Thoughts on the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH)?

[futureapppsy2]

I'm trying to decide whether or not to divest from this journal (stop reviewing for them and not use my remaining two APC waivers). On one hand, they are published by MDPI, which has some well-justified criticism as a publisher. On the other hand, IJERPH is indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed and Web of Science SSCI, both of which have high standards for the journals they will index (I've known legit, non-OA journals to have issues getting indexed in PubMed because they had, say, "too high" an acceptance rate). I've reviewed for them and published one article with them (had an APC waiver), and the process and review quality on both sides seemed in-line with the norm, just expedited. Also, most manuscripts I've reviewed for them have been rejected, FWIW. On the balance, it seems similar to JMIR or PlosOne, where they wouldn't be my first choice of outlet, per se, but if I needed to get something out quickly and had a fee waiver, why not? But I've also known people who've refused to publish in there due to being an MDPI journal.

Thoughts/experiences?

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[Ollie123]

LOL - I actually had this exact journal in mind during our earlier exchange about "most science isn't worth it."

I consider this journal to be continually teetering on the very edge of complete illegitimacy (and realistically probably dances back and forth over that line). I have I think 2-3 papers in it because I'm Co-I on a grant where the PI had fee waivers and wanted to send things there because, frankly, they weren't great papers and he wanted to be done with them quickly. He is a senior biostatistician with 300+ publications and nonetheless felt the need to be defensive about publishing there.

It is indexed somehow. Its IF isn't great but doesn't suck. They spam me more than most anywhere else and at any given time are trying to convince me to be editor on one or more special issues I have marginal-to-no expertise in and in some cases do not even fit within the general mission of the journal. I guess they're better than the plant biology journal that also wants me to create a special issue or the history conference that wants me to give a talk.

Some legitimate work gets published there so I don't immediately discount things seen there as pseudoscience and will read them. But they are an excellent example of a journal that (in my opinion) harms the signal-to-noise ratio for the field and we all would be better off if they ceased to exist. I'm genuinely shocked to hear you say things have been rejected as I've never heard of them rejecting anything. I'm curious if these papers were rejected for "There are some design flaws that raise concerns about the fundamental meaning of the findings" or for "This paper contains few actual words and I think the squirrel who was ghostwriting it passed out drunk partway through the results" as it is simply unfathomable to me the former would be rejected. I would not put them anywhere close to the same tier as JMIR or PlosOne. I don't love those either, but at least in my circle they are perceived to be orders of magnitude better than IJERPH in terms of legitimacy. Our issues with JMIR and PlosOne are more other things - JMIR loves to bait and switch people by waiting until you are multiple rounds in to reviews before saying "Oh, we've decided to accept it...but to our sister journal we never mentioned until now!" All that said, if I needed something out quickly I would consider IJERPH. I would also likely make fun of the paper and myself for publishing there.

TLDR - Edge case. Keep with it if you see fit and draw enough value. Just be good-natured about it, don't take yourself too seriously and join in when people make fun of it.

 

[futureapppsy2]

LOL - I actually had this exact journal in mind during our earlier exchange about "most science isn't worth it."

I consider this journal to be continually teetering on the very edge of complete illegitimacy (and realistically probably dances back and forth over that line). I have I think 2-3 papers in it because I'm Co-I on a grant where the PI had fee waivers and wanted to send things there because, frankly, they weren't great papers and he wanted to be done with them quickly. He is a senior biostatistician with 300+ publications and nonetheless felt the need to be defensive about publishing there.

It is indexed somehow. Its IF isn't great but doesn't suck. They spam me more than most anywhere else and at any given time are trying to convince me to be editor on one or more special issues I have marginal-to-no expertise in and in some cases do not even fit within the general mission of the journal. I guess they're better than the plant biology journal that also wants me to create a special issue or the history conference that wants me to give a talk.

Some legitimate work gets published there so I don't immediately discount things seen there as pseudoscience and will read them. But they are an excellent example of a journal that (in my opinion) harms the signal-to-noise ratio for the field and we all would be better off if they ceased to exist. I'm genuinely shocked to hear you say things have been rejected as I've never heard of them rejecting anything. I'm curious if these papers were rejected for "There are some design flaws that raise concerns about the fundamental meaning of the findings" or for "This paper contains few actual words and I think the squirrel who was ghostwriting it passed out drunk partway through the results" as it is simply unfathomable to me the former would be rejected. I would not put them anywhere close to the same tier as JMIR or PlosOne. I don't love those either, but at least in my circle they are perceived to be orders of magnitude better than IJERPH in terms of legitimacy. Our issues with JMIR and PlosOne are more other things - JMIR loves to bait and switch people by waiting until you are multiple rounds in to reviews before saying "Oh, we've decided to accept it...but to our sister journal we never mentioned until now!" All that said, if I needed something out quickly I would consider IJERPH. I would also likely make fun of the paper and myself for publishing there.

