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#mdpi

1 post1 participant0 posts today
Public
Serhii Nazarovets

MDPI as a corruption indicator? A new preprint shows a striking trend across Europe 🇪🇺: more MDPI papers → higher perceived corruption → lower innovation.

👉 arxiv.org/abs/2411.06282v1

It’s not that MDPI = bad. But when it dominates, it signals a broken system chasing quantity over quality.

Ukraine? 🇺🇦 Not in the study, but we see the same rise of #MDPI. We could build better. Instead, we copy the worst.

Publications ratio at country level. ρ for 2022 for countries with universities ranked in CWTS Leiden Open Ranking. The thick horizontal line corresponds to the minimum of the two-gaussian mixture fit. The dotted lines are the means μ1 and μ2 of the fitted two gaussians and the shaded bands are the corresponding widths σ1 and σ2 of the distributions. Two scholarly publishing cultures? Open access drives a divergence in European academic publishing practices https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.06282v1
#AcademicPublishing#SciencePolicy#ResearchAssessment
Replied in thread
Public
Yogi Jaeger

@tg9541

I'd call Levin "one of the worst.". Master-bullshitter. A sign of the times: even in science, it is mainly shamelessness that will get you noted and promoted these days.

And he *will* get this published, even if it's in one of these shitty #MDPI spam journals he likes so much.

There is system behind this apparent madness. And it works like a charm in these deluded times. People crave a optimist "visionary."

Steve Bannon, on the other hand, calls it "flooding the zone with shit."

Public
Serhii Nazarovets

Ukrainian universities are racing up the #QS Rankings, but at what cost? 📊 More papers, less quality, and a science system stuck in a loop of self-citations and #MDPI binge-publishing:

👉 doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-051

#Rankings turn means into ends: publishing is no longer about advancing knowledge but climbing charts. Ukrainian universities show how chasing #metrics can derail true academic impact. Can we 🇺🇦 rethink the system before it’s too late?

Hladchenko, M. Ukrainian universities in QS World University Rankings: when the means become ends. Scientometrics (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05165-2
#journals#university#scientometrics
Public
Giacomo /ˈd͡ʒaːkomo/ Bergami

💣💣 Call for Papers for IDEAS 2025.
🗺️ Location: School of Computing at Newcastle University
📅 When: 14ᵗʰ - 16ᵗʰ of July, 2025

📌 Submission Deadline: 15ᵗʰ of May, 2025
🔔 Notification of Acceptance: 13ᵗʰ of June, 2025

The annual IDEAS conference is a top international forum for data engineering researchers, practitioners, developers, and application users to explore revolutionary ideas and results and exchange techniques, tools, and experiences. We invite the participation of all interested in this event, which provides insight into original research contributions relating to all aspects of defined broadly, and particularly topics of emerging interest describing work on integrating new into and , on experiences with existing and novel techniques, and on the identification of unsolved .

For the time being, we will have the honour of presenting an invited talk by Jim Webber from Neo4j, and we will also have an session organized by Laura Heels, so do not miss this! I will update you all via my social media for new exciting updates.

More information concerning the CfP can be found on the Conference Website: lnkd.in/dEFJ8dGZ. We are also welcoming Sponsoring Opportunities for companies, for which do not hesitate to contact me (more information on: lnkd.in/dPbu7H27)

Selected papers will be invited to an Information Special Issue (lnkd.in/dXrM-zhE).

So, what are you waiting for? Plan ahead for your next paper. I hope to see you all soon in Newcastle!!!

The 29th International Database Engineered Application Symposium A photo of Newcastle City Center over the river Tyne at sunset, showing some of the buildings. 14th - 16th of July 2025 Newcastle Upon Tyne https://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/ideas2025/
#databases#bigdata#datamining
Replied in thread
Public
Jochen Lingelbach

@deevybee
Oh wow! Thanks for this.

