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Thanks, all. I also read https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/not-so-special/

Some truly incredible (or outrageous?) numbers related to special issues:

"Even more problematic for Wiley is that special issues appear to be remarkably profitable, resulting in a $25 million impact on Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). That is to say, Wiley earns an 80% margin on special issues, resulting in an outsized margin impact on overall revenue."

"As THE notes, MDPI’s two flagship journals—the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Sustainability—have announced, respectively, 3,514 and 3,512 special issues with a closing date in 2023. That works out to a mind-boggling 9 special issues a day—for each journal!"

Tim

On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 2:09 PM Taylor, Anneliese <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Thanks for sharing this, Michael. Timely given all the news coming out about problems with special issues in MDI and Hindawi journals like:

https://www.science.org/content/article/fast-growing-open-access-journals-stripped-coveted-impact-factors

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/03/30/guest-post-of-special-issues-and-journal-purges/

I also saw a (thankfully succinct) slide deck on LinkedIn about MDPI from the publisher-centric Journalology newsletter. I've attached it for reference since the link below might require logging in to the site: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jwbutcher_a-million-ways-mdpi-has-changed-scholarly-activity-7023185076414763008-WE8H/

Best,

Anneliese

From: Scholarly Communications CKG <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Michael Ladisch <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 4:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SCCKG] Blog Post about MDPI

Hi all, That’s an interesting and very detailed blog post about the pros and cons of MDPI. It’s along read and the post has already 145 comments … https: //paolocrosetto. wordpress. com/2021/04/12/is-mdpi-a-predatory-publisher/ Best Michael -------------------------

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Hi all,

That’s an interesting and very detailed blog post about the pros and cons of MDPI. It’s along read and the post has already 145 comments …

https://paolocrosetto.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/is-mdpi-a-predatory-publisher/

Best

Michael

-------------------------

Michael Ladisch

Scholarly Communications Officer

University of California Davis, Library

100 North West Quad

Davis, CA 95616-5292

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(530) 752-6385