The strain on scientific publishing

2023/09/27 by Mark A. Hanson, Pablo Gómez Barreiro, Paolo Crosetto +1 · 47 voices · 46 citations
Social Sciences · Decision Sciences · Medicine · #Conferences and Exhibitions Management #Academic Publishing and Open Access #Health and Medical Research Impacts

paper · pdf · doi:10.1162/qss_a_00327

Abstract

Abstract Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. The total number of articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science has grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was ∼47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth—if any—in the number of practicing scientists. Thus, publication workload per scientist has increased dramatically. We define this problem as “the strain on scientific publishing.” To analyze this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviors. We draw these data from web scrapes, and from publishers through their websites or upon request. Specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by hosting “special issues” with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to “publish or perish” to compete for funding, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles. We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.

Citations

• The oligopoly’s shift to open access: How the big five academic publishers profit from article processing charges

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Discussions

• The strain on scientific publishing 📄: We've got issues. Scientists overwhelmed, editors overworked, constant special issue invites, mass article retractions, journal delistings… JUST WHAT IS GOING [bsky, 368 points, 16 comments]
• Thanks @hansonmark.bsky.social, now we have to start monitoring for “love“ as a source of publications. arxiv.org/pdf/2309.15884 [bsky, 45 points, 2 comments]
• A reason for the peer review crisis. Articles published grew by 50% since 2016, "which has outpaced the limited growth, if any, in the number of practising scientists. Thus, publication workload per [bsky, 35 points, 3 comments]
• If the amount of publications is the metric of success we'll see the priority given to amount of papers, decrease of quality, retractions, and predatory publishing that feeds on this. Funding and rese [bsky, 18 points, 2 comments]
• 📚 Special issues everywhere, shorter turnarounds, inflated metrics—academic publishing is in overdrive! But at what cost is this paper churning happening? This paper from @hansonmark.bsky.social and [bsky, 17 points, 1 comments]
• We should stop rewarding quantity of publications. arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 17 points, 2 comments]
• “The strain on scientific publishing” el trabajo en el que Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto, Pablo Gómez Barreiro & Mark Hanson ponen datos a lo que muchos pensábamos, sospechábamos, intuíamos, ya está [bsky, 13 points, 2 comments]
• The strain on scientific publishing: “in 2022 the article total was 47% higher than in 2016. Thus, publication workload per scientist (writing, reviewing, editing) has increased dramatically. We defin [bsky, 13 points, 1 comments]
• Total scientific articles indexed have grown 47% since 2016, with submissions, journals, & special issues increasing & more time spent on writing & reviewing arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 12 points, 0 comments]
• The strain on scientific publishing In 2022 the number of articles is 47% higher than in 2016. The amount of writing, reviewing and editing workload per scientist is increased enormously. arxiv.org [bsky, 8 points, 2 comments]
• Interesting analysis on publication strain and impact inflation. Impact factor getting gamed by everyone including publishers formost of course arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 8 points, 2 comments]
• "Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published [...] in 2022 the article total was 47% higher than in 2016" 🤯 arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 I agree with Uta Frith, we n [bsky, 8 points, 1 comments]
• Publishers like #MDPI, #Frontiers, #Hindawi drive much of paper's growth through "special issues" with faster review times, raising concerns about quality. Mark A. Hanson & Ko propose 5 metrics to ana [bsky, 8 points, 0 comments]
• Together with @hansonmark.bsky.social @pagomba.bsky.social and Dan Brockington we have a new preprint out with updated data on 5 key publisher metrics, including special issue and turnaround times, fo [bsky, 7 points, 1 comments]
• On the 7th day before break, the OA community gave to us: Landmark research into the state of academic publishing. @hansonmark.bsky.social & team produced two papers: 'The Strain/Drain on Scientific P [bsky, 7 points, 1 comments]
• Another very intresting reading for your sunday! "The strain on scientific publishing" ! For editors out there, only figure 1A is... wow... firghtening for the least. The rest of the paper also... a [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
• Link to the paper: arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 Link to the original source from "x": x.com/Andrew_Akbas... Link to the criticism of #overpublishing: www.nature.com/articles/s41... [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]
• The patterns leave no doubt that @mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social and @frontiersin.bsky.social are predatory publishers. Quantitative Science Studies (2024) 5 (4): 823–843. @mitpress.bsky.social doi.org [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]
