Special Issues - are they valuable or not?

ME/CFS Skeptic

ME/CFS Skeptic

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Special issue in scientific journals focus on a particular topic and often have guest editors.

They might provide an opportunity to publish papers on things that usually aren't popular or don't get much attention. There was, for example, a special issue in the journal Healthcare (MDPI) on 'ME/CFS – the Severely and Very Severely Affected.'
Healthcare | Special Issue : ME/CFS – the Severely and Very Severely Affected

But there is also a lot of critique to this approach. If a paper provides sound and valuable information, it usually doesn't need a special issue to get published. Special issues often seem like a way to lower standards, a tool used by open-acces (and often predatory) publishers to get more submissions and payments. The researchers can get an easy and fast publication, the publisher gets a lot of money while the literature is tainted with low quality publications.

Some have noted that standards for special issues are often lower, for example in handling peer review. Here's an example by James Heathers:
One issue of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing from 2022, edited mostly by Hamurabi Gamboa Rosales, took an average of about 20 days to go from initial submission to revision submission. This is not unlikely, it’s impossible.

The easiest way to explain this is with an analogy.

Say there’s a pothole outside your house, and you call the council. You tell them ‘there’s a big hole in the road outside my house!’ The person at the other end, rather than tiredly telling you to fill out a form - which is what councils do all over the world, in my experience - instead yells ‘MOTHER OF GOD! WE’RE RIGHT ON IT!’

Twenty minutes later, a bitumen truck comes HURTLING around the corner of your street at full send, with the road workers hanging out the back of it, the driver leaning on the horn and yelling ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY! POTHOLE!’

They pull up outside your house, and you see the brakes go hot. But the guys don’t even wait for it to stop, they jump off while it’s slowing down, and they grab pry bars and a burner and a kettle of bitumen, and they start hammering out the edges, pour the bitumen and start slamming it with hammers almost at the same time. In about six minutes, the hole is filled and flattened, and they admire their work for about four hundred milliseconds and SCREAM off the way they came. No sooner has the truck disappeared, then your phone rings - and it’s the council worker from before.

‘POTHOLE! *pant* *pant* FIXED! Happy to be of service!’ *click*

That’s how likely the entire editorial process taking 20 days is.

Three times that, 60 days, would be lightning fast. Here’s what has to happen:

  • the author makes a submission to the journal

  • the editor of that journal, in this case a guest editor, assigns that paper to be analyzed by at least two external reviewers - who they have to find, typically this means sending a lot of emails

  • having found at least two people who accept the job of peer reviewing the paper, they then go through the paper to try to improve it (or, sometimes, reject it)

  • the peers send their findings to the editor

  • the editor, having received all those findings, writes to the authors with recommended changes

  • the authors make those changes, which can sometimes involve new experiments and observations

  • and then they resubmit the same paper for the editor’s approval a second time
That whole process doesn’t happen in 20 days SIXTY TWO TIMES.
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The Hindawi Files. Part 2: Hindawi - by James Heathers

I was curious and checked the special issue on ME/CFS mentioned. It seems that 4/25 papers had less than 20 days between submission (the authors submit their paper) and revision (the editor suggests a revision based on peer review). Here are the links:

1 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/10/1290
2 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/2/106
3 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/8/4/406
4 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/5/568

Do you think this is possible or does it suggest peer review might not have taken place?
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
I was curious and checked the special issue on ME/CFS mentioned. It seems that 4/25 papers had less than 20 days between submission (the authors submit their paper) and revision (the editor suggests a revision based on peer review). Here are the links:

1 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/10/1290
2 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/2/106
3 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/8/4/406
4 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/5/568
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The publishing date of those papers range from October 2021 to September 2021. Does this mean that they published papers along the way instead of gathering them for a spesial issue? The latter might be a thing of the past.

The first paper is by Ron Davis.
 
In general, I don’t mind the concept of gathering papers on a single topic. But it’s unacceptable if it comes at the cost of quality peer review.

Peer review and editorial quality assurance is terrible in general, so there’s an argument to be made that it doesn’t really make a difference. I’m not sure I would support the argument, though..
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
Special issue in scientific journals focus on a particular topic and often have guest editors.

They might provide an opportunity to publish papers on things that usually aren't popular or don't get much attention. There was, for example, a special issue in the journal Healthcare (MDPI) on 'ME/CFS – the Severely and Very Severely Affected.'
Healthcare | Special Issue : ME/CFS – the Severely and Very Severely Affected

But there is also a lot of critique to this approach. If a paper provides sound and valuable information, it usually doesn't need a special issue to get published. Special issues often seem like a way to lower standards, a tool used by open-acces (and often predatory) publishers to get more submissions and payments. The researchers can get an easy and fast publication, the publisher gets a lot of money while the literature is tainted with low quality publications.

Some have noted that standards for special issues are often lower, for example in handling peer review. Here's an example by James Heathers:

The Hindawi Files. Part 2: Hindawi - by James Heathers

I was curious and checked the special issue on ME/CFS mentioned. It seems that 4/25 papers had less than 20 days between submission (the authors submit their paper) and revision (the editor suggests a revision based on peer review). Here are the links:

1 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/10/1290
2 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/2/106
3 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/8/4/406
4 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/5/568

Do you think this is possible or does it suggest peer review might not have taken place?
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I’m not sure on the analogy

the bit that is missing from it is whether said special issue is planned ahead enough ie one done deliberately to try and catch all the issues together (even if some might have been papers that would/could have been submitted earlier) vs one that I’m can’t use my brain to think of the alternative

most academics will have lots of other obligations in their job not just research, which I think is supposed to be 40% of time used for a standard post (ie not a reader or a post with a specified higher teaching load) , then 40% teaching and the rest assigned administrative roles. But as you can imagine that isn’t spread evenly so eg teaching time will tend to be linked to terms (as does much admin).

