How To Choose The Best Journal For Your Case Report: Editorial Open Access
How To Choose The Best Journal For Your Case Report: Editorial Open Access
How To Choose The Best Journal For Your Case Report: Editorial Open Access
Abstract
Since the establishment of the Journal of Medical Case Reports in 2006, the number of journals that publish case
reports has increased rapidly, and most of these journals are open access. Open access publishing usually requires
authors to pay publication fees while offering the articles online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and
licensing restrictions. The movement for open access has gained support in the research community, with the
publishers BioMed Central and PLOS ONE becoming leaders in scientific publishing in their number of articles and
citations. As the number of open access publishers has exploded, so too has the number of publishers that act in
bad faith to profit from the open access model. Simple guidelines have been developed and resources are available
to help authors choose a suitable journal for publication of their case reports.
journals are open access and have high acceptance rates. The open access publisher BioMed Central launched in
As the number of new scientific journals increases, so 2000 with 231 articles published that year in 60 journals.
do the number of questionable publishers that mislead In 2015, the numbers increased to more than 30,000 ar-
researchers regarding fees, peer review, and academic ticles in over 290 journals. In 2014, BioMed Central arti-
credentials. The process of submitting scientific work for cles were accessed more than 277 million times and had
publication now includes the need for thorough vetting 426,000 citations [10]. Similarly, the number of publica-
of potential publishers. tions from the open access publisher PLOS ONE, in-
creased from 138 at its inception in 2006 to 28,107 in
New case report journals 2015 [11].
In line with the growing demand for case report publish-
ing opportunities, the number of new peer-reviewed Controversial journals and publishers
journals that focus on case reports had increased to As scientific publishing shifts from a business model of
more than 160 journals produced by 78 publishers by subscription revenue to open access, the number of
mid-2015. Figure 1 shows that the number of case report open access journals has exploded. However, the prolif-
journals increased rapidly beginning in 2007, a time- eration of journals that will publish seemingly anything
frame that coincides with the Great Recession of the late for a fee has caused alarm among many in the global re-
2000s and the concomitant decline in federal and other search community. Alongside many respected open ac-
funding for basic science and other research. Some of cess publishers, others have entered the space acting in
the new journals cover general medicine and others bad faith. Some see it as the “dark side” of open access,
cover specific therapeutic areas. Most case report jour- a growing collection of pseudo-academic, prestigiously
nals (94%) are open access and approximately 40% are titled journals, many of which have similar but not quite
indexed in PubMed. Clinical issues covered by case re- identical websites and names to those of well-known
port journals include previously unreported adverse ef- established journals. Many of the websites look suffi-
fects of drugs or other treatments, unexpected events ciently impressive that non-experts doing online re-
that occur in the course of observing or treating a pa- search have trouble distinguishing credible research
tient, observations on disease pathogenesis, presenta- from junk. Experienced academics have been misled into
tions and/or management of new and emerging diseases, submitting manuscripts and even serving on editorial
new therapeutic approaches, ethical challenges in patient boards for pseudo-academic journals, agreements that
management, and strategies for preventing or overcom- often are difficult to undo. Most of these journals do not
ing medical errors [6, 8]. post their publication fees, and often authors are not in-
Open access publishing offers freely available and un- formed of fees until after submitting a manuscript.
restricted use of research and scholarship, which many Withdrawal of a manuscript, which is necessary before
researchers see as vital to efficient dissemination of sci- submitting the same paper to a legitimate journal, may
ence in the digital world [9]. The open access model require payment of the high fees first [12]. For some au-
usually requires authors to pay submission and publica- thors, this means their work may be lost essentially to
tion fees upon acceptance, typically between US $300 the disreputable publisher. Many researchers have com-
and $1200 [6]. The move toward making scholarly publi- plained about poorly executed or absent peer review,
cations more accessible through open access has contin- hidden fees for submission and publication, and un-
ued to gain supporters among the research community. approved inclusion of researchers’ names on editorial
boards.
Jeffrey Beall, a librarian and associate professor at
Auraria Library at the University of Colorado, Denver,
coined the term “predatory open access publishing” to
describe this situation. He is a critic of open access
publishing, blaming the system for creating the prob-
lem of predatory publishers. His blog Scholarly Open
Access, although removed by Beall for unknown rea-
sons in January 2017, closely monitored the increasing
number of open access publishers and alerted readers
to individuals, publishers, publications, meetings, and
scholarly metrics that, in the view of Mr Beall, ap-
Fig. 1 Number of case report journals by year. The number of peared to exploit the open access model [13]. He
journals that publish case reports has increased rapidly since 2007.
maintained a list of “potential, possible, or probable
(Reprinted with permission from Akers [6])
predatory scholarly open-access publishers” and
Rison et al. Journal of Medical Case Reports (2017) 11:198 Page 3 of 9
another list of standalone journals. His criteria for in- Choose the right journal: Think. Check. Submit.
clusion on the lists were derived from the Code of The “Think. Check. Submit.” campaign arose in response
Conduct for Journal Publishers from the Committee to concerns about publishing practices, and the effort is
on Publication Ethics (COPE), and Principles of supported by a coalition of scholarly publishing organi-
Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publish- zations. “Think. Check. Submit.” takes a positive ap-
ing from COPE, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers proach to help researchers identify credible journals,
Association (OASPA), and the World Association of providing up-to-date guidance for choosing where to
Medical Editors [14–16]. Similarly, information in publish [18, 19]. To ascertain whether a journal is
these communications may help authors to discern trusted, authors are advised to follow this checklist:
whether they can trust a particular publisher or jour-
nal. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
USA has taken notice of questionable publication – Have you read any articles in the journal before?
