Showing posts with label Frontiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frontiers. Show all posts

Monday, April 19, 2021

Frontiers in Medical Case Reports wants the "medical fraternity to synchronize their knowledge"

Frontiers in Medical Case Reports is not a Frontiers Media (frontiersin.org) journal. The publisher listed on the journal's website is

Publisher: Frontiers in Medical Case Reports
4-73, S. Lingotum, Choutuppal, Hyderabad, Andhrapradesh, India 508252
Weblink: https://www.jmedicalcasereports.org/
Contact Person: K. Shivashanker
Email: shivashankar.fmcr@gmail.com

This Frontiers journal seems to be intertwined with the Archives of Medical and Clinical Research. Both have domains (in this case, jmedicalcasereports.org) registered to "Organization: Ubitech Solutions; Kind: individual; Mailing Address: Madhya Pradesh, India." Both have the same guidelines for authors. Both have mostly the same editors.

The About Us and home pages indicate that this is not a journal to turn to for English language editing. It advises us that its purpose "is to enhance the field by offering new basic and clinical research with highlighting on knowledge that will motivation the way medical treatments are practiced." The About Us also page condemns "ethical malpractices" and has this to say about "Human and Animal Rights":

Contingent upon the idea of the in regards to investigate, manuscripts submitted ... should contain an statement such that the unsettling legitimately restricting ethical guidelines have been met. Authors are needed to check if any of the beneath explanations applies ....
All human investigations should express that they have been affirmed by the ethics committee and have accordingly been acted as per the ethical guidelines set down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki. ...

The email, which does not comply with the US CAN-SPAM Act is written in a similar style.

Email
  • From: fmcr [fmcr@jmedicalreports.com]
    Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2021 11:39 PM
    Subject: Submissions for Medical Case Reports
    Frontiers in Medical Case Reports
    Authors are cordially Invited for article submissions to publish in the upcoming issue of Frontiers in Medical Case Reports Frontiers in Medical Case Reports is a lively and informative journal covering international issues relevant to medical and clinical sciences worldwide.
    The Frontiers in Medical Case Reports is an international standard open access peer-reviewed journal which provides a source for publishing original communications, case reports and case series in all areas of medical and clinical sciences. Frontiers in Medical Case Reports providing a platform for advances in basic and advanced clinical medical research for all branches of Medico Professionals.
    FMCR provides cutting edge updates, developments in the medical arena and helps the medical fraternity to synchronize their knowledge in today's time.
    Submission Guidelines:
    A High-Quality research papers are invited those are original and plagiarism free must be prepared in MS word should be submitted electronically. kindly submit through online at: Submit Now or you can mail your manuscript to our mail at editor@jmedicalcasereports.org
    All submitted manuscript will be peer-reviewed, edited and published in accordance with international standard and best practices.
    Thank you in advance.
    Best regards
    Editorial Office
    Frontiers in Medical Case Reports
    E-mail: editor@jmedicalcasereports.org

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Archives of Medical and Clinical Research is entrenched to create a platform

The Archives of Medical and Clinical Research is another website with no recognizable publisher. Its spam violates the CAN-SPAM Act. The domain name jamcr.net shown in its email is registered to Domains By Proxy. The website's contact page gives no physical address--only a pair of URLs (amcr.editor@gmail.com and editor@jamcr.org). That's better than a fake address, though.

Digging deeper, one can find that the last domain name was created a few months ago (January 11, 2021) and registered to:

Organization: Ubitech Solutions
Kind: individual
Mailing Address: Madhya Pradesh, India

What about the journal itself? It has no ISSN listed. It has no editor-in-chief (or, if it does, it does not reveal who he or she is).

