Editor's Note

Abstract

Recently, Sage, a well-known publisher, retracts more than 200 papers from a journal, International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education.¹ The announced reasons are consist of “compromised peer review”, “contain indicators of third-party involvement”, “had been accepted as a result of a peer-review process that did not meet the standards and expectations at Sage”.

The term “compromised peer review” or “manipulation of the peer review process” refers to a systematic and inappropriate manipulation of the peer-review process.² Initially, this often involved the use of fabricated suggested peer reviewers, which is a result of the pain-staking task of finding reviewers within the peer review system. Consequently, some authors exploited this loophole that allowed them to suggest potential reviewers for their manuscripts, using the names of reputable experts with faked email addresses, resulting in reviews that were essentially sent back to the authors or third-party agencies.

However, in the past decade, there has been a shift in the business model of many journals, moving away from advertising and subscription-based revenue to an open-access model with publication fees. To ensure their survival, some journals have developed behind-the-scenes agencies that charge authors service fees to expedite the publication process or even offer authorship for sale under the guise of agency services. As the journal’s business model evolves, so do the methods of manipulation, making it crucial for journals and publishers to continually monitoring and counteract such practices. Sage's recent actions reflect their stance on publication integrity.

RMJ is fully funded by Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University. Ensuring the integrity of the peer-review process is a top priority in our journal policy.