"With humanity terrified by the deadly second wave of the coronavirus, in the fall of 2020, a scientific journal published a study with a solution: jade amulets from traditional Chinese medicine could prevent COVID-19. The proposal was outlandish, but the editor-in-chief of the weekly, Spanish chemist Damia Barcelo, defended its quality controls. That journal, Science of the Total Environment one of the 15 that publishes the most studies worldwide"
"Damia Barcelo, 71, took over as editor of the journal in 2012. In just two years, he doubled the number of studies published. In a decade, he increased the number tenfold, with the journal reaching nearly 10,000 articles annually. As the number of articles increased, the quality declined, because there was a perverse incentive to accept mediocre work: to publish research in the journal, a scientist has to pay $4,150 plus taxes."
"Emilio Delgado, professor of documentation at the University of Granada in Spain, explains it this way: It's clearly an open-door journal that takes almost anything. It's what I call a mega-journal, that is, a mega-business. The publication belongs to the Dutch publishing giant Elsevier, which dominates the world of science publishing, with a 17% share of the global market. Its 3,000 journals published 720,000 studies last year."
In fall 2020 a study claimed jade amulets from traditional Chinese medicine could prevent COVID-19 and the editor-in-chief defended the journal's quality controls. Science of the Total Environment was expelled from a group of reputable publications after dozens of irregular articles were discovered. Editor Damia Barcelo dramatically increased output after 2012, reaching nearly 10,000 articles annually. Authors must pay $4,150 plus taxes to publish, creating a perverse incentive that lowered quality. Elsevier, the journal's owner, holds about 17% of the global market with 3,000 journals and published roughly 720,000 studies last year, generating substantial executive compensation.
Read at english.elpais.com
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