access accused of being predatory? The impact of Beall's lists of predatory journals on academic publishing. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(2), 102271. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0099133320301622
Actually, here is my last article.
Article Management of the Energy and Economic Potential of Nuclear Waste Use
This was posted in a special issue. And I am very happy about that. Everything went without delay.
Regards, Sergey
I have published one review "Towards exploitation of adaptive traits for climate resilient smart pulses" in a special in the journal "International Journal of Molecular Sciences". The editor conducted four rounds of rigorous review; however, it was a timely publication. But, the publication was not cost effective.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333868944_Towards_Exploitation_of_Adaptive_Traits_for_Climate-Resilient_Smart_Pulses
In depth two round review was conducted by Land Journal (MDPI) before acceptance.
I have reviewed many times for MDPI. They generally allow one week to conduct the review and cancel if you need more time. Sometimes i am in the midst of my evaluation and they inform me that i need not continue because they have ‘enough’ reviews. The more reviews you do, the more publishing un fee credit - not that i will use it but maybe others will be interested in paying for their next publication with those credits.
I have not published it yet on their platform. But, the recent controversy on the predatory nature of MDPI has influenced and pushed me to rethink before publishing with them. You may found Paolo Crosetto’s recent analysis of MDPI to be quite insightful, and many of the comments posted to it by readers are similarly thoughtful:
https://paolocrosetto.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/is-mdpi-a-predatory-publisher/?fbclid=IwAR0dgNGzZFKA_NHBI4oiGGHO-V2xuubU3L90MccqllOHi76Txf9mRHNzCrE
Every journal and publisher has some pros and cons. Open-access is a choice, if you have a fund or support, you can choose to submit which does not guarantee you to publish of course.
Advantages of MDPI
1. Fast in response (If you e-mail them, they would not take more than 12-24 hours to respond you back).
2. Fast review process (Mostly within 35 days).
3. Online publication immediately after proofreading.
4. Desk rejection is fast (mostly within 2-5 days)
5. There are a number of profound journals indexed in Web of Science Q1/Q2 categories.
Controversies of MDPI
1. Why the journal can act so fast? I found the MDPI staff extremely efficient in dealing with a manuscript. A publisher can act with competence in comparison to other publishers does not make it a bad one!
2. Why the APC is high? Can you name 10 journals with less than 2000 USD APCs in a specific field? Other competitive open-access publishers ask for much higher than MDPI (Frontiers, Hindawi, or BMC).
3. Why the review process is so fast? It's probably because the journals have a review board similar to an editorial board and the reviewers are awarded some waiver (150 CHF usually) despite the outcome of the review report. Can you name open-access journals that are encouraging the reviewers with any award/waiver? I don't know any.
4. What about the review reports? If you are familiar with MDPI journal's review reports, usually they send three review reports and I know how difficult the review reports can be sometimes. In terms of quality, I do not have any doubt, not at all.
5. Fast publication? When you work efficiently, you can be productive. I know some journals, a paper accepted in mid-2019, published in mid-2021, how does that sound to an academic? Horrible! And I have additional experiences of receiving rejection after 9 months without any review report or after 7 months apologising as they could not manage a reviewer! I can't believe these scenarios, so unfortunate.
Concluding remark
As long as I make sure that a journal is indexed in Web of Science (unrelated to impact factor), I am very ok to submit my manuscript there. I trust Clarivate (Web of Science) more than a publisher/journal.
Disclaimer: I have not received or done any single review for MDPI till this comment or not involved with any of their editorial board, however, published a few papers in MDPI and the above are completely based on my personal experience.
Hope this helps.
Dr Asiful
Publishing in open access journals is a great idea, and there are lots of good ones around. MDPI is not one of them. In my experience with social science journals, MDPI does a poor job of peer review, many papers have no scholarly value, and the general conclusion within the environmental social science community is to stay away from MDPI - it represents a reputation risk to authors and to academic institutions.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Publishing