Google Scholar gets into "AI powered" space Assuming this can use all the full-text they have indexed this might be a game changer. The timing of this release maybe suggests Gemini 3 is being used? scholar.googleblog.com/2025/11/scho... . Apparently some hit a waitlist, I have access though (1)

Hoy he tenido el placer de participar en una mesa redonda sobre malas prácticas en comunicación científica en el marco de la Asamblea Anual de la UNE. Muchas gracias por la invitación! www.youtube.com/live/sljOPyB...

Scopus has discontinued over a dozen additional journals included in our "Invasion of the journal snatchers" analysis. A fast reaction time by bibliographic databases is crucial for defusing the business model of stealth journal transfers. zenodo.org/records/1476... and zenodo.org/records/1521...

Este jueves estaré en Zaragoza debatiendo sobre cómo actuar frente a malas prácticas y fraude en la comunicación científica, con @amdelvaz.bsky.social , Iratxe Puebla y Reme Pérez, en la Asamblea Anual de la UNE. Será emitido: www.youtube.com/live/sljOPyB... Primera pregunta: ¿Se quiere actuar?

In today’s pay-to-publish model where every paper lands somewhere, rejection just means another publisher profits. That's why publishers are building multi-tier journal ecosystems.

La Trahison des bases de données

Los tres trabajos con señales manifiestas de ser fraudulentos, que ya no están en la web de la revista, están indizados en Scopus 🤦

Aprovecho para recordar que mañana, Emilio Delgado López-Cózar y yo estaremos hablando de estos temas en la Universidad de Sevilla.

Este mes se ha sabido que otra revista española, la Revista Electrónica de Ciencia Penal y Criminología, con una trayectoria de 26 años bajo la dirección de un profesor de Derecho Penal de la Universidad de Granada, también fue transferida a Oxbridge Publishing House. doi.org/10.21428/cb6...

Hoy una periodista científica ha escrito para preguntarnos si se podía fiar de un artículo publicado en una de las revistas vendidas a Oxbridge/OAText. Al mirarlo, comprobamos que se había publicado antes de la venta. El daño reputacional puede afectar retroactivamente.

🟢 Vos revues profanées Des revues de référence qui se mettent à publier en masse des articles louches et à augmenter leur frais de publication ? Au moins sept revues françaises seraient passées aux mains d’obscurs éditeurs. On vous explique 👇 themeta.news/linvasion-de... #VeilleESR

L’invasion des profanateurs de revue, par @lucileveissier.bsky.social dans @themeta.news Merci de mettre en lumière ce phénomène. themeta.news/linvasion-de...

Sorpresa en una de las revistas vendidas: el equipo editorial de Profesional de la Información, borrado de la web en febrero (salvo el editor jefe), ha vuelto a aparecer tal como estaba a principios de año. ¿Lo saben las personas afectadas? revista.profesionaldelainformacion.com/index.php/EP...

El próximo 20 de octubre hablaremos con nuestros colegas del departamento de Comunicación Audiovisual y Publicidad de la Universidad de Sevilla, entre otras cosas, sobre venta de revistas, y revistas vendidas

Truly grateful by the interest our presentation on stealth journal takeovers generated at the STI in Bristol last week. Thanks to everyone who approached me to discuss it during the conference! @stienid2025.bsky.social read the whole story at zenodo.org/records/1476... and zenodo.org/records/1521...

First thing after the summer break: getting ready for Bristol, where I’ll present our work on stealth journal takeovers and their telltale signs at @stienid2025.bsky.social. Already available at doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

In a new Crossref Community post, I outline the unusual DOI management of the journal Profesional de la Información: despite being sold to OAText in late 2023, DOIs for its articles are still being registered by the former publisher. community.crossref.org/t/concerns-r...

Highly relevant article by @reeserichardson.bsky.social et al., once again providing evidence that fraudulent publication practices are becoming increasingly sophisticated and coordinated. Publishing fraud is no longer just a "bad apple" issue, but a market that moves millions of $€£.

First they clone themselves (Nature X...), now they clone MDPI. The goal is to offer a tiered journal system that does not let manuscripts escape to other publishers' offerings. That would be like leaving money on the table.

A trickle of articles from the 36 journals analyzed in our Invasion of the Journal Snatchers study continues to be indexed in Scopus each week, despite their official statement claiming these titles had been discontinued www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Question. I see a lot of papers with the same design of a Figure (see the picture). Is there a specific software for drawing this kind of figure? I wonder why there are similar figures from different authors that are not connected with each other.

TH: @albertomartin.bsky.social

This piece from @forbetterscience.bsky.social is gold: it reveals how paper mills operate from the inside. Apparently, long non-coding RNAs are a recurring topic in paper mills. Interestingly, that’s the focus of a recent article in Profesional de la Información: forbetterscience.com/2025/05/19/a...