The Author Guidelines appear to be plagiarized. They are practically identical to those on Frontiers in Medical Case Reports, 4-73, S. Lingotum, Choutuppal, Hyderabad, Andhrapradesh, India 508252.  Both start and end as follows (with identical text that I won't bother to reproduce the text sandwiched in between):

Frontiers in Medical Case Reports
Article Format and Guidelines
Frontiers in Medical Case Reports publishes original research articles of outstanding medical importance. We will consider manuscripts of any length; we encourage the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a more limited range of experiments.
...
Article Publication Charges
All articles published in Frontiers in Medical Case Reports are open access and freely available online, immediately upon publication. This is made possible by an article-publication charges (APC) that covers the range of publishing services we provide. This includes provision of online tools for editors and authors, article production and hosting, liaison with abstracting and indexing services, and customer services. The APC, payable when your manuscript is editorially accepted and before publication, is charged to either you, or your funder, institution or employer.
Only authors of accepted articles are charged Article Publication Charges GBP 1200 and the payment process begins after an article has been accepted.
Archives of Medical and Clinical Research

Article Format and Guidelines
Archives of Medical and Clinical Research publishes original research articles of outstanding medical importance. We will consider manuscripts of any length; we encourage the submission of both substantial full-length bodies of work and shorter manuscripts that report novel findings that might be based on a more limited range of experiments.
...
Article Publication Charges
All articles published in Archives of Medical and Clinical Research are open access and freely available online, immediately upon publication. This is made possible by an article-publication charges (APC) that covers the range of publishing services we provide. This includes provision of online tools for editors and authors, article production and hosting, liaison with abstracting and indexing services, and customer services. The APC, payable when your manuscript is editorially accepted and before publication, is charged to either you, or your funder, institution or employer.
Only authors of accepted articles are charged Article Publication Charges GBP 1200 and the payment process begins after an article has been accepted.

This is not to say that either journal is the true author of the posted guidelines. For example, both contain the following paragraph that is part of the instructions for authors in the Association for Psychological Science's journals: "The structure described here applies to all articles other than Commentaries. Note that although Short Reports are published without an abstract, an abstract must be entered during the submission process to facilitate review." [Update, 4/19/21: It also is worth noting that the two journals may well be the handiwork of the same individual.]

The Frontiers journal at least has names for "editor-in-chiefs" [sic], but, for what it is worth, the lists of editors of both journals are dominated by the same names:

Dr. Nikolaos A. Chrysanthakopoulos, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathological Anatomy, Medical School, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Dr. Liang Ye, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, The University of Health and Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA), Texas, USA
Dr. Maria António Castro, Escola Superior de Saúde, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, Portugal
⊘ Dr. Bhavin Sonani, M.D., MsPH,CPE , Associate Lead Hospitalist, Department Chair, Internal Medicine, HSHS Medical Group, St. John’s Hospital, Springfield, IL, USA
⊘ Dr. Shardul Kulkarni, Research Assistant Professor, Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States
Dr. Nikolaos A. Chrysanthakopoulos, Department of Pathological Anatomy, Medical School, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Dr. Liang Ye, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, The University of Health and Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA), Texas, USA
Dr. Maria António Castro, Escola Superior de Saúde, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, Portugal
⊘ Prof. Wei Liu, Professor of Medicine, Director, Institute of Digestive Disease, China Three Gorges University, China
Email
  • From: submissions [submissions@jamcr.net]
    Sent: Tue, Apr 6 at 12:31 PM
    Subject: Archives of Medical and Clinical Research
    Dear Researcher,
    Greetings,
    Archives of Medical and Clinical Research is a peer-reviewed, broad scope open-access journal which publishes original research articles, case reports, review articles, short communications that are not restricted to diagnosis, diseases, outcomes, signs, symptoms, treatment and new findings of researches.
    The journal is entrenched to create a platform for health care professionals, researchers, practitioners of all over the globe to publish the substantial and complete research and significant information about novel findings of diseases or syndromes.
    Authors are cordially invited to submit their next manuscript to publish in the upcoming issue of Archives of Medical and Clinical Research.
    A High-Quality research papers are invited those are original and plagiarism free must be prepared in MS word should be submitted electronically as an attachment on E-mail Id editor@jamcr.org
    Waiting for your valuable submission.
    Regards,
    Editorial Manager
    Archives of Medical and Clinical Research (AMCR)

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Is Frontiers Media a Predatory Publisher?

Frontiers Media (frontiersin.org) is an open access publisher in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded by serious neuroscientists. I looked around to learn what people were saying about it after receiving a request to review a manuscript for Frontiers in Genetics. The associate editor who wrote me as well most of the large board of "chief editors" seem to be published researchers, but I do not know what to make of the journal's claim to have 5,689 editors. Zooming in on the field of "ELSI in Science and Genetics" yielded a list of 131 "associate editors." Frontiers notes the number of articles these editors have written; 27 had no publications of their own (or if they did, Frontiers neglected to mention them).

