Elsevier has removed a journal from its Scopus database after Retraction Watch inquired about its review process for the journal, whose editorial board lists fake names and digital fingerprint shows other red flags.
Scientific sleuth Anna Abalkina uncovered several issues with Science of Law, which she details in a post published today. Besides editors and editorial board members who cannot be verified and don’t seem to exist, the journal’s history doesn’t match its publication record, early articles show signs of fabrication, and its publisher data in Scopus doesn’t match that in Crossref. Despite this, Scopus added the journal to its index last year.
To understand how these problems could have evaded reviewers at Scopus, we asked Elsevier if Scopus staff verifies editorial board members when vetting journals, and if they assess the quality and validity of articles in journals before adding them to the index.
A statement from an unnamed Elsevier spokesperson indicated that as a result of our inquiry, the company will remove the journal from the database. That statement reads:
Thank you for raising these serious concerns regarding the current content of Science of Law, which we share.
Science of Law was accepted for inclusion in July 2024, following Scopus’ rigorous evaluation processes, including review of the listed Editors, policies, and publication and citation record.
Unfortunately, the journal information and content on which acceptance was based have since been changed or removed, and the journal no longer meets Scopus’ standards for quality and integrity.
We have therefore taken the decision to immediately discontinue coverage of new content from Science of Law. We are also taking the exceptional step of removing all previous content.
Maintaining the integrity of Scopus and its high-quality, curated content is of paramount importance to us. This case will be used to inform our continuous efforts to review and refine Scopus’ (re)evaluation processes.
At publication time, the journal and its articles still appear in Scopus.
We reached out to the email address on the journal’s website at the same time we contacted Elsevier and did not receive a reply.
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“Science of Law was accepted for inclusion in July 2024, following Scopus’ rigorous evaluation processes….”
Seems that Scopus is going to have to turn up their “rigor” dial a couple more notches.
This seems to be the first time, that Elsevier even takes the contents (= documents’ metadata) from the database Scopus.
Is there hope?
Problems also rest with Elsevier. How does a publication, go from meeting selection for acceptance to not, in six months? Absurd
That is the question to be clarified by Elsevier
Thank you, Elsevier, for your thorough investigation and decisive action in removing this journal from your list.
“Unfortunately, the journal information and content on which acceptance was based have since been changed or removed”
Hard to believe that the journal only became scammy after Scopus listed it. If the publishers made up a fake editorial board (changing their website later) and Scopus simply accepted the lies, that’s not good.
This is very unfortunate. According to the Scopus database, there are only 64 articles published, which could be considered niche. However, I realized that the editorial board was recently changed, so the previous one may not have been very active.
I’ve already published my work there, but this makes me more cautious for the future. I’ve put a lot of effort into my papers only to come across this information. From now on, I’ll view ABDC as a sign of quality since Scopus hasn’t adequately filtered these issues.