Journals publish disproportionate number of papers by their editors

An evaluation of greater than 1000 science journals printed over 38 years means that 12 per cent of journal editors publish a fifth of their very own analysis

By Clare Wilson

More than 1 in 10 researchers who’re additionally the editors of science journals publish a fifth of their very own papers of their journals – and 1 in 20 publish a 3rd of their very own work. This raises the query of whether or not editors’ submissions get handled extra favourably.

For over a decade, there was concern {that a} rising variety of analysis papers are flawed. This is typically known as science’s replication disaster, as the issues might come to mild if different analysis groups can’t reproduce the outcomes.

Part of the issue is the strain on scientists to publish as many papers as doable, as this helps them achieve promotion and entry analysis funds.

Decisions on which papers to simply accept are made by a journal’s board of editors, who’re often practising analysis scientists. While editors search recommendation on submitted papers from different scientists who’re specialists on the subject, referred to as peer assessment, they nonetheless have quite a lot of affect over the method.

To gauge the extent of the issue, Bedoor AlShebli at New York University Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, and her colleagues analysed a database of greater than 1000 journals printed between 1980 and 2018 by Elsevier, an organization behind one-fifth of the world’s scientific papers.

While there was nice variation within the self-publishing charges, 12 per cent of those journals’ editors printed greater than a fifth of their papers of their journals and 6 per cent printed greater than a 3rd of their journals.

The group used software program to match every of those editors with the same researcher, for instance one in the identical scientific subject. Results present that these comparability researchers typically had solely a small proportion of their papers accepted by the journal in query.

This raises the likelihood that papers submitted to a journal by its editor are handled extra favourably, “which may be considered an abuse of the scientific publishing system”, in response to AlShebli’s group.

“Publishing in a journal is supposed to be a signal that the journal thought this is good-quality science,” says Stuart Buck, who runs the Good Science Project, a non-profit US organisation that goals to enhance scientific rigour. “At the very least, [self-publishing] seems like a conflict of interest.”

Dorothy Bishop on the University of Oxford, says some editors might attempt to publish high-quality science in their very own journals to enhance its profile, moderately than to spice up their very own careers. In such instances, the scientists ought to step again from editorial board selections on whether or not to simply accept the work and state within the paper that this has occurred, says Bishop.

This is really useful in a set of pointers from the Committee on Publication Ethics, a world journal advisory physique. The editors whose analysis was included within the newest research might have adopted this course of, as AlShebli’s group didn’t assess how typically any such statements seem in self-published papers.

Elsevier has been approached for remark.