The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), based in the UK, has released a document offering recommendations on how to address a growing form of misconduct: the excessive proliferation of special issues. These issues are organized by guest editors who are not regularly employed by the journal and usually address specific research topics with the objective of increasing revenue for the publisher. Often, however, they are used by guest editors to publish low-quality content, in some cases even handing over control of the peer-review process to fraudsters.
According to COPE, the publishing practices of special guest–edited issues expose them to risks, including fraud, citation manipulation, conflicts of financial interests, and more. The document subtly criticizes publishers who release an excessive number of special editions. “Publishing a large number of guest-edited article collections can raise concerns about the independence, impartiality, and credibility of the journal. […] The number of guest-edited collections should not exceed an amount that can reasonably be overseen by the editor in chief, editorial board, and editorial office staff,” advised the text. The document does not mention specific examples, but one of the most infamous cases involves Swiss publisher MDPI, which is currently the fourth largest scientific publisher in the world. In 2023, its two biggest titles — Sustainability and International Journal of Molecular Sciences — planned to publish around 3,500 special issues each, equal to nine a day (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue nº 327).
The COPE recommendations largely serve as a checklist for publishers to use when selecting guest editors. Some suggestions may seem obvious, such as the idea editors in chief should verify the identity of guest editors and the authenticity of their email addresses and phone numbers before giving them responsibility for organizing a special issue. But there have been cases where such precautions were not taken. An investigation by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) found that the email account of one of its graduate students had been fraudulently used by a researcher at another university, who appropriated the student’s identity to act as coordinator of special issues for two scientific journals published by Hindawi and to publish fraudulent articles. Hindawi announced that it was suspending publication of the special issues after Clarivate Analytics stopped disclosing the impact factor of 19 of the company’s journals in April due to suspicions of dishonest practices.
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