"Finland had downgraded its classification of 187 MDPI journals because of evidence of "minimum time spend for editorial work and quality assessment", at the same time that German universities had secured a national publishing agreement with MDPI"

Why did German universities deal with #MDPI ? I thought its obviously #predatory and not be given anything

Replied in thread
Public
Eric R. Scott

@babelcarp Yeah, they're a really shady publisher, although that doesn't necessarily mean everything they publish is junk. I have personal bad experience as a reviewer for #MDPI. It was a paper on cold stress in tea and they used Anji Bai Cha, which as you probably know, is a cold temperature "albino" cultivar. I commented that the authors should limit the scope of their conclusions since that is such an odd cultivar and they responded by *removing all mention of what cultivar they used*

Public
Eric R. Scott

I hate that this is in an #MDPI journal, but I'm still excited to read this! Moving to the top of my pile of #tea papers to read: mdpi.com/2075-1729/15/1/133

MDPIRedefining the Tea Green Leafhopper: Empoasca onukii Matsuda (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) as a Vital Asset in Premium Tea ProductionThis review explores the evolving role of the tea green leafhopper, Empoasca onukii, in the tea industry, transitioning from a recognized pest to a significant enhancer of tea quality. Recent research highlights how its feeding behavior stimulates the production of desirable secondary metabolites, thereby improving the flavor profiles and market value of premium teas, particularly varieties like Taiwan’s “Oriental Beauty”. As consumer demand for unique and artisanal teas rises, the economic benefits associated with E. onukii are becoming increasingly evident, prompting farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices that often involve reduced pesticide use. Furthermore, the dynamic interplay between climatic factors, E. onukii population dynamics, and tea cultivation practices necessitates integrated pest management strategies that balance the beneficial and detrimental impacts of this leafhopper. Understanding these complexities not only fosters sustainable production methods but also opens niche markets, benefiting local economies and promoting both economic viability and environmental sustainability in the tea industry.
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petersuber

I just got two pieces of #spam in one week from _Medical Sciences_, an #MDPI journal. The first invited me to submit an article and offered me a discount on its #APC. The second nagged me for not responding to the first.

I'm not a medical researcher. My fields are philosophy, law, and open access. This is easy to discover in a simple web search.

If this medical journal knows my fields, then why is it soliciting an article from me? If it doesn't know my fields, then why is it soliciting an article from me?

Does it realize that its emails prove that it's spamming researchers at random without knowing the first thing about them?

I'm sure you get this kind of spam too. When you find time, I urge you to post about it and name names.

I don't do this often enough. Here are two earlier examples.
* July 2017
web.archive.org/web/2018080114
* June 2018
web.archive.org/web/2018080114

web.archive.orgA new journal in fluid mechanics is putting together its inaugural issue, and...A new journal in fluid mechanics is putting together its inaugural issue, and asked "some illustrious people like [me]" to submit an article. My fields ... - Peter Suber - Google+
Continued thread
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Universitätsbibliothek TUHH

“You reap what you sow. On average, publications from #MDPI may be less complex, but there is also a lot of nonsense from the other publishers (#Elsevier, #Wiley, #Springer, etc.) MDPI is unbeatably fast. When you consider that feedback from other publishers sometimes takes over 12 months (not because there are so many iterations, but because there is no feedback) and we are constantly forced to publish quickly […], MDPI simply takes advantage of the system we have created.”

Public *
Matthias Schröter

An interesting study on the percentage of Eurpean #openacccess publications in #MDPI journals. There are significant differences between counties and a clear correlation with the rank of the University.

arxiv.org/abs/2411.06282

arXiv logo
arXiv.orgTwo scholarly publishing cultures? Open access drives a divergence in European academic publishing practicesThe current system of scholarly publishing is often criticized for being slow, expensive, and not transparent. The rise of open access publishing as part of open science tenets, promoting transparency and collaboration, together with calls for research assesment reforms are the results of these criticisms. The emergence of new open access publishers presents a unique opportunity to empirically test how universities and countries respond to shifts in the academic publishing landscape. These new actors challenge traditional publishing models, offering faster review times and broader accessibility, which could influence strategic publishing decisions. Our findings reveal a clear division in European publishing practices, with countries clustering into two groups distinguished by the ratio of publications in new open access journals with accelerated review times versus legacy journals. This divide underscores a broader shift in academic culture, highlighting new open access publishing venues as a strategic factor influencing national and institutional publishing practices, with significant implications for research accessibility and collaboration across Europe.
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