Timeline for Is MDPI a reputable Academic Publisher?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 8, 2023 at 4:31 | history | edited | Allure | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Apr 21, 2023 at 7:08 | comment | added | Allure | @JochenGlueck I knew I read it somewhere, and I finally found where. See link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5. "As might be expected, shorter peer review processes and those of accepted papers are rated more positively by authors". | |
| Apr 2, 2023 at 10:09 | comment | added | Jochen Glueck | @Allure: Please beware of selection bias. The title of Figure 4 is "Factors that motivated researchers to publish in MDPI journals". | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 23:36 | comment | added | Allure | @JochenGlueck yes, but you are likely in the minority. See Fig 4 of link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-022-04586-1, and also the variety of questions about how to get fast peer review here on Acedmia.SE (e.g. academia.stackexchange.com/questions/133040/…) | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 23:35 | comment | added | Prof. Santa Claus | Good job and thanks for the write-up. It seems MDPI would like to do a good job but mired by incompetent reviewers or editors. This happens in big journals such as IEEE Access as well, where many editors have never published a good article. Unfortunately, it's them or nobody. This is the same for reviewers, where many reviewers say yes because they want the 'experience' as opposed to being an expert. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 15:33 | comment | added | Jochen Glueck | @Allure: Whether saving a certain percentage is substantial does not only depend on the percentage but also on whether this saving is relevant to the person who's time is saved. If the people who's time you save (i.e. the authors) don't care for the saving, then the saving is not significant, no matter how large the percentage is. Now it might happen that some authors do care about reducing the submission-to-publication time by four days, and for those the saving would be significant. I personally couldn't care less about four days, though, which explains why I consider it insignificant. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:36 | comment | added | Allure | @JochenGlueck I was referring to saving 4 days on the processing time, which is measured in days, not months/years. The median time from submission to publication across all MDPI journals is about 40 days (as per source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-022-04586-1), so 4 days is a substantial saving. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:34 | comment | added | Allure | @FedericoPoloni that I don't know. It was actually one of the first things I asked one of my math colleagues. He said people who review for MDPI are used to it. I also talked to a scientific officer (one of the PhD holders who do repair work every time something goes wrong). She said the standard review time can be adjusted if the editor-in-chief says it's standard for the field. I don't know why it wasn't applied to all the math journals. For the journals in my field (astrophysics), based on the reviews I've seen directly, there's no noticeable decrease in review quality. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:30 | comment | added | Jochen Glueck | @Allure: Thanks for your replies! I appreciate the information that you provide and the open way in which you communicate about it. The reason why the "four days" paragraph appears sarcastic to me is that I have a hard time seeing how four days could be a "substantial" time saving. Most of my papers (in mathematics) have a history of several years before I even submit them. Therefore, I find a difference of four days completely insubstantial. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:15 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | If I understand correctly, the paper you link as a reference shows that reducing review time from 6 weeks to 4 weeks does not significantly change the quality of the review. However, I am not sure that this generalizes to more significant cuts, such as cutting down the time to 10-15 days in a field such as mathematics, where the standard review time is 60-90 days. As usual, extrapolation needs some care. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:05 | comment | added | Allure | To give an idea of how much work we do, the process goes something like start with 5 reviewers, then add 3 every day until there are sufficient reviewers who've agreed to do it. Average number of reviewers invited is about 15 per paper. The EBM might propose or veto 2-5 of these, although it does happen that come decision time, they might say "this reviewer isn't as expert as the other two, so we'll follow the others' recommendation instead". | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:03 | comment | added | Allure | @JochenGlueck "Does this mean reviewers for MDPI journals are selected by staff of the publisher rather than by editorial board members who work in research?" Yes. I described this in the other answer and it's also given here: mdpi.com/editorial_process. The editorial board member can propose reviewers and/or mark reviewers as unsuitable; however the journal staff are looking at the journal every day while the EBM usually does not, so most reviewers are still identified & invited by the journal staff. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 14:01 | comment | added | Allure | @JochenGlueck is really what you intended to write? Yes. It'd be troubling if we weren't so accurate at predicting what the decision will be. As I wrote, I've yet to see the prediction turn out to be wrong. I added the edit to this answer I wrote previously after seeing it in action: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/153925/…. Because we read the reviews, it's also possible to tell when we can't predict the decision and therefore wait for the EBM to respond. | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 13:31 | comment | added | Jochen Glueck | [...] (ii) Could you double-check if "the time saving from these techniques can be substantial. I just saved four days on one of my papers this way" is really what you intended to write? Currently this reads like a sarcastic joke rather than a serious statement. In any case, I upvoted the answer since I find it interesting to get an inside perspective. (For the record I'll also note, though, that your section on "time savings" suffices to harden my position never to submit to or to review for an MDPI journal - and this does not even take the other problems that you mention into account.) | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 13:30 | comment | added | Jochen Glueck | Could you consider clarifying the following two points? (i) You wrote that you recently joined MDPI, which I assume means that you're working as a (full-time?) employee for the company. But later in the answer you describe how you search for reviewers. Does this mean reviewers for MDPI journals are selected by staff of the publisher rather than by editorial board members who work in research? [...] | |
| Apr 1, 2023 at 12:18 | history | answered | Allure | CC BY-SA 4.0 |