Report: “Fast-Growing Open-Access Journals Stripped of Coveted Impact Factors”

From a Science Article by Jeffery Brainard:

Nearly two dozen journals from two of the fastest growing open-access publishers, including one of the world’s largest journals by volume, will no longer receive a key scholarly imprimatur. On 20 March, the Web of Science database said it delisted the journals along with dozens of others, stripping them of an impact factor, the citation-based measure of quality that, although controversial, carries weight with authors and institutions. The move highlights continuing debate about a business model marked by high volumes of articles, ostensibly chosen for scientific soundness rather than novelty, and the practice by some open-access publishers of recruiting large numbers of articles for guest-edited special issues.

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Clarivate initially did not name any of the delisted journals or provide specific reasons. But it confirmed to Science the identities of 19 Hindawi journals and two MDPI titles after reports circulated about their removals. The MDPI journals include the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, which published about 17,000 articles last year. In 2022, it had a Web of Science journal impact factor of 4.614, in the top half of all journals in the field of public health.

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