Where to Publish and Not to Publish in Bioethics

Posted on

Guest Post by Stefan Eriksson & Gert Helgesson, Uppsala University

* Note: this is a cross-posting from The Ethics Blog, hosted by the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB) at Uppsala University. The link to the original article is here. Re-posted with permission of the authors.

Introduction

Allegedly, there are over 8,000 so-called predatory journals out there. Instead of supporting readers and science, these journals serve their own economic interests first and at best offer dubious merits for scholars. We believe that scholars working in any academic discipline have a professional interest and a responsibility to keep track of these journals. It is our job to warn the young or inexperienced of journals where a publication or editorship could be detrimental to their career. Even with the best of intent, researchers who publish in these journals inadvertently subject themselves to criticism. We have seen “predatory” publishing take off in a big way and noticed how colleagues start to turn up in the pages of some of these journals. This trend, referred to by some as the dark side of publishing, needs to be reversed.

People have for a number of years now turned to Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, who runs blacklists of “potential, possible, or probable” predatory publishers and journals. His lists are not, however, the final say on the matter, as it is impossible to judge reliably actors in every academic discipline. Moreover, since only questionable journals are listed, the good journals must be found elsewhere. We are much obliged to his work but think that a response of gatekeeping needs also to be anchored in each discipline.

As a suitable response in bioethics, we have chosen the following approach: Below, we alphabetically list the recommended journals in our field that either have an impact factor of over one, as calculated by Thomson Reuters over a five year period, and a good reputation (still no potentially predatory journal in bioethics have received such a high IF, but it might happen), or by our own experience have been found to be of high quality when engaging with them as authors, reviewers and/or readers (and agreed upon by all those involved as authors of this blog post or as reference persons for the lists).

This will make up a list of English-language journals that are reputable, trustworthy and have real impact. Of course we are well aware there are many more journals out there with a lower impact that we have no experience of; many of them will provide good service to authors and readers. There are other lists covering bioethics journals, such as:

They are all of great use when further exploring the reputable journals available.

It is also important to list the journals that are potentially or possibly predatory or of such a low quality that it might be disqualifying to engage with them. We have listed them alphabetically and provided both the homepage URL and links to any professional discussion of these journals that we have found (which most often alerted us to their existence in the first place). If we have critical remarks ourselves, we have added them.

Each of these journals asks scholars for manuscripts from, or claims to publish papers in, bioethics or related areas (such as practical philosophy). They have been reviewed by the authors of this blog post as well as by a group of reference persons that we have asked for advice on the list. Those journals listed have unanimously been agreed to be journals that – in light of the criticism put forth and the quality we see – we would not deem acceptable for us to publish in. Typical signs as to why a journal could fall in this category, such as extensive spamming, publishing in almost any subject, or fake data being included on the website etc., are listed here:

In light of the fact that all journals on the “where not to publish”-list so far are Open Access (OA), we want to stress our general support for various OA initiatives, while also acknowledging the problems (see the Schöpfel paper referenced at the end of this post).

We would love to hear about your views on these lists, and would be especially grateful for pointers to journals engaging in sloppy or bad publishing practices. The lists are not meant as check-lists but as starting points and assistance for any bioethics scholar to ponder for him- or herself where to publish.

Also, anyone thinking that a journal in our list should be given due reconsideration might post their reasons for this as a comment to the blog post or send an email to us. Journals might start out with some sloppy practices but shape up over time and we will be happy to hear about it. You can make an appeal against the inclusion of a journal and we will deal with it promptly and publicly.

Please spread the content of this blog as much as you can and check back for updates (we will do a major update annually and continually add any further information found).

WHERE TO PUBLISH – THE 2016 LIST

Alphabetical list, criteria explained in text above. 5-year impact factors from 2015, rounded off with one decimal, given in parenthesis, if over 1.

  • Accountability in Research
  • American Journal of Bioethics (4.0)
  • Bioethics (1.5)
  • Biology & Philosophy (1.2)
  • BMC Medical Ethics (1.7)
  • Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics
  • Clinical Ethics
  • Developing World Bioethics (1.7)
  • Ethics (1.8)
  • Ethics and Information Technology (1.1)
  • Hastings Center Report (1.4)
  • Health Care Analysis (1.2)
  • Journal of Academic Ethics
  • Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics (1.1)
  • Journal of Clinical Ethics
  • Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (1.4)
  • Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (1.1)
  • Journal of Medical Ethics (1.4)
  • Journal of Medicine & Philosophy
  • Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (1.1)
  • Medicine, Health Care & Philosophy
  • Milbank Quarterly (6.3)
  • Neuroethics (1.2)
  • Nursing Ethics (1.6)
  • Public Health Ethics (1.1)
  • Research Ethics
  • Science & Engineering Ethics (1.1)
  • Science, Technology and Human Values (2.5)
  • Social Science and Medicine (3.5)
  • Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics

WHERE NOT TO PUBLISH – THE 2016 LIST

In light of recent legal action taken against people trying to warn others about dubious publishers and journals – see here and here – we want to stress that this blog post is about where we would like our papers to show up, it is about quality, and as such it is an expression of a professional judgment intended to help others find good journals to publish with. As such it is no different from other rankings that can be found for various products and services everywhere. Our list of where not to publish implies no accusation of deception or fraud but claims to identify journals that experienced bioethicists would usually not find to be of high quality. Those criticisms linked to might be more upfront or confrontational; us linking to them does not imply an endorsement of any objectionable statement made therein. We would also like to point out that individual papers published in these journals might of course nevertheless be perfectly acceptable contributions to the scholarly literature of bioethics.

Stefan Eriksson & Gert Helgesson

Post script: Essential resources on so-called predatory publishing and open access:

(Visited 13,809 times, 1 visits today)