In April, Scopus announced it would discontinue coverage of the 36 journals analysed in our Invasion of the Journal Snatchers study. www.nature.com/articles/d41... doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

New blog post in which I: 📈 detail a new citations-for-sale scheme in Google Scholar 🧻 make the 395 fake papers generated through this scheme available as a dataset 💤 chastise Google for failing to maintain the most widely used academic search engine Enjoy! reeserichardson.blog/2025/05/06/g...

In the same way a meta analysis can be like a CDO (packing crap assets together to make a 'better' equity and selling it), these journal acquisitions are weirdly similar to the asset stripping tactics of private equity.

La revista Profesional de la Información (PI) es de las pocas revistas analizadas en “Invasion of the journal snatchers” que siguió generando DOI tras ser transferida a una editorial cuestionable a finales de 2023. Esto parece positivo, pero analicemos el caso. 🧵👇 doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

My mother would like a word.

Nature highlights our study "Invasion of the Journal Snatchers" www.nature.com/articles/d41... Our study: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Below, a few comments on the reactions from editors and bibliographic database managers regarding the issue 👇🧵

Invasion of the ‘journal snatchers’: journals that adopt predatory practices after being acquired — My latest for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41... @abalkina.bsky.social, @albertomartin.bsky.social, @smutclyde.bsky.social

One consequence of questionable publishers starting to use fake DOIs in the journals they acquire is that it prevents readers from commenting on those papers through platforms like PubPeer (which relies on DOIs), making it harder to flag other issues the articles might have. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

💡 New study! Tell-tale signs of stealth journal takeovers: A bibliometric approach to detecting questionable publisher acquisitions doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Parece que la revista Profesional de la Información se ha sumado a la práctica de mostrar DOI falsos (no registrados) y propagar esta información a bases de datos bibliográficas (Scopus): doi.org/10.3145/epi.... doi.org/10.3145/epi....

Torrentes de bibliometría

I just published a blog post arguing that the reform movements for research assessment and scientific publishing need to better align their agendas. This is crucial for the success of both movements. www.leidenmadtrics.nl/articles/ass... @leidenmadtrics.bsky.social

The proposals presented here to combat image manipulation in scholarly publications strongly remind me of records management.

Interesting phenomenon! I haven’t read the paper yet, but a legitimate reason for self-citation could be when a paper cites its own previous version. This might be relevant, for example, when preprints influence real-world changes that are later referenced in an updated version of the paper

Ayer se confirmaba la salida de la Web of Science de 5 revistas (originalmente) españolas, ahora vendidas a editoriales con prácticas anómalas de publicación. Hablaremos de estos casos, entre otros, el próximo 3 de abril en Carmona www.upo.es/formacionper... @bibupo.upo.es @amdelvaz.bsky.social

The monthly changes file confirms these journals have been delisted from WoS, along with REVISTA ELECTRONICA DE LEEME, and EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (which display similar anomalous publication patterns)

These journals no longer appear in WoS's Master Journal List: 🔴Profesional de la Información 🔴Artseduca 🔴Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deporte 🔴Fonseca Journal of Communication 🔴American Journal of Health Behavior 🔴Eurasian Journal of Educational Research

Many scholarly journals have decided (or are expressly created) to prioritize the financial interests of their owners rather than the needs of academic communities. I'm glad to see that this aligns in many respects with what we presented last year in our work The profit route in scholarly publishing

China’s top court says businesses that write bogus manuscripts for payment should be punished https://go.nature.com/4brVt2T

I'm not convinced that the way a generation engages with information in childhood or adolescence should necessarily dictate how a professional activity should evolve when they enter the workforce.

Los días 2 y 3 de abril celebramos en la sede de la #UPO en Carmona unas jornadas técnicas con el objetivo de analizar la actualidad de los comportamientos de los investigadores en el plano ético en relación a la publicación y la evaluación científica https://buff.ly/43dvSs4

El 2 y 3 de abril estaré en la Universidad Pablo de Olavide en unas jornadas sobre ética en la investigación científica. Junto a Emilio Delgado, analizaremos patrones anómalos y malas prácticas en la publicación académica. Un double feature con casos reales y mucho que debatir.

Must-read from the founders of @retractionwatch.com - about 85% of science is research waste, less than 50% of preclinical cancer research is replicable, and predatory publishers thrive: science has a serious quality control problem, and we're all in trouble. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Si te interesan o trabajas con temas relacionados con #ética e #integridad científica, vete reservando los días 2 y 3 de abril. Estamos preparando unas jornadas en la sede de la #Olavide en #Carmona con un montón de gente interesante con temas muuuuuuy actuales. + info en breve

I wrote a thing for @thetransmitter.bsky.social. The attack on scientific infrastructure happening in the US shows that relying on any one country is not a good option for science. We need to start supporting and building international, decentralised infrastructure for science.

"I thought I was fairly cynical about the kinds of misconduct that goes on, but it turns out I am not cynical enough." A Q&A with sleuth @nhwise.bsky.social, now working at a publisher.

We are now exploring options to update and expand our Invasion of the Journal Snatchers study. In line with Publish-Review-Curate, we invite colleagues to contribute a review via PREreview: prereview.org/preprints/do... or through any other means that work for you.