TLDR - Edge case. Keep with it if you see fit and draw enough value. Just be good-natured about it, don't take yourself too seriously and join in when people make fun of it.

Thanks. Ngl, the good rep of JMIR in a lot of circles is a bit baffling to me, because they do that bait and switch thing where they have a ton of subjournals that they will happily route the paper to after rejecting it, and they let you pay extra for expedited review. Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit (not being facetious, we have a MS under review there now, but I’ve never interacted with it otherwise), but both of those things seem pretty red flag-y. 🤷‍♀️

The rejections were all, surprisingly, legitimate articles with some flaws—stuff that could get published in a mid-tier journal after a round of R&R or two. I actually buy that they reject a decent amount of submissions because MEDLINE is picky about that.

 

[Ollie123]

I would certainly not describe JMIR as a "good rep." Nature has a good reputation. JAMA and NEJM have a good reputation. Biological Psychiatry has a good reputation. JCCP has a good reputation. Even many other APA journals have a mediocre-at-best reputation. JMIR just has a "less bad" rep than IJERPH in my circle.

For me it is really just a face validity/litmus test. Their sister journals are somewhat different but scroll through JMIR-proper and the prototypical article is more scientifically sound than the prototypical IJERPH article. Larger sample size (at least for comparable designs), clearer hypotheses, better experimental design, more rigorous statistics, etc. Obviously there is overlap in the distributions - even JAMA publishes some crap. To me, there is a very clear difference in the quality of the articles. IJERPH also casts a wider net in terms of mission which I think raises a bigger red flag (especially given that JMIR also casts a pretty-darn-wide net!) that they are just fishing for submissions. Honestly if IJERPH just stopped the whole "Create a special issue for us" spam they would likely bump themselves up a tier.

 

[flerfmcgerf]

I'm trying to decide whether or not to divest from this journal (stop reviewing for them and not use my remaining two APC waivers). On one hand, they are published by MDPI, which has some well-justified criticism as a publisher. On the other hand, IJERPH is indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed and Web of Science SSCI, both of which have high standards for the journals they will index (I've known legit, non-OA journals to have issues getting indexed in PubMed because they had, say, "too high" an acceptance rate). I've reviewed for them and published one article with them (had an APC waiver), and the process and review quality on both sides seemed in-line with the norm, just expedited. Also, most manuscripts I've reviewed for them have been rejected, FWIW. On the balance, it seems similar to JMIR or PlosOne, where they wouldn't be my first choice of outlet, per se, but if I needed to get something out quickly and had a fee waiver, why not? But I've also known people who've refused to publish in there due to being an MDPI journal.

Thoughts/experiences?

How do people not from low-income countries get APC waivers? Can you get them for reviewing a bunch?

I did a review for IJERPH once and was kind of unhappy with how I was treated. What it seems like they do is just send out a ton of initial emails to potential reviewers and then when they receive a specified amount 2-3 (?) they go ahead and make a decision. I had accepted to do the review and was a bit late (2 days) with it. While in the process of reviewing it they sent me an email letting me know they didn't need my review any more because they had enough reviews.

The overall impression I received made me want to stop reviewing for them. I tried the unsubscribe link on their site, which was dead. I sent three(!) separate emails and was told I was removed from the list. I subsequently got another review request so I forwarded their previous ("you've been removed from our list") email to the whole editorial board and was finally removed.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I would certainly not describe JMIR as a "good rep." Nature has a good reputation. JAMA and NEJM have a good reputation. Biological Psychiatry has a good reputation. JCCP has a good reputation. Even many other APA journals have a mediocre-at-best reputation. JMIR just has a "less bad" rep than IJERPH in my circle.

For me it is really just a face validity/litmus test. Their sister journals are somewhat different but scroll through JMIR-proper and the prototypical article is more scientifically sound than the prototypical IJERPH article. Larger sample size (at least for comparable designs), clearer hypotheses, better experimental design, more rigorous statistics, etc. Obviously there is overlap in the distributions - even JAMA publishes some crap. To me, there is a very clear difference in the quality of the articles. IJERPH also casts a wider net in terms of mission which I think raises a bigger red flag (especially given that JMIR also casts a pretty-darn-wide net!) that they are just fishing for submissions. Honestly if IJERPH just stopped the whole "Create a special issue for us" spam they would likely bump themselves up a tier.

