2024年《国际期刊预警名单》发布，报道预警期刊最新变化

　　《Nature》杂志专访了预警期刊负责人杨立英研究员，向全球科学家报道了预警期刊的最新变化。

　　《中国有一份涉嫌期刊名单，最新已更新》一文深入探讨了这份全球影响深远的预警期刊名单的由来、研制过程，并着重关注了今年名单的新变化——对于具有“引用操纵”等不端行为的期刊以及与“国际传播作用”背道而驰的期刊进行了明确标记。

　　以下是采访主要内容的节选：

　　【名单背后的机制】

　　我们首先收集来自中国研究人员和管理者的反馈，并跟踪全球关于新形式学术不端行为的讨论，以确定要关注的问题。一月份，我们分析了来自伦敦Clarivate出版分析公司提供的Web of Science科学引文数据库的原始数据，并准备了初步的期刊名单。我们与相关出版社分享这份名单，并解释他们的期刊为何可能被列入名单。

　　We start by collecting feedback from Chinese researchers and administrators, and we follow global discussions on new forms of misconduct to determine the problems to focus on. In January, we analyse raw data from the science-citation database Web of Science, provided by the publishing-analytics firm Clarivate, based in London, and prepare a preliminary list of journals. We share this with relevant publishers, and explain why their journals could end up on the list.

　　Sometimes publishers give us feedback and make a case against including their journal. If their response is reasonable, we will remove it. We appreciate suggestions to improve our work. We never see the journal list as a perfect one. This year, discussions with publishers cut the list from around 50 journals down to 24.

　　【预警标记透明化，预警类别动态更新，提供负责任的科学参考】

　　过去几年，期刊被划分为高风险、中风险和低风险。今年，我们没有报告风险水平，因为我们删除了低风险类别，同时我们也意识到中国研究人员会忽略风险分类，直接避开名单上的期刊。因此，我们改为提供期刊被列入名单的具体原因的解释。

　　在过去的几年中，我们包括了出版数量迅速增长的期刊。例如，如果一本期刊一年发表了1000篇文章，下一年发表了5000篇，我们最初的逻辑是，这些期刊很难维持其质量控制程序。今年我们移除了这一标准。开放获取模式的兴起意味着期刊有可能收到大量稿件，因此迅速增加文章数量。我们不希望干扰市场自然过程。

　　In previous years, journals were categorized as being high, medium or low risk. This year, we didn’t report risk levels because we removed the low risk category, and we also realized that Chinese researchers ignore the risk categories and simply avoid journals on the list altogether. Instead, we provided an explanation of why the journal is on the list.

　　In previous years, we included journals with publication numbers that increased very rapidly. For example, if a journal published 1,000 articles one year and then 5,000 the next year, our initial logic was that it would be hard for these journals to maintain their quality-control procedures. We have removed this criterion this year. The shift towards open access has meant that it is possible for journals to receive a large number of manuscripts, and therefore rapidly increase their article numbers. We don’t want to disturb this natural process decided by the market.

　　【瞄准问题——标记出引用模式异常的期刊】

　　我们注意到全球科研界一直在讨论此问题。我们很难断定问题是由期刊引起还是由作者自身引起的。有时，作者团体会相互同意进行引用操纵，或使用产生虚假研究论文的论文工厂。我们通过科睿唯安提供的引文数据查找这些期刊，例如，那些稿件引用高度偏向于一期的期刊或由少数研究人员撰写的文章。明年，我们计划调查新形式的引用操纵问题。

　　We noticed that there has been a lot of discussion on the subject among researchers around the world. It’s hard for us to say whether the problem comes from the journals or from the authors themselves. Sometimes groups of authors agree to this citation manipulation mutually, or they use paper mills, which produce fake research papers. We identify these journals by looking for trends in citation data provided by Clarivate — for example, journals in which manuscript references are highly skewed to one journal issue or articles authored by a few researchers. Next year, we plan to investigate new forms of citation manipulation.

　　Our work seems to have an impact on publishers. Many publishers have thanked us for alerting them to the issues in their journals, and some have initiated their own investigations. One example from this year, is the open-access publisher MDPI, based in Basel, Switzerland, whom we informed that four of its journals would be included in our list because of citation manipulation. Perhaps it is unrelated, but on 13 February, MDPI sent out a notice that it was looking into potential reviewer misconduct involving unethical citation practices in 23 of its journals.

　　【瞄准问题——为何担忧存在“畸形”中国论文比例的期刊】

　　一个国家的作者比例从来不是我们判断一个期刊是否列入名单的独立标准。这些期刊发表——有时几乎全部——来自中国研究人员的文章，收取不合理高昂的文章处理费，而且被引用频次很低。从中国的角度来看，这是一个值得关注的问题，因为我们是一个发展中国家，希望充分利用我们的科研经费，在真正的国际期刊上发表文章，为全球科学做出贡献。如果科学家将文章发表在几乎全部来自中国研究人员的期刊上，我们的管理者将建议将该工作提交到本地期刊。这样，中国的研究人员可以快速阅读和学习，而不需要支付那么多费用。这是中国科研界近年来面临的挑战。

　　This is not a criterion we use on its own. These journals publish — sometimes almost exclusively — articles by Chinese researchers, charge unreasonably high article processing fees and have a low citation impact. From a Chinese perspective, this is a concern because we are a developing country and want to make good use of our research funding to publish our work in truly international journals to contribute to global science. If scientists publish in journals where almost all the manuscripts come from Chinese researchers, our administrators will suggest that instead the work should be submitted to a local journal. That way, Chinese researchers can read it and learn from it quickly and don’t need to pay so much to publish it. This is a challenge that the Chinese research community has been confronting in recent years.

　　【善用数据与工具】

　　我们的团队持续关注并收集各类社交媒体上的信息，以及诸如PubPeer等网站以及研究诚信博客For Better Science上的信息。目前我们不会自行进行图像或文本检查，但以后可能会开始进行。我们的团队还创建了一个名为Amend的在线数据库，记录了一些问题文章，供研究人员查询。我们收集文章撤稿信息、关注通知、更正和在社交媒体上被标记的文章。

　　My team collects information posted on social media as well as websites such as PubPeer, where users discuss published articles, and the research-integrity blog For Better Science. We currently don’t do the image or text checks ourselves, but we might start to do so later.

　　My team has also created an online database of questionable articles called Amend, which researchers can access. We collect information on article retractions, notices of concern, corrections and articles that have been flagged on social media.

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