Comparison of the citations of German medical science articles in questionable and non-questionable journals
Creators: name: Dimity Stephen
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022

description: This study identified 591 articles published in 88 questionable journals between 2010 and 2020 by researchers from German institutions. Three-quarters of German research in QJs was in the medical and health sciences. However, this may reflect that a substantial proportion of research from both Germany and indexed in Dimensions is medical research, rather than a greater propensity for research in this field to appear in QJs. Regardless, the presence of medical research in QJs raises concerns given that most medical practitioners in Germany and Austria rely on current publications to inform their treatment decisions, and half acknowledge that they are unaware of and/or cannot recognise QJs (Richtig et al., 2018). Further, the majority of the research in QJs had been cited at least once within 3 years of publication by a diverse array of predominantly reputable journals, with only 12% remaining uncited. This was only slightly less than the rate for articles in non-QJs (8%), and substantially lower than other samples of research in questionable journals that found 25% to 56% were uncited (Bagues, Sylos-Labini &amp; Zinovyena, 2019; Björk et al., 2020). Authors’ self-citations accounted for only a portion (12%) of this uptake, and less than in the non-QJ sample (16%). Overall, articles in QJs were significantly less impactful than articles in non-QJs, however there was still a reasonably high level of uptake of research in QJs. In terms of co-authorship, the countries German authors co-published with were similar between articles in QJs and non-QJs, although there was substantially less international collaboration involved in QJ articles. The countries citing German research were also similar for both sets of articles, indicating articles in QJs are being used in a wide range of subsequent international research, although to a lesser extent than similar articles from non-QJs. The substantial uptake of research in QJs by authors in a diverse set of countries and journals may reflect authors’ lack of awareness of QJs, or alternatively, may suggest that the quality of the research is acceptable, despite its publishing venue. Although these articles appear in journals that have displayed questionable practices and may be insufficiently reviewed, this does not necessarily reflect the quality of the article and underlying research itself. Authors may publish in QJs for a variety of reasons, such as shorter times to publication, not simply to avoid peer review of subpar research. Also, citation counts are not informative about the reason for citing the study, which may also occur as authors disagree with or critique the study in the QJ, rather than support it. Additional research is required to examine the quality of research in QJs, to understand the motivations of authors to publish in QJs, and the reasons for citing these articles. Such studies would further our understanding of the impact on the academic community of the use of QJs and the proliferation of their content.