The interesting thing is that I’ve seen someone who said they would never publish in IJERPH vigorously defend a JMIR sister journal as a “great outlet” when, tbh, both seem more similar than different to me—large open access journals that provide legitimate, if quick, peer review and large reach at the cost of large volume and high speed (so inherently easier to let some stuff that shouldn’t get through get through) and high cost. Maybe JMIR is more selective (I honestly don’t know), but it was just weird to me to see someone say one was crap and the other was a great outlet. 🤷‍♀️ I’ll probably divest, though tbh, I’ll say my experience with IJERPH seems like it was better than many.

 

[tr]

How do people not from low-income countries get APC waivers? Can you get them for reviewing a bunch?

I did a review for IJERPH once and was kind of unhappy with how I was treated. What it seems like they do is just send out a ton of initial emails to potential reviewers and then when they receive a specified amount 2-3 (?) they go ahead and make a decision. I had accepted to do the review and was a bit late (2 days) with it. While in the process of reviewing it they sent me an email letting me know they didn't need my review any more because they had enough reviews.

The overall impression I received made me want to stop reviewing for them. I tried the unsubscribe link on their site, which was dead. I sent three(!) separate emails and was told I was removed from the list. I subsequently got another review request so I forwarded their previous ("you've been removed from our list") email to the whole editorial board and was finally removed.

I should hope the journals are sending multiple simultaneous review requests.

Given that reviewing is a thankless time suck and they may have to ask 15+ people, I certainly don't want to wait six months while they work their way sequentially through a long reviewer list.

 

[Ollie123]

I should hope the journals are sending multiple simultaneous review requests.

Given that reviewing is a thankless time suck and they may have to ask 15+ people, I certainly don't want to wait six months while they work their way sequentially through a long reviewer list.

In my experience on the editorial side, they typically do not. Was an editorial fellow at one APA journal this past year and have a few colleagues who are editors/associate editors and others and the process is generally the same. When you first receive, review as action editor and decide it warrants review (vs desk rejection) you select as many reviewers as you want (I typically started around 7 to get 2). It then automatically sends out new invitations as people decline. That usually happens relatively quickly as you normally get around 72 hours to accept/decline before it goes to someone else. Occasionally you'll get multiple people invited simultaneously or decisions made while reviewers still have it but people try to avoid it because it REALLY pisses off reviewers to have spent multiple hours doing free labor for someone only for them to pull the rug out and not even use it right before you hit submit.

For whatever its worth, in my n of 1 experience finding reviewers is rarely what holds up a paper. I think the worst case I ever had was 4-5 weeks and that was RIDICULOUS outlier for a nuanced topic I couldn't find anyone with even peripherally relevant expertise on. 99% of the time when a paper sits in review forever, it is because a reviewer agreed, then ignored 2 weeks worth of automated reminders. Then said "Oh yes of course" to my personal follow up email, then still didn't do it. Then ignored my emails for a week, then right when I'm about to find someone else emailed and said "I'm so sorry, xyz happened I'll get it to you by the end of the week" then disappears for two more weeks, etc. Stuff rarely sits with the editors for long, IME.

The interesting thing is that I’ve seen someone who said they would never publish in IJERPH vigorously defend a JMIR sister journal as a “great outlet” when, tbh, both seem more similar than different to me—large open access journals that provide legitimate, if quick, peer review and large reach at the cost of large volume and high speed (so inherently easier to let some stuff that shouldn’t get through get through) and high cost. Maybe JMIR is more selective (I honestly don’t know), but it was just weird to me to see someone say one was crap and the other was a great outlet. 🤷‍♀️ I’ll probably divest, though tbh, I’ll say my experience with IJERPH seems like it was better than many.

Yeah, I got nothing there. I don't consider them embarrassing like I do IJERPH, but not anything to write home about. Somewhat depends on sister journal too as some are clearly better than others.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Stuff rarely sits with the editors for long, IME.

In general, I agree, but I once saw a flagship journal of a subspeciality really hurt by an editor that sat on manuscripts forever, to the point where it took 12-18 months to get a first decision. People started just submitting elsewhere, because no one has time for that, honestly. Thankfully, the subsequent two editors have really turned that around and most people get a decision back within 2 months of submission, and the journal has thrived.

 

[futureapppsy2]

So, with the news that IJERPH is being dropped from SSCI, I’ve decided to divest from it (not review for and publish there). On the plus side, I got an invitation to join the PLOSOne Editorial Board today, which is good, because I do believe in supporting legit, well-indexed open-access journals, in addition to high tier traditional journals in my subfield (I’m on the EBs for a couple of those as well). I will say that my personal experiences with IJERPH on either side didn’t raise any particular red flags, FWIW.