A while ago we were interested to see a paper published that explained how the Scopus database had been infiltrated by predatory journals. You can access the paper here, noting that it has been retracted so you not cite it.
There had been a lot of “noise” around Scopus up to the point that this paper was published but this was the most definitive evidence that we had seen that showed that Scopus were indexing predatory journals. Let us be clear here, we do not believe that Scopus knowingly indexes predatory journals, but it is more about predatory journals being able to infiltrate the database and the effect this has on the integrity of the scientific archive.
It was disappointing to see that the paper was later retracted, which meant that it cannot (should not) be cited and, although there were still suspicions around the integrity of the Scopus database, there was nothing to cite.
However, that is not where the story ends, as we shall see in this article.
The original paper
The original paper was published online on 7 February 2021. It was received by Scientometrics on 29 June 2019 and accepted on 24 December 2020.
This paper reported that 324 journals that had been on Beall’s List also appeared in the Scopus database. Between 2015-2017, 164,000 papers had been published in these journals. The study analyzed countries and their propensity to publish in predatory journals. Kazakhstan and Indonesia, for example, published 17% of all their articles in (suspected) predatory journals.
The publication of this paper was reported in Nature.
Discussion
Following publication of the article, there were some comments from Mills and Bell, which Srholec and Macháček responded to. There was clearly a difference of opinion, but both sides expressed their views in a reasoned way.
Retraction
On the 6 September 2021, the article was retracted. The retraction note said that the Editor-in-Chief had retracted the article as some of the findings were unreliable.
The statement goes onto say:
“Post-publication peer review indicated the article includes statements about authors from some geographic regions which are unjustified in the generality of the conclusions. Findings are based on a regression analysis; however, this analysis did not include a control group. The regression analysis is, therefore, not complete and the results are unreliable.
Results and findings are based on a so-called blacklist and are not supplemented by any results obtained using a positive control group. In this context, the Scopus database cannot be considered a control group, since it is a comprehensive bibliographic database. Similarly, the analysis was restricted to publications in four languages (English, Spanish, French, and Arabic). The results of the regression analysis are inconclusive for publications in languages not included in the analysis. The authors have been offered the opportunity to submit a new reworked manuscript for peer review. Vít Macháček and Martin Srholec disagree with this retraction.“
The retraction was reported in Retraction Watch.
Objections to the retraction
The journal (Scientometrics) which published the paper, and later retracted it, received a paper on 11 May 2022, which was accepted on the 11 October 2022 and published online on 30 November 2022.
The paper was authored by 27 people. They were writing in their capacity as members of the Distinguished Reviewers Board of Scientometrics and/or as recipients of the Derek de Solla Price Medal.
The authors said “We wish to express our disagreement with the retraction of the paper ‘Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences’ coauthored by Vít Macháček and Martin Srholec“.
They go onto the present the reasons why they disagree with the retraction. One of the reasons is discussed in the next section. A further reason was that they do not feel that the findings were unreliable, as stated by the Editor-in-Chief.
Retraction Watch and Frontiers letter
One of the reasons that prompted 27 people to object to the paper being retracted is explained by an article that appeared in Retraction Watch.
One of the main points that the Retraction Watch article mentions is a letter that Frontiers sent to the Editor-in-Chief of Scientometrics, asking for the paper to be retracted immediately. The letter was sent on the 6 May 2021, and requested that confirmation of the article being retracted was communicated to Frontiers by 21 May 2021.
The seven page letter is largely about the use of Beall’s List as a data source, arguing that it should not be used, providing a variety of reasons for this viewpoint.
The paper is finally published
A slightly revised version of the paper was submitted to Quantitative Science Studies on 11 February 2022 and accepted on 6 August 2022. The papers can be seen here.
The paper is largely the same as the paper that was retracted, with the authors making the following statement:
“The paper was first published in Scientometrics in February 2021 (Macháček & Srholec,2021). Following pressure by Frontiers, the Editor-in-Chief of Scientometrics decided to retract the paper based on dubious claims that some of the findings are unreliable (Macháček & Srholec, 2022a). We refuted these claims and disagreed with this decision. The retraction was also strongly condemned by prominent members of the scientometric research community (Retraction Watch, 2021; Srholec, 2021). Later on, Akadémiai Kiadó and Springer Nature—the owner and publisher of Scientometrics, respectively—reverted to us the rights to publish the paper. The paper has undergone a minor revision before its republication in Quantitative Science Studies, mostly by extending some of the discussion and reflecting on the most recent development in this line of research but not by addressing the alleged flaws that were used to justify the retraction.“
Final Remarks
The scholarly community now as a legitimate paper that it can cite.
… and that is where this story ends, unless there are actors in the background who are working towards getting this version of the paper retracted? We will watch with interest.