• "Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published ... in 2022 the article total was ∼47% higher than in 2016." doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Looking forward to reading thi [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
• The strain of scientific publishing arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 Very interesting article on #scientificpublishing [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
• arxiv.org/pdf/2309.158... Tässä mielenkiintoinen tutkimusartikkeli. Täytyy kyllä lukea ajatuksella vielä uudestaan. Haittaako julkaisumäärän kasvu jo tutkimuksen tekemistä? 1/ [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
• If you want a proper comparison of MDPI vs other publishers (including almost as fishy Hindawi and Frontiers) @paolocrosetto.bsky.social and co-authors recently did it arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
• Inflation of the number of scientific publications substantially driven by special issues in for-profit open-access journals: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... h/t: www.economist.com/science-and-... [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
• Here is the paper arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
• What personally bugs me as a researcher is how those two harness special issues. As a reviewer, I have terrible exp with special issues - my comments are almost always entirely ignored, editors don't [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
• Also I just realized that @paolocrosetto.bsky.social also did the very good recent study of how science is being flooded by more lower-quality papers. They show how incentives under pay-to-publish ha [bsky, 3 points, 2 comments]
• Hola! El próximo lunes 24 de noviembre a las 16h tenemos una nueva reunión🥳. Discutiremos acerca del sistema de publicaciones con el artículo de Hanson et al. (2024) - The strain on scientific publis [bsky, 3 points, 0 comments]
• Politique scientifique: finit-on par écrire des articles que personne ne lit? Parmi les multiples effets pervers du "Publish or Perish", il y a l'inflation des publications: + 50% entre 2016 et 2022 [bsky, 3 points, 0 comments]
• I always hated MDPI, but here is the best validation: arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 NEVER publish there (except if it is the actual reason why you publish there ;) ) [bsky, 3 points, 3 comments]
• The Strain on Scientific Publishing [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
• Let's make it 2414 doi.org/10.1162/qss_... [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• useful analysis of state of publishing. In last weeks, I received special issue invites, an invite to edit special issue from MDPI journals & of course several others from random publishers. did not r [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• The strain on scientific publishing arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• And, today I found this pre-print that shows @MDPIOpenAccess & @FrontiersIn are driving exponential growth in published papers mostly with "special issues" that are not at all special... https://arxi [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• Simple (partial) solutions exist, e.g., twitter.com/sbuhai/statu... (cf also rest of that thread). As long as current scientific incentives aren't rethought, many will continue to 'publish faster than [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• Ce qui m'interroge, c'est le paragraphe sur la durée d'évaluation, présentée comme positive dans l'article du Monde, et ce n'est pas -- à ma lecture -- l'idée de l'article original ? doi.org/10.1162 [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
• Could the folks at ASM let us know where ASM journals map onto this chart of Impact Factor Inflation? From "The strain on scientific publishing" doi.org/10.1162/qss_... @asmicrobiology.bsky.social # [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• What's gone wrong with science publishing in the last decade, starkly and with data. Proliferation of meaningless papers, meaningless citations, endless 'special issues' ... arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• 2024. The strain on scientific publishing [mdpi again, and others] arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• @paolocrosetto and Dan have spent the last few months investigating just that. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 A thread🧵1/n #AcademicChatter #PublishOrPerish #Elsevier #Springer #MDPI #Wiley #Fro [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]
• arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• "Researchers highlight that, from submission to acceptance, one cannot properly peer-review most complex scientific papers in 37 days." Wait, why not??? Except for the weird but common model in whic [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• Some striking figures in this new preprint by Hanson et al. (arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884) on the exponential rise in academic publishing. Rise of special issues: [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]
• More and more published papers with a stagnating number of scientists. The Rat Race that scientific publishing (and science itself) has become in numbers. arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 #AcademicTwitter [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• Pay Attention Here: The Strain on Scientific Publishing. arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884 This is a worthwhile preprint (keeping in mind all caveats associated with it being a preprint). Funders might want to [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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