Naturally, Frontiers claims that all of its 59 journals covering more than 460 specialties conduct transparent and rigorous peer review. It also states that "We publish all papers that are scientifically correct." (Emphasis in webpage). This asservation is hardly transparent. What is a "scientifically correct" paper? One that reports true results? No journal can guarantee that. Does it mean that every article that meets some methodological criteria will be published? What about those that do not meet these criteria? How many of the 65,000 papers published in the profusion of journals are not only incorrect, but reflect poorly conceived or executed research?

Wikipedia lists various controversies about Frontiers articles and resignations of editors. Individuals have complained about the shallowness of the review process (e.g., 1, 2) and allegedly heavy-handed or unscrupulous tactics by Frontiers to shut down Beall's list of predatory journals (e.g., 3, 4). One Frontier editor wrote an interesting description of "How to create a top journal by accepting (almost) everything" (5). 

I do not like to label journals "predatory" on this blog, and some thoughtful, albeit anonymous, comments appear below in defense of Frontiers. Given the nonscientific polling and anecdotal reports that abound (6), however, it seems doubtful that publishing in these journals generally would be regarded as a coup.

Email

Frontiers in Genetics

  • From: Frontiers in Genetics [genetics@frontiersin.com]
    Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 5:26 AM
    Subject: Upcoming editorial opportunity based on your research, Frequentist Methods for Statistical Inference
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    A quick follow-up to my previous emails, offering you the opportunity to guest edit a new article collection with a leading Frontiers journal. Leading an article collection - or Research Topic - with us is a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on the research you care about. As a guest editor you would set the scope for the new collection, then invite other experts in your field to collaborate by joining you as co-editors, or by submitting their own research.
    If you’d like to find out more about what’s involved, please do get in touch. My team and I will be happy to discuss it further with you.
    Best regards,
    Antonella Tesoro,
    Journal Manager
    Frontiers in Genetics has published several Research Topics to date, such as: Genetics Research in Electronic Health Records Linked to DNA Biobanks, edited by Marylyn Ritchie, Mariza De Andrade and Helena Kuivaniemi.
    Impact Factor 3.258 ¦ CiteScore 2.7
    Lausanne | London | Seattle | Beijing
    Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34, 1005 Lausanne Switzerland
    Office T +41 21 510 17 15
    Did we get this communication right? Please click here to give feedback on whether this email was relevant for you.
    Frontiers is committed to providing you with relevant updates in your field. If you do not want to receive any updates from Frontiers, you can unsubscribe by forwarding your request to support@frontiersin.org. If you wish to learn about how we protect personal data, you can read our Privacy Policy available on our website.
  • From: Frontiers in Genetics [genetics@frontiersin.com>]
    Sent: Monday, April 12, 2021 5:24 AM
    Subject: Upcoming editorial opportunity based on your research, Frequentist Methods for Statistical Inference
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    I emailed you last week about the opportunity to guest edit with a leading Frontiers journal.
    Based on your article, Frequentist Methods for Statistical Inference [← which was not an article, but rather a chapter in a book, and which had almost nothing in particular to do with genetics], we would like to work with you to develop a new article collection with us, shining a light on your field of research.
    If you’d like to take up the opportunity, please reply to let us know. My team and I will be back in touch shortly to discuss it further with you and let you know what’s involved.
    Best regards,
    Antonella Tesoro,
    Journal Manager
    Frontiers in Genetics has published several Research Topics to date, such as: Genetics Research in Electronic Health Records Linked to DNA Biobanks, edited by Marylyn Ritchie, Mariza De Andrade and Helena Kuivaniemi.
    Impact Factor 3.258 ¦ CiteScore 2.7
    Lausanne | London | Seattle | Beijing
    Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland
    Office T +41 21 510 17 15
    Did we get this communication right? Please click here to give feedback on whether this email was relevant for you. Frontiers is committed to providing you with relevant updates in your field.
    If you do not want to receive any updates from Frontiers, you can unsubscribe by forwarding your request to support@frontiersin.org. If you wish to learn about how we protect personal data, you can read our Privacy Policy available on our website.