There wi be certain times of year when most staff get dragged into some sort of heavy duty peak time thing. Like exam paper marking and moderation boards.

other times such as the run-in to easter holidays I’ve certainly seen at least with some departments most staff are exhausted and holding on to the light at end of tunnel of term ending. Because any business that requires committee sign off is going to struggle in the summer term (then summer break) so ‘projects/developments’ actually get jammed into those two terms.

Those with duties to do with admissions will have confirmation and clearing and other peak and more quiet times for decisions on offers/interviews/running open days. Or if running a course or enrollment the run up to start of term you’ve a lot of writing and organising etc.

That’s before you might add in academic posts with a day-job like being a clinician which probably has its own peaks and clinics and funding deadlines etc

anyway if an issue is being done to give an important area a really good chance then there is the possibility that someone could just pick ‘a good time’ and alongside that be giving a really good heads up for say a year in advance (or whatever a good Lee time is) . They could also surely be asking some of the peer reviewers they want to calendarise that promise at that point so they know they will have the time set aside to do it when it comes through.

there is a big difference surely between a one-off and the day to day where you get in something unexpected or from one of a list of areas snd have to find a peer reviewer vs having set a topic ? Particularly I guess if you compare a journal unexpectedly getting something on a niche interest vs collecting together with fair warning all those who have said interest? And if it is an industry-based thing / it’s the type of thing that means lots of those in it might have similar roles with similar peaks then I can imagine a theoretical situation where it lands in the perfect time that people can get their head down to be doing these tasks vs trying to fit it around marking papers and a busy diary?
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
For me it's hard to see why this approach would makes sense for journals and scientists unless it involves lowering standards for publication.
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You’re probably right.

If they wanted to create more of a focus on a topic, they could take a public stance that they would put all papers on a certain topic at the top of the pile. Kind of like the fast track at airports - you go through the same steps, you just skip the lines.
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
There is currently a special issue on ME/CFS in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (MDPI) titled: 'Advances in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), 2nd Edition'.
IJMS | Special Issue : Advances in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), 2nd Edition

Guest editor is Vincent Lombardi which may some may recognise as the first author of the problematic XMRV paper.
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This one?
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.334.6063.1636-a
 
In a way, the lower quality standards also leads to some useful stuff that wouldn't usually get published getting published. Ie. I doubt Whitney Dafoe's manuscript would have been published without it. And that manuscript, while a n=1 experience etc. has been an invaluable resource to people with extremely severe ME to get understood.
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
Do you think this is possible or does it suggest peer review might not have taken place?
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Peer review and revision in three weeks imperfectly possible. It would normally be less if I was involved (I am an editor and peer reviewer). I generally do peer review within 48 hours. I am not sure what Heathers is going on about. A lot of journal editors are hideously slow but there is no need.

On the other hand, I agree that special issues are mostly a way to get more income. I get asked to contribute to these about every other week. There is an ME/CFS special issue open at present but the publisher wants well over $1000 for a submission. That is both crazy and unethical.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
t would normally be less if I was involved (I am an editor and peer reviewer). I generally do peer review within 48 hours.
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But first the editor has to view the manuscript, decide if it should go out for peer review or if it is a desk rejection. Then he should find peer reviewers, some might not respond or refuse. Then if you do your peer review within 48 hours, it still needs to go back to the editor who might wait until a second peer reviewer responds. Then if he has all the review he wants, he has to read and decide what to tell the authors etc.

So I suspect 20 days is really fast but perhaps not impossible based on your comments. Maybe Heathers meant that this happened 62 times in that Hindawi journal is impossible.
 
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ME/CFS Skeptic said:
But first the editor has to view the manuscript, decide if it should go out for peer review or if it is a desk rejection. Then he should find peer reviewers, some might not respond or refuse. Then if you do your peer review within 48 hours, it still needs to go back to the editor who might wait until a second peer reviewer responds. Then if he has all the review he wants, he has to read and decide what to tell the authors etc.

So I suspect 20 days is really fast but perhaps not impossible based on your comments. Perhaps Heathers meant that this happened 62 times in that Hindawi journal is impossible.
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From a process management perspective, it doesn’t strike me as an impossible task to do that in 20 days. In the example below the days are time elapsed, not time spent on the task.
  1. 1 day - initial screening for rejects
  2. 2 days - editor review
  3. 2 days - peer review
  4. 2 days - editor review of peer review
  5. X days - author review and changes
Repeat as many times as needed.

A good draft with no changes could he done in 7 days. An okay draft with limited changes could be done in 1+2*6+X days.

If the editor has a backlog or they don’t have reviewers lined up, things will take more time. I would not be surprised if there’s a lot of manual admin work involved, although emails requesting peer reviewers could easily be automated. At the very least, they could be copy-pasted from a list or sent as blind copies (BC).
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
So I suspect 20 days is really fast
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It is for most editors and reviewers but it needn't be. One thing I always respected about my old head of section, David Isenberg, was that if you gave him document it would be under your office door, fully annotated or signed, by the next morning. There are groups of people sufficiently committed to work that way. For the Qeios journal I use peer review and acceptance is all over and the Fat Lady has sung by ten days.

There are two sorts of people in this world...
 
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