This is a catastrophe. While Finland has downgraded the MDPI and Frontiers journals to level 0 (meaning these publications are not recognized for research evaluation purposes), Germany has signed an agreement to promote publications in MDPI journals. - ThreadSky

abalkina.bsky.social • 136 days ago

This is a catastrophe. While Finland has downgraded the MDPI and Frontiers journals to level 0 (meaning these publications are not recognized for research evaluation purposes), Germany has signed an agreement to promote publications in MDPI journals.

Reposted from Graham Kendall

Over 100 German Universities Partner with #MDPI in New National Agreement

Comments

robinnkok.bsky.social•136 days ago

Let's sit back and admire the irony of ZB MED's own link to tips on why predatory publishing is problematic:

https://www.publisso.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Downloads/Flyer/PUBLISSO-Flyer_Predatory_Publishing_2021.pdf

cowboycatranch.org•136 days ago

Absurd!!!

mkarhulahti.bsky.social•136 days ago

Would be curious to learn how these decision-making processes happen in Germany. After MDPI downfall, I guess they offered a very low-price deal to re-build public trust & counter more upcoming bans. And a small group of ppl w incentives & power took the bait (could be wrong, happy to be corrected)

abalkina.bsky.social•136 days ago

There is a DFG (grant organization) principle on research integrity that a paper should evaluated by its quality but not the journal where it is published. So there is no list of recommended journals in Germany. MDPI offered several options, one of which is 30% discount on APCs.

mkarhulahti.bsky.social•136 days ago

Finland also has the same rule, ie journal rankings only apply to institutional evaluation (not individuals). In lack of such ranking, I'm guessing Germany uses other proxies like IF or commercial indexes --if so, MDPI is a fine partner as their metrics are well gamed

abalkina.bsky.social•136 days ago

@zbmed.bsky.social

fishy270.bsky.social•136 days ago

Wait wtf? When did Finland degrade them and why?

polecopub.bsky.social•135 days ago

Finland has a National List, which aims at putting journals (and books publishers if I correctly remember) with a 1 and 2 level. It is used in each to dispatch money between unis. based on production and authors shares (this is called the Norwegian System). At one point, they invented the ZERO levl.

polecopub.bsky.social•135 days ago

So a panel (re)classifies everyyear not all journals, but the ones in which finnish authors have published... and in recent years they more are more put MDPI, Hindawi, Frontiers journals (on a case by case process) into the new cateogory. Of course, the ZERO level counts for nothing.

fishy270.bsky.social•135 days ago

So less researchers end up publishing on predatory journals I guess

polecopub.bsky.social•135 days ago

The aim of the Norwegian system wass to build a mechanism that does not favor "pure production" and to have a community-controlled ranking. And it works according to that, considering the literature, but they had to build this ZERO level to face the MDPI/Frontiers/Hindawi expansion.

hannu-nykanen.bsky.social•134 days ago

There is 4 levels. These 0 level journals are not counted when money is shared betveen University units based on ranking and numbers of publications. In this zero catecory are also publications with no review practise. List of journals and their ranking levels can be found from https://julkaisufoorumi.fi

peterwoelert.bsky.social•136 days ago

Bizarre. Btw, who specifically is ZB Med - it seems they are focusing on life sciences? Does this mean this agreement 'only' covers the life sciences?

adrianh.bsky.social•136 days ago

What a joke

thatsregrettab1.bsky.social•136 days ago

🙀

titzlab.bsky.social•136 days ago

I tried to find out which universities are part of that deal. Impossible on both mdpi and zk websites... So I am wondering who that really is...🤔 hopefully not my employers

bobohara.bsky.social•135 days ago

Isn’t this just one institution in Germany that has signed? I can’t see that this means anyone else is involved, certainly no mandate from the DfG, Helmholtz, Leibniz etc

abalkina.bsky.social•135 days ago

and I just found theat ZB MED is a part of the working group to sign national DEAL agreements.

abalkina.bsky.social•135 days ago

Indeed, it is different from DEAL agreements with Springer, Elsevier and Wiley, which are supported by DFG and German Library Association.

nicolasgaltier.bsky.social•136 days ago

Ironically, the post mentions “promoting open research”, while the proportion of MDPI eco-evo articles sharing data or code is <10% - by far the worst among major publishers.

nicolasgaltier.bsky.social•136 days ago

Incredible