Frontiers in Psychology

  • From: Marcelo Saad (Via FrontiersIn) [noreply@frontiersin.org]
    Date: Thu, Aug 26 at 12:38 PM
    Subject: Invitation to Review a Manuscript
    Dear Dr David H. Kaye ,
    I am writing to ask whether you would be able to review the manuscript "Development of an instrument to assess spirituality: reliability and validation of the Attitudes Related to Spirituality Scale (ARES)", by Camilla Casaletti Braghetta, Clarice Gorenstein, Yuan-Pang Wang, Camila Bertini Martins, Frederico Camelo Leão, Mario Peres, Giancarlo Lucchetti and Homero Vallada, submitted for consideration in Frontiers in Psychology, section Health Psychology.
    Please read below for details concerning the submission and inform us of your interest using the hyperlinks enclosed. In agreeing to review this manuscript, we trust that its subject matter falls within your area of expertise [← I am neither a psychologist nor an expert in developing scales] and that you are available to review the paper within 7 days. [← Are you kidding?]
    Before accepting this invitation, verify whether you have any potential conflicts of interest with the authors, including past collaborations or shared affiliation (see policy at [link deleted] ).
    Please note that should you participate in the review process and endorse publication of the paper, you are agreeing to the disclosure of your name on the published article. You may read below for more information. It is also important that you familiarize yourself with the Frontiers Collaborative Review Guidelines, accessible at ... . Briefly, the Frontiers review mandate is to evaluate the manuscript based on objective criteria, including the validity and rigor of the work.
    To ACCEPT this review invitation, please click on the link below. If you are not registered with Frontiers yet, you will be first asked to register. [link deleted]
    To DECLINE this review invitation, preventing further reminders, please click on the link below: [link deleted]
    Thank you for considering to review this manuscript.
    With best regards,
    Marcelo Saad
    Associate Editor, Frontiers in Psychology
    https://www.frontiersin.org/
    ***
    Frontiers Review Guidelines
    The Frontiers peer-review is a collaborative process with a focus on objective criteria, efficiency and transparency. A review questionnaire is provided in the online review forum to assist you in reviewing the manuscript.
    Reviewers identities are revealed at the end of the review process and you will be acknowledged for your work and contribution on the publication. Please note that you will remain anonymous throughout the entire review process. If irresolvable conflicts arise you may choose to withdraw from the review process and in such case you will remain anonymous. However, if the paper gets accepted for publication and no conflicts arose that led to your withdrawal, your contribution will be acknowledged on the publication.
    The Frontiers review process has unique features, including an interactive review stage, and a focus on objective criteria. To ensure an efficient review process please familiarize yourself with the Frontiers review guidelines: [link deleted]
    Reviewers are obliged to keep all manuscript files confidential and to delete all records after completing the review process. The review reports are also confidential and may only be shared with the authors and the handling editor of the manuscript in the review forum. Posting of the review report publicly is prohibited.
  • From: psychology.topics@frontiersin.com
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    Given the prominence of your research in the field, I wonder if you would be interested in discussing the possibility of editing a collection of articles with Frontiers in Psychology. As one of the newest and most innovative open-access journals, we help researchers to bring together new developments in their field through Frontiers' Research Topics, which are online collections of peer reviewed articles, developed and managed by leading researchers. The editorial team and I would be happy to discuss potential themes, and provide you with additional information about the project. Please let me know if you have any questions
    With an Impact Factor of 2.089, Frontiers in Psychology is the largest and most cited multidisciplinary psychology journal in the world, led by Chief Editor Prof. Axel Cleeremans of the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. We have published several article collections to date, such as: Towards an embodied science of intersubjectivity: Widening the scope of social understanding research, edited by Prof. Ezequiel Di Paolo and Prof. Hanne De Jaegher.
    If you would like to discuss this please let us know!
    Best regards,
    Kirsten Martin
    Research Topic Manager
  • From: Frontiers in Psychology [psychology.topics@frontiersin.com]
    Date: Fri Mar 30 2019 5:11 AM
    Subject: Call for Guest Editor - Frontiers in Psychology
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    I am wondering if you received our earlier email (found below my signature)? I would love to discuss new developments in your field, and whether there would be an opportunity to create an editorial project around this (called Research Topics). In my first email I included links to our journal and examples of Research Topics.
    Please let me know if you would like to discuss this further. I would be happy to send you some more information, or we could schedule a phone call at a time that is convenient for you.
    Best regards,
    Kirsten Martin Research Topic Manager
    Frontiers | Editorial Office - Research Topic Team
    Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34, 1005, Lausanne Vaud Switzerland Office T +41 21 510 17 15
    You have received this message because you have previously been in contact with Frontiers or because, due to your profile and expertise, it was thought likely that it would be of interest to you. ...
  • From: Frontiers in Psychology [psychology.topics@frontiersin.com]
    Date: Apr. 5, 2019 5:13 AM
    Subject: Call for Guest Editor - Frontiers in Psychology
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    I am wondering if you received our earlier email?.
    I would love to discuss new developments in your field, and whether there would be an opportunity to create a special issue around this (called Research Topics).
    I would be happy to provide you with information on how to get started with this project.
    Best regards,
    Kirsten Martin
    Research Topic Manager
    Frontiers | Editorial Office - Research Topic Team
    Frontiers Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34 1005, Lausanne Vaud Switzerland Office T +41 21 510 17 15 Meet the Frontiers Team Frontiers journals lead in citations in their fields and rank in the top Impact Factor percentiles. Read the full analysis here.

