Frontiers in... journal series: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:36, 15 March 2018

Revision as of 04:05, 15 March 2018

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'''''Frontiers in...''''' is a series of [[open-access]] [[academic journal]] published by [[Frontiers Media]] since 2007. The series uses [[open peer review]], where the names of reviewers of accepted articles are made public.

The first journal published was ''Frontiers in Neuroscience'', which opened for submission as a [[beta release#Beta|beta version]] in 2007, and for official submissions in January 2008.<ref>{{cite web|title=About Frontiers|url=https://www.frontiersin.org/about/history|publisher=Frontiers Media|accessdate=14 March 2018}}</ref> In 2010, Frontiers launched a series of another eleven journals in [[medicine]] and [[science]], and the series kept expanding since. As of 2015, 16 of their journals had [[impact factors]]. According to ''The Nautilus'', the acceptance rate of manuscripts in Frontiers journals is reported to be near 90%.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.citefactor.org/journal-impact-factor-list-2014_F.html |title=Journal Impact Factor 2014 |publisher=CiteFactor |accessdate=2015-12-24}}</ref> According to Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky in the magazine ''The Nautilus'', the acceptance rate of manuscripts in Frontiers journals is reported to be near 90%.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Marcus |first1=Adam |last2=Oransky |first2=Ivan |title=Why Garbage Science Gets Published|url=http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/why-garbage-science-gets-published|website=Nautilus}}</ref> According to Allison and James Kaufman in the book ''Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science'', "Frontiers has used an in-house journals management software that does not give reviewers the option to recommend the rejection of manuscripts" and that the "system is setup to make it almost impossible to reject papers". According to <ref>{{cite book|last1=Kaufman|first1=Allison B.|last2=Kaufman|first2=James C.|title=Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science|date=2018|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9780262037426|url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=dwFKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA304&lpg=PA304&dq=journal+frontiers+predatory&source=bl&ots=B60YRUZrHK&sig=4DnPd2BCaSC73FVJhl2xN90ugzk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGpaWzt-3ZAhUIOawKHf_GC4Q4PBDoAQg2MAI#v=onepage&q=Frontiers&f=false|language=en|page=292}}</ref>

The series and its publisher have often been criticized for [[predatory open access|predatory practices]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Schneider |first=Leonid |title=Is Frontiers a potential predatory publisher?|url=https://forbetterscience.com/2015/10/28/is-frontiers-a-potential-predatory-publisher/|website=For Better Science|date=28 October 2015|access-date=2017-03-14}}</ref> having appeared on [[Beall's list]] before it was taken down.<ref>{{cite web|last=Basken |first=Paul |title=Why Beall's List Died — and What It Left Unresolved About Open Access|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Beall-s-List-Died-/241171|website=[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]|date=12 September 2017|access-date=2017-03-14}}</ref> The inclusion of Frontiers journals on Beall's list was met with backlash amongst some researchers.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bloudoff-Indelicato|first1=Mollie|title=Backlash after Frontiers journals added to list of questionable publishers|journal=Nature|date=23 October 2015|volume=526|issue=7575|pages=613–613|doi=10.1038/526613f}}</ref>