
Ask HN: Peer Review for MDPI? - ipunchghosts
I have been asked to review a paper for MDPI.  Upon a quick google search, it seems that the credibility of this journal is questionable.  Was hoping more people could comment with their thoughts.
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JGDove99
{Full disclosure: I'm an open access advocate working exclusively with
organizations that are working to accelerate the adoption of Open Access to
all scholarly journal content. MDPI is one of my clients} Your "quick google
search" is likely to have picked up disparaging comments initiated in large
part by having been listed for 18 months [from February 2014 to October 2015]
on Jeffrey Beall's list of potentially predatory publishers. On October 22 of
2015, Jefferey Beall himself tweeted the news that they had successfully
appealed their inclusion on this list and that he was taking them off of his
list.
[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_beall/status/659321914582679552?...](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_beall/status/659321914582679552?..).
"Jeffrey Beall ‏ @Jeffrey_Beall MDPI removed from publisher list following
successful appeal. #OA #MDPI 3:52 AM - 28 Oct 2015 from Denver, CO".

Nevertheless this episode remains prevalent on such sites as Wikipedia. MDPI
does not engage any of the professional "reputation management" schemes that
might fight all the ways which those 18 months on Beall's list continues to
crop up in various places on the Internet. They focus instead on the interests
of academics who publish in their journals by providing excellent peer review
with unnecessary delays taken out of the process.

They are an exclusively Open Access Publisher. They have almost 200 journals
and have published exclusively open journal content since 1996. Many of them
have impact factors and participate in Web of Science. All of their
established journals are given the seal of approval by DOAJ (The Directory of
Open Access Journals), and they are members of COPE (Committee on Publication
Ethics) which did a specific review of their operations as part of MDPI's
appeal to be removed from Beall's list.

I'd suggest in deciding whether or not to do peer review for any specific
journal of theirs: look at the editorial board and particularly at the
editors-in-chief. Are they respected people in your field? Contact them
directly if you have any doubts. All decisions whether or not to publish
articles submitted to them are made by members of the editorial board under
the guidance of the editors-in-chief. So that should be the measure of whether
or not the journal is meeting your sense of what is high quality in your
discipline.

------
JGDove99
{Full disclosure: I'm an open access advocate working exclusively with
organizations that are working to accelerate the adoption of Open Access to
all scholarly journal content. MDPI is one of my clients} Your "quick google
search" is likely to have picked up disparaging comments initiated in large
part by having been listed for 18 months [from February 2014 to October 2015]
on Jeffrey Beall's list of potentially predatory publishers. On October 22 of
2015, Jefferey Beall himself tweeted the news that they had successfully
appealed their inclusion on this list and that he was taking them off of his
list.
[https://twitter.com/jeffrey_beall/status/659321914582679552?...](https://twitter.com/jeffrey_beall/status/659321914582679552?lang=en)
"Jeffrey Beall ‏ @Jeffrey_Beall MDPI removed from publisher list following
successful appeal. #OA #MDPI 3:52 AM - 28 Oct 2015 from Denver, CO".

Nevertheless this episode remains prevalent on such sites as Wikipedia. MDPI
does not engage any of the professional "reputation management" schemes that
might fight all the ways which those 18 months on Beall's list continues to
crop up in various places on the Internet. They focus instead on the interests
of academics who publish in their journals by providing excellent peer review
with unnecessary delays taken out of the process.

They are an exclusively Open Access Publisher. They have almost 200 journals
and have published exclusively open journal content since 1996. Many of them
have impact factors and participate in Web of Science. All of their
established journals are given the seal of approval by DOAJ (The Directory of
Open Access Journals), and they are members of COPE (Committee on Publication
Ethics) which did a specific review of their operations as part of MDPI's
appeal to be removed from Beall's list.

I'd suggest in deciding whether or not to do peer review for any specific
journal of theirs: look at the editorial board and particularly at the
editors-in-chief. Are they respected people in your field? Contact them
directly if you have any doubts. All decisions whether or not to publish
articles submitted to them are made by members of the editorial board under
the guidance of the editors-in-chief. So that should be the measure of whether
or not the journal is meeting your sense of what is high quality in your
discipline.