Frontiers in Sociology

  • From: Frontiers in Sociology [sociology.topics@frontiersin.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2020 4:20 AM
    Subject: Frontiers in Sociology invites you to guest edit
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    While we all deal with the effects of COVID-19, making science open has never been more essential to global well-being. At Frontiers we’re still working to connect scientists and increase the visibility of their work. I noticed that you’ve collaborated with Prof. Susan Pope on the article "A comment on the PCAST report: Skip the "match"/"non-match" stage.". Prof. Susan Pope also led an editorial project with Frontiers, entitled "The Dialogue Between Forensic Scientists, Statisticians and Lawyers about Complex Scientific Issues for Court". Read more about this project here.
    I’m currently looking for guest editors who:
    • are working on exciting new areas that might benefit from an article collection
    • want to drive the direction of advancements in their field
    • want to collaborate with international peers across disciplines
    • want to make research available to anyone by publishing open access.
    Given your past collaboration and your own research activities I wonder whether you would be interested in discussing the possibilities of working with us on such a project.
    Would you have time next week to discuss this further by phone?
    Best Regards,
    Mirjam Eckert, PHD
    Publishing Director
    Frontiers in Sociology has published several Research Topics including Immigration in the Global Era: Migrants and the People and Laws at Origin and Destination edited by Guillermina Jasso and Moshe Semyonov.
    Frontiers
    www.frontiersin.org
    Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34
    1005, Lausanne Vaud Switzerland
    Office T +41 21 510 17 15
  • From: Frontiers in Sociology [sociology.topics@frontiersin.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 4:29 AM
    Subject: Frontiers in Sociology invites you to guest edit
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    I emailed you previously about an opportunity to guest edit an article collection with Frontiers. Given your past collaborations and research activities I think this could be a suitable project for you. Please let me know if you would like to hear more.
    If you’re unable to be involved at this time, please feel free to suggest a time in the future when this might fit better with your schedule and commitments.
    I look forward to hearing from you.
    Best Regards,
    Mirjam Eckert, PHD
    Publishing Director
    Frontiers
    www.frontiersin.org
    Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34
    1005, Lausanne Vaud Switzerland
    Office T +41 21 510 17 15
  • From: Frontiers in Sociology [sociology.topics@frontiersin.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2020 4:27 AM
    Subject: Frontiers in Sociology invites you to guest edit
    Dear Dr. Kaye,
    I emailed you last week about the opportunity to guest edit an article collection with Frontiers. Given your past collaborations and research activities I think this could be a suitable project for you. Have you had a chance to consider this?
    If you have any questions, I’m happy to send you more information about what’s involved, or to discuss it further by phone. Would you be interested in setting up a call?
    I look forward to hearing from you.
    Best Regards,
    Mirjam Eckert, PHD
    Publishing Director
    Frontiers
    www.frontiersin.org
    Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34
    1005, Lausanne Vaud Switzerland
    Office T +41 21 510 17 15