let me start by saying that I do not have the time to address all the issues you raised. I do not like Religions’ (and, in general, MDPI’s) aggressive publication strategy and other aspects of their modus operandi, but I have to say that my experience
has been better than what one might expect, especially in terms of peer reviewing (see below). If you are interested, you might read my reaction to a critique moved to this journal and its special issues in another venue:
As a co-editor (along with Francesco Bianchini) of the very first special issue in your list, I’m more than happy to take up your invitation to
tell us a bit more about the(ir?) interest (?) of this way of publishing (or attracting contributors ) and why they have decided to use it (even if they could have been misinformed about these mercantile aspects at the time they applied,
or were invited, to become Guest Editor of such Special Issues
While in the past I received several invitations to become a guest editor of one such special issues (the theme of which, oddly enough, was proposed by the journal to me, rather than the other way around), all of which I turned down, this time it was me
who approached the journal. Being in between two projects, I wanted to have a deliverable out relatively quickly. I had money to be spent for OA publication, so I told myself, why not. The deal we got is that we paid for half of the articles, the other half
being provided free of charge. The total cost was half, if not less, of what an OA volume at Brill would have costed.
Now, MDPI apparently publishes THOUSANDS of special issues every year, and judging by what I can see (and the peer review requests I receive), I do not need to tell you that the vast majority of these are garbage. But there are also many, probably countless,
legitimate special issues edited by serious scholars, and with high-quality articles, and I hope you will not blame me of being immodest if I consider Francesco, myself, our contributors, and the finished product as falling into this category. The bottom line
for me is that contents are more important than the venue.
I would now like to address a misconception re the APC etc. Ironically, the special issue I co-edited allowed at least 4 early career scholars to publish an OA article free of cost, something they might not have been able to do otherwise.
Running a publisher, like anything else, costs money. Who is going to pay for it? Traditional, non-natively OA journal charge subscription costs or pay-per-article fees. Many of them make a lot of money. Now, while the OA model might seem questionable,
my question is, who pays for the subscription fee to make students and scholars able to access contents? Well, taxpayers, including me an you, and this multiplied not only by every country, but also by every institution (Universities, libraries, schools, etc.)
with an active subscription; in other cases, it is literally the private individuals who pay, if institutional access is not available. Isn’t it more cost effective that one institution or project just pays for 7000 euros and the whole world can access the
publications for free? I think it is. Universities could then save money to fund more research and positions (wishful thinking, I know).
FYI, the ERC non longer considers eligible costs APC for individual articles in non-natively OA journals (as well as printing costs!). This means that my project cannot cover the ca 3000 euros charged by the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, for example,
but I can only pay for an entire special issue, which would then costs thousands of euros. (Strangely enough, I’ve rarely see anyone questioning these fees). Or, I can pay for an article in a natively OA journal, like Religions.
I know there are journals that do not charge for OA publication, like the very virtuous French BEFEO, Archipel etc. (although, technically, these do not meet most funding bodies’ requirements as they still observe a 1-year embargo period), but demand hugely
exceeds the offer, and publication times are often biblical.
A final note about peer review. I was surprised by how meticulous the process is at Religions. Having edited at least three special issues, I can say that this was by far the most meticulous, and even inflexible, process. They are currently contacting
a third reviewer as they received a negative review out of two. Francesco and I were completely locked out of the review process of two article because the journals’ general editors perceived a potential conflict of interest. We were always asked to provide
names of reviewers, and many of those we could see on the interface seemed to be respectable scholars. These strikes me as nothing short of best practices.
Just my two cents,
Andrea
Le 5 févr. 2025 à 12:40, Christophe Vielle via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> a écrit :
Dear List,
I would like to draw your attention on the following issue. Having naively expressed my interest after being invited by colleagues to contribute to a collective volume on a topic sounding to me, I was surprised to discover this new (?) type of publication
promoted by the controversial MDPI/
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI
on "Finnish downgrading" and "proliferation of special issues"). The concerned journal is "Religions", and its current or planned "Special Issues" on Indological topics, for which there are invitations to submit with a submission deadline between 1 Feb and
31 Aug 2025, are no less than 9:
The benefits of publishing in a special issue are extolled on the above pages — "All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process" (led by the guest editors) and the published articles are in
open
access (for reading them).
However, what is less common in our area of studies, is the fact that "The
Article
Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs)" (= ± € 1900 or $ 1950). Such a prohibitive cost certainly constitutes a denial of access to publication for most of the scholars in our field, especially
the young ones (unless their own institutes or research fundings are willing or able to pay as much for their publications). However, in the (guest editors/publisher combined) invitation email (which is in fact optional, since the invitation to submit a proposal
of paper is in the same time made to anybody on the Special Issue page), it was added that "should you have any difficulties with the fee, please let us know; given your qualifications and reputation, the journal is able to waive the fee for your submission"
("However if you are able to obtain any funding to cover either a portion or the whole of the APC…, either from your institution or other sources, this will help to support the journal" — this APC is requested at the end of the publishing process). This difference
in (financial) treatment based on criteria that are devoid of objectivity is disturbing. And more fundamentally, in the case of a journal article, why pay for being published... I am not convinced by either the model or the results of these "Special Issues"
(inevitably lacking of coherence), which, if they are successful according to MDPI ("Normally, a successful Special Issue consists of 10 or more papers, in addition to an editorial (optional) written by the Guest Editor(s)"
https://www.mdpi.com/special_issues_guidelines — I wonder which issue of the above list will reach this goal) would mean much more expensive volumes (paid by the authors) than the collective ones provided from reputable traditional publishers (when the
open access is paid by the scientific editors themselves, through institutional research funding previously got for their collaborative project).
Maybe the guest editors (who are apparently never among the paying contributors) of these special issues could tell us a bit more about the(ir?) interest (?) of this way of publishing (or attracting contributors ) and why they have decided to use it (even
if they could have been misinformed about these mercantile aspects at the time they applied, or were invited, to become Guest Editor of such Special Issues, since nothing about the APC is found on the relevant MDPI pages :
https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/religions /
https://www.mdpi.com/special_issues_guidelines On the other hand, are the Editorial Boards of the journal "Religions", no less than 3 plethoric different ones, somewhere really involved in the editorial process?
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/editors — probably not, which removes all scientific credit from it).
With best wishes,
Christophe
_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology