Publish and flourish: Take the road less travelled!

Predatory journals and meetings in forensic sciences: what every expert needs to know about this “parasitic” publishing model

The emergence of the Internet has transformed all areas of society. This includes the universe of scientific publications, with several publishers now exclusively focusing on the electronic format and open access model while expanding to a megajournal scope. In this context, the pandemic of predatory open access journals (POAJs) and meetings are of grave concern to the academic and research community. This new shift within academia produces a variety of new victims; namely, the authors themselves. In turn, scientific knowledge is often discredited, with the public placing less trust in science. Now more than ever, performing research with integrity and selecting a journal in which to publish requires close attention and expertise. The “predatory movement” has developed increasingly sophisticated techniques for misleading people into believing what seem to be credible professional layouts and legitimate invitations. Initiatives such as the Jeffrey Beall’s list, the Cabell’s Scholarly Analytics and Think.Check.Submit offer some guidance to uncover the “parasitic” intervention of predatory journals and meetings, but specific education in this field is sorely needed. This work aims to review the main characteristics of predatory journals and meetings and to analyze this topic in the context of forensic and legal medicine research.

Publication Parameters for Medical Faculty Promotions: A Survey on the Medical Council of India Amendment 2019 with Review of Literature

Objective The aim of this study was to gather the opinion of medical practitioners in India regarding the modifications in the recently released MCI (Medical Council of India) circular for faculty promotion criteria across medical colleges in the country and their suggestions for further changes.

Materials and Methods An 11-set validated online questionnaire was circulated among medical practitioners across various medical colleges in the country, open for a period of 8 days between 5 to 12 June, 2020. The participants in this online survey were asked to rank the order of authors and types of manuscripts on a scale of 0 to 1 with increments of 0.1 and were also asked for an opinion regarding indexing, inclusion of impact factor of the journal, and citation indices.

Results There were 182 respondents included in the survey, belonging to 12 different states. Majority of the doctors participating in the survey were professors (37.3%, 68/182). About 81.3% (148/182) doctors were aware of the latest MCI guidelines. Opinion for adding citations to the promotion criteria was expressed by 59.3% (108/182). There was a general suggestion to include number of citations, and Google Scholar as citation service. A scoring table was proposed based on the responses, to rank various publications.

Conclusion As per the survey, more than 80% of the medical practitioners were aware of the recent update by MCI for faculty promotion. The participants expressed that the exiting guidelines may be further modified by the inclusion of all authors and all types of manuscripts into the criteria, based on a graded score system.

The preprint debate: What are the issues?

The debate surrounding preprints is increasing. Preprint proponents claim that preprints are a way to shore up trust in academic publishing, that they provide an additional 'quality' screen prior to traditional peer review, that they can assist with the replication crisis plaguing science in part by making negative or contradictory results public, and that they speed up the publishing process because fundamental results can be presented early, serving as timely reports for the purposes of tenure or grant funding. Preprint skeptics and critics claim that preprints may represent a risk and a danger to quality-based academic publishing because they are documents that have not been carefully and thoroughly vetted prior to their release into the public domain. Thus, academics who cite invalid, poorly vetted, or false facts could cause harm, not unlike the unscholarly 'predatory' open access movement. Feedback on work from lesser-known groups, or on less glamorous topics, may be null or worse than from traditional peer review, annulling an initial key objective of preprints. Although there is no widespread empirical evidence or data yet regarding some of these issues, academics should be aware of the ideological, financial, and political tug-of-war taking place before deciding if they wish to publish their important findings as a preprint prior or simultaneous to submitting to a regular journal for peer review.

Rejected but not dejected: Dealing with an unfavourable decision on a scientific manuscript

Unfavourable decisions and rejections on submitted manuscripts are not uncommon in scholarly publications. Rejection in a particular journal need not be viewed as end of all hopes for aspiring authors. Substantial number of rejected manuscripts find their final place in one or the other journal after suitable revision. As an author, it is extremely important to be familiar with common reasons for unfavourable decision/rejection in order to prevent them or to find solutions.