As anyone who has heard me speak about predatory publishing knows, there are non-predatory journals that fall into a grey area of quality. They abuse “overproduction” of articles by excessive promotion of special issues or pressure on editors to attract and accept more articles. In particular, newer open access publishers including Hindawi, MDPI, and Frontiers were called out for these practices. Hindawi, which Wiley purchased, ultimately was dissolved as a brand and four of its journals ceased publication. More pertinent to City Tech faculty, an article in the Wall Street Journal on March 13 discusses how several of the big five scholarly publishers, specifically Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer Nature, are in an “arms race” to publish more and more papers. Editors are very unhappy, of course.
