…of chemistry education…or even a journal of chemistry education
Keith S. Taber
I had received one of those unsolicited invitations to publish in the journal: "Write for Us". An editorial assistant wrote to tell me that
"I would appreciate receiving your submission on or before 10th November 2021"
email 'Write for Us – Journal of Chemistry: Education, Research and Practice' recieved on 22nd October
Publish in haste – retract at leisure?
Such requests to submit something, and quickly, but which are not associated with any special or themed issue, tempt me to write back and ask "why [would you so appreciate receiving my submission on or before 10th November 2021]?" Anyone who is a serious scholar or researcher will know both that producing an academic study takes a good deal of time and that decent journals have a rolling programme of submissions, peer review, and publication. So, it should not make any difference to the outcomes of a submission, or the approximate time from submission to publication, if one submitted on 10th November, or the 11th, or any other date when one had a manuscript ready. 1
So, these deadlines are really about marketing. Sometimes, some of these new journals which are struggling to establish themselves (and it is very easy for a publisher to start a journal these days, but very difficult to attract quality work – or well-qualified reviewers – given the extensive number of existing outlets), will offer reduced, or even set aside, publication fees for submissions received by a certain date to attract work, in order to help them start to build up a body of published studies which can convince other authors they have a viable and sustainable journal.
Here, however, if there was any particular motivation for me to respond by the implied deadline of 10th November, this was not shared.
Another journal of chemistry education research and practice?
I recall contacting the so-called Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice before it even started publishing, when I was editor of a well-established and well-regarded journal with a very similar name: 'Chemistry Education Research and Practice' (CERP, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry).
I suggested that the proposed name risked the two journals being confused. I discussed this in an editorial:
"In October a colleague and former Board member of this journal was invited by the founding editor of the Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice to join that new journal's editorial board. The journal name seemed very close to Chemistry Education Research and Practice, and I wrote to suggest they should avoid confusion by changing the name before they actually started publishing.
The editor replied to acknowledge that "we can understand your