Web of Science, Clarivate’s influential database of abstracts and citations, has paused indexation of new content from the open-access journals Heliyon and Cureus, apparently due to concerns about the quality of their articles.
Indexation in WoS or Scopus, another major bibliometric database owned by Elsevier, has become an important stamp of approval for scholarly publications worldwide and can make or break a journal.
WoS is “making a big call here, taking aim at two of the mega-journals that have grown massively in recent years,” said Nick Wise, a scientific sleuth and a researcher at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “WoS appears to be one of the only organisations with the power to compel big publishers to act. I don’t think that’s a sign of a healthy academic publishing system, but it’s how things are currently.”
Mohammed Al-Amr noted the news about Heliyon over the weekend on X.
A spokesperson for Elsevier, which in addition to owning Scopus is also the parent company of Cell Press, the publisher of Heliyon, told us it is “investigating” but would not elaborate. According to its website, “Heliyon considers research from all areas of the physical, applied, life, social and medical sciences.”
Graham Parker-Finger, director of publishing and customer success at Cureus, told us:
Obviously, we are disappointed by this news and are waiting for information about why Clarivate has chosen to take this step. We are absolutely committed to the integrity of our journal, investigating all concerns that are raised with us as well as acting proactively, and we expect to be able to resolve this situation in the near future.
We have reported frequently on Cureus in the past. The journal, a Springer Nature title that prides itself on speedy publication, has drawn flak for publishing low-quality studies and hosting “channels” that allow questionable organizations to hand-pick their own editors. Earlier this year, it retracted 55 papers from Saudi Arabia for dubious authorship.
Wise noted:
It is very interesting that WoS have put Cureus and Heliyon on hold on grounds of quality (if I’m reading the journal master list correctly). The Cureus ‘academic channels’ appear purpose-built to be abused by papermills, whilst no article is out of scope at Heliyon. The journals are set up so that they can never be removed from the list for publishing articles that are out of scope, as others have been previously.
Lonni Besançon, an assistant professor of visualization at Linköping University in Sweden and a scientific sleuth, said he worried the fast peer-review process at Cureus could undermine quality. He highlighted a study of the use of ivermectin to prevent COVID-19 that was later found to be flawed.
“Overall, I’d say that I’m happy that [Cureus and Heliyon] are put on hold and that, perhaps, there is something that is going to be done about potentially problematic journals or groups,” Besançon told us. He added he was “wondering if we could have more transparency on the process and what prompted this move” by WoS.
A pop-up box on Clarivate’s website defining the on-hold status states:
Concerns have been raised about the quality of the content published in this journal. The journal is being re-evaluated according to our selection criteria; new content will not be indexed during the course of the re-evaluation.
Rachel Scheer, director of external communications, academia and government, at Clarivate, told us by email:
When the evaluation is complete, the publisher will be informed of the outcome and the journal will either be removed from coverage if it no longer meets the quality criteria or remain covered if it continues to meet the quality criteria.
The freely accessible Master Journal List is updated monthly and should be considered the authoritative source for Web of Science coverage.
James Butcher, the author of the newsletter Journalology, wrote in a September 29 LinkedIn post about the new developments:
We should assume innocence until we hear otherwise. We don’t know what aspects of the journals the Web of Science team is investigating.
However, other fast growing journals have fallen foul of Web of Science indexing criteria.
IJERPH (MDPI) was delisted last year [Ed: see more coverage here] for publishing articles that were out of scope and output plummeted as a result.
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The number of criticised articles published in Heliyon is increasing. Many articles had been extensively discussed in Pubpeer which include various errors, while the publisher fails to address or conduct a proper investigation e.g., this article that includes AI generated content in addition to various other errors. https://pubpeer.com/publications/0C11AC2CA47828B2AA62E5498D5116