practices. In August 2016 it filed a suit against the – Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the
OMICS Group, a global conglomerate based in India journal?
that publishes more than 700 open access journals. Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
The suit claimed that the OMICS Group misled re- – Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the
searchers, particularly with regard to their peer-review journal website?
process (or lack thereof ) and high fees that were not – Can you contact the publisher by telephone,
readily apparent to authors upon manuscript submis- email, and post?
sion [17]. The purpose of the lawsuit, according to Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?
the FTC, is to better inform authors of publishing – Does the journal site explain what these fees are
fees and to have a more transparent peer-review sys- for and when they will be charged?
tem [18]. The case is still to be litigated in federal Do you recognize the editorial board?
court in Nevada at the time of writing this article. – Have you heard of the editorial board members?
The challenge for watchdogs and authors alike is to – Do members of the editorial board mention the
decide when a publisher is untrustworthy or simply un- journal on their own websites?
professional. Some publishers may fall under suspicion Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry
due to poor copy editing or amateurish website design, initiative?
but this may not reflect an outright neglect of scholarly – Do they belong to the COPE?
standards. It is important not to blacklist startup pub- – If the journal is open access, is it listed in the
lishers who lack experience. Another problem with Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?
maintaining lists of disreputable publishers is that be- – If the journal is open access, does the publisher
cause copycat journals are often short-lived, the blacklist belong to the OASPA?
will continue to grow but individual entries may quickly – Is the publisher a member of another trade
become obsolete. association?
Rison et al. Journal of Medical Case Reports (2017) 11:198 Page 8 of 9
In addition to consulting colleagues and academic li- Nature journals list a suite of citation-based metrics.
brarians for journal suggestions, authors have available Only one case report journal, Taylor & Francis’s Neuro-
to them several online resources. BioMed Central previ- case, has received an impact factor (1.124), dating back
ously collaborated with Edanz, a company that assists to 1998.
authors in navigating the publication process, to create Medicine/National Institutes of Health Indexed re-
the author academy [10]. The free online guide describes search databases are often curated to ensure the quality
best practices in writing and publishing a manuscript, of included publications. Clarivate Analytics (formerly
including sections on choosing a journal, writing the Thomson Reuters) offers The Web of Science™, as one
manuscript, and publication ethics, among others. such example, and recently introduced the “Emerging
BioMed Central now contracts with Nature Research Sources Citation Index” to complement their more se-
Editing Services and American Journal Experts, both of lective indexes. This collection reflects the growing
which offer similar services [20, 21]. number of peer-reviewed publications of regional im-
Several automated search tools help identify suitable portance and in emerging fields [28].
journals as well. Authors insert keywords from their In conclusion, the growth in number of case report
manuscript abstract into a search engine, which then journals has provided authors multiple avenues for pub-
compares the words to many online publications and lication but, at the same time, it has introduced a new
Edanz Journal Selector covers a broad range of journals. level of uncertainty in the journal selection process. Fac-
The online tool is free, and Edanz also offers a journal tors to consider when choosing a journal are: the topics
selection service (US $300) in which experts use their the journal covers, the target audience, length restric-
publication experience to identify up to four of the best tions, and the time to publication. Open access publica-
journals for a given paper [22]. The Journal/Author tions, such as the Journal of Medical Case Reports from
Name Estimator (Jane) focuses on biomedical science BioMed Central, offer high visibility, relatively rapid
journals by searching the Medline database published by publication, and transparent publication policies. The
the US National Library of Medicine [23]. Other online reputation of the journal plays an increasingly important
services offered by publishers Springer and Elsevier sug- part of the decision, requiring thorough vetting of poten-
gest journals from their own extensive catalogues [24, tial journals.
25].
Acknowledgements
We thank the reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments on our
Impact factor editorial.
Journal impact factors, calculated and published by
Thomson Reuters, measure the average number of cita- Authors’ contributions
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
tions per published article for papers published over a 2-
year period. Despite the fact that the simple metric can Competing interests
be misleading, the impact factor has become, over time, RAR is a Deputy Editor and MRK is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Medical
Case Reports. JKS has nothing to disclose.
a marker of journal prestige and desirability. The judg-
ment of a paper’s value is often based more on the jour-
nal in which it appears than on its content. Many Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
researchers contend that reliance on impact factors un- published maps and institutional affiliations.
dervalues disciplines or study designs, such as case re-
Author details
ports, which have lower citation rates. Overall, the 1
University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles
number of citations of an article is commensurate with County Medical Center, 12401 Washington Blvd., Whittier, CA 90602, USA.
2
hierarchies of evidence, with meta-analyses receiving PIH Health Hospital-Whittier Stroke Center, PIH Health Hospital Non-Invasive
Vascular Laboratory, 12401 Washington Blvd., Whittier, CA 90602, USA. 3JKS
more citations than any other study design. Case reports Science & Medical Writing, Los Angeles, CA, USA. 4Faculty of Medicine,
typically receive few citations, although there are notable Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA
exceptions [26]. The number of citations of an article, 5001, Australia. 5Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of
Toronto, 500 University Avenue, Toronto M5G 1V7, Canada.
however, does not necessarily reflect how widely the art-
icle has been read or the dissemination of the findings in Received: 29 November 2016 Accepted: 5 June 2017
mainstream media [27].
Efforts to embrace a broader view of value in scientific
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Rison et al. Journal of Medical Case Reports (2017) 11:198 Page 9 of 9