The second largest journal in the world just lost its impact factor
An insightful analysis by Paolo Crosetto.
“Web of Science just removed the MDPI flagship journal International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) from their lists. This means IJERPH has no more an Impact Factor.
Why is this big? What are the implications?
First, the facts. WoS announced several de-listings with the aim of keeping the publishing sector clean. IJERPH loses its IF alongside ~50 other journals. This impacts nearly all publishers, from Elsevier to Hindawi.
IJERPH published 17,085 articles in 2022. This is 13 times as many as 2016, when it published 1,318. Average turnaround time from submission to acceptance, including revisions, is 41.5 days, 36% down from 62 in 2016. Rejection rate is 45%, down from 57% in 2016.
The journal is (was?) still growing exponentially, with 4k+ articles already published in 2023. IJERPH also has 3,099 (!) open special issues for 2023, more than 8 per day, up from 754 SIs closed in 2023. These are enormous numbers, making IJERPH one of the largest open-access mega-journals in the world.
So now you know why this is BIG news.
But why does this matter?
First, it matters for MDPI. Mega journals aren't usually chosen for their editorial rigor (>50% accept in ~1 month with revisions) but because they give you a reputation badge that says "high IF". That's gone. It usually spells doom for the journal.
Second, you might think that IJERPH is special in some respect to have been de-listed. But you'd be wrong. Most mega-journals share a similar model: decent IF, explosive growth, low & decreasing rejection rates, fast & decreasing turnaround. Most MDPI journals are the same.
This plot focuses on MDPI special issues, but a similar plot could be made for others. Publishers got away with:
- exponential growth in papers
- lighting fast peer review times
- low and decreasing rejection rates
All this under the cover of an IF. That cover is gone.
So while a handful of journals got de-listed, most other journals follow very, very similar patterns. If the flagship sinks, then it might be a sign that the whole business model is shaking. Might be time to jump ship.
But why does it matter for scientists?
Colleagues constrained by the publish and perish mode were feeding these mega-journals. The system asks me to publish lots of papers with high IF, and these journals happen to conveniently provide me just that -- for a few thousand bucks.
So OA mega journals offer you a 50%+ chance of a high IF publication in under a month. Add that to your CV, boom. If it sounds like it's too good to be true, it's because it is. Publishers baited us, and we happily went for it -- spending millions in APCs in the process.
De-listing such big a journal is clearly a sign. And the sign says this: you do get a high IF, dead easy publication to add to your CV. But it might be worth nothing a few years down the line, when people stop believing in magic.
On a side note, I hate to say that I told you so, but I told you so. Two years ago I ran an analysis of MDPI that predicted that MDPIs trajectory would worsen over time, bringing the whole castle down.
Well, here we are. You can fool some people sometimes, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. And when you open 56k special issues in a year, there cannot possibly be that many good (or even decent) papers out there.
At WoS they started noticing, and went for the biggest fish first. This decision might be reversed, it is being challenged.
This is not the end of the story. But all pyramid schemes unravel eventually, all bubbles burst.
It's the beginning of the end.”
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