Editor's Note

Abstract

Recently there are series of case that publishers and indexing services organization like Clarivate delist many journals in a short period of time.¹ The causes are problematic rising of number of published articles, and suspicion of unreliable peer review process. For quite awhile, some journals used business model so called “Guest Editor model” whereby invitation a scholar or a group of scholars to serve as guest editors for a set of thematically linked papers. Some journals call them with a variety of name but with the same concept such as Special Issues (MDPI & Hindawi), or Research Topics (Frontiers), or Collections (Springer Nature). The major purpose of “Guest Editor model” is to increase the number of publication as well as revenue from publication fee. As evidence by alarmingly rising number of published articles as described by Petrou C.²

Guest Editor model was found to link with paper mills (CPOE: the process by which manufactured manuscripts are submitted to a journal for a fee on behalf of researchers with the purpose of providing an easy publication for them, or to offer authorship for sale),³ and undisclosed peer review process.

Since special issues are often overseen by guest editors who may have their own biases or preferences. Moreover, there is a risk that the quality of submissions may not be rigorously assessed or may not meet the usual standards of the journal.