How to Fight Fraudulent Publishing

There’s a short article on arXiv with the title How to Fight Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences: Joint Recommendations of the IMU and the ICIAM which is well worth reading. The abstract is not useful but the prelude reads:

Prelude. In November 2023, Clarivate announced that it had excluded the entire field of mathematics from the latest edition of its influential list of ‘highly cited researchers’. This prompted the IMU and the ICIAM to conduct a more thorough investigation into the problem of fraudulent publishing in the mathematical sciences (see [1]). Understanding the problem is one thing; finding a way out and regaining control is another. With the recommendations given below, we would like to start the discussion on how, as a global community, we can achieve this. We are all concerned. It affects the very core of the science we love so much. I.A.

arXiv:2509.09877

The paper correctly identifies predatory journals and citation cartels as two consequences of the effort to quantify and rank the quality of research through scientific ‘performance indicators’, in the form of bibliometric measures and suggests some possible remedies.

Many of the recommendations are already included in the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (SFDORA). Many also apply beyond the mathematical sciences (which is why I dropped the Mathematical Sciences bit in the title of the paper from the title of this blog post) and it’s not a long paper so I suggest you read it.

In my view one of the most important steps to take is to ditch the reliance on such companies as Scopus and Clarivate, who have deliberately constructed a system that is so easy to game. All higher education institutes should follow the examples of the Sorbonne University in Paris and, more recently, Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The academic publishing racket is inherently fraudulent. Too many universities, and indeed researchers employed by them, are willing participants in the system.

#arXiv250909877 #CitationCartels #Clarivate #DORA #PredatoryPublishers #SanFranciscoDeclarationOnResearchAssessment #SCOPUS #SFDORA

2 @DGIInfo Workshops zu:

🔹 #LibraryAssessment + #Bibliometrie
24. Sept. & 8. Okt., 09:30–13:00 Uhr
- Strategische Steuerung
- Analyse Publikations- u. Nutzungsdaten
- evidenzbasierte Planung + Evaluation von Bibliotheksdienstleistungen
https://t1p.de/nwshz

🔹 Quantitative Auswertung von #Daten
1. & 15. Okt. 2025, 09:30–13:00 Uhr
- Prakt. Arbeit mit Publikationsdaten in #Excel (#WoS, #Scopus)
- Lösungen für typische bibliotheksspezifische Fragestellungen.
https://t1p.de/en3we

Alternatives to Scopus

Yesterday I had a very interesting meeting with the Library Staff who are working behind the scenes on the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Most of the meeting was about reviewing the finances of the journal, so I had a look at the official accounts. These confirmed that the total cost incurred is under $30 per paper. The financial year here at Maynooth runs from October 1st to September 30th – don’t ask me why – so this year is not yet complete but will be just over $5000 dollars. We will have published about 180 papers in that period.

People ask me how the journal can be so inexpensive, and the answer is that we keep publishing costs to a minimum by offering a “no frills” service, and also because our editors and referees are all unpaid.

Anyway, in the course of the meeting I mentioned Scopus (which is owned by publishing behemoth Elsevier). This is used by many universities and funding agencies as a source of bibliometric information, but my experience is that it is unreliable and poorly managed. I thought I would share a few other, better, bibliometric databases here.

We have for some time being indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and in fact our articles’ metadata are automatically deposited there every time we publish a paper. This however only covers fully Open Access journals which excludes some journals.

The go-to repository for astrophysicists is the NASA Astrophysics Data System, known to its friends as ADS. This has very complete bibliographic information going back over 100 years, as well as links to catalogues and other supplementary information. It’s also fairly complete for general physics.

Scopus being so awful I was pleased to find a system which is more general than NASA/ADS but with wider coverage. OpenAlex fits the bill rather well. It’s not quite complete but far better than Scopus. Articles from the Open Journal of Astrophysics are index there, and the information is almost as complete as NASA/ADS.

One candidate is Scimago. This is largely concerned with the (in my opinion) pointless task of journal rankings, but the Open Journal of Astrophysics is listed there. Again the information is not totally complete, but it’s not bad.

One thing I’ve learned over the last few years is that if you want to compare the impact of journals or individual articles it’s absolutely essential to use the same source of information because there is a huge variation between databases. When I look at astrophysics articles I always use NASA/ADS, but in other fields you could use OpenAlex or Scimago. There are no circumstances that justify the use of Scopus, even if your boss tells you to…

#DOAJ #NASAADS #NASASAOAstrophysicsDataSystem #OpenAlex #Scimago #SCOPUS

🆕 Congratulations to Práticas da História on its 10th anniversary! 🥳

👉 It's been 10 years since the publication of the first issue of the Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past and we are happy with a few accomplishments: https://ihc.fcsh.unl.pt/en/pdh-10years/

@histodons
@histodon

#Histodons #TheoryOfHistory #Historiography #UsesOfThePast #OpenAccess #Scopus #ErihPlus #OpenScience #TeoriaDaHistória #Historiografia #UsosDoPassado #AcessoAberto #CiênciaAberta #CiênciaPT #História #History

Ever wondered why no #bibliometrics lit on #German #legal #scholarship exists? Our new SSRN paper (@mpilhlt Research Paper Series 2025-10, with D. Fejzo, C. Rimmert) shows: we don't have the data. #webofscience and #scopus don't cut it, only #openalex is somewhat useful.

https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5350481

#OpenAlex https://openalex.org/
Interesting open-access alternative to scientific literature databases like #WebOfScience and #Scopus

#Science #OpenAccess #AcademicPublishing

From: @tub
https://openbiblio.social/@tub@openbiblio.social/114559706766379637

Googlen könnt ihr. ✔️ Für die systematische Suchen sind #Datenbanken dann die nächste Challenge. #WebofScience und #scopus sind hierfür wichtige Angebote von Verlagen, die wir für euch finanzieren.

Aber es gibt auch eine freie Alternative. Florian stellt euch #OpenAlex vor. Wir sind gespannt auf eure Erfahrungen.

https://www.tub.tuhh.de/tubtorials/2025/05/20/was-ist-openalex-und-wie-kann-man-es-fuer-die-recherche-nutzen/

Retraction Watch: Scopus indexed a journal with a fake editorial board and a sham archive. “Scopus indexed Science of Law in July 2024. According to its profile in the database, the journal is published by the ‘Editorial Team of SoL.’ However, ‘the editorial team’ and many members of the editorial board are fake names and that such individuals do not actually exist.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/05/18/retraction-watch-scopus-indexed-a-journal-with-a-fake-editorial-board-and-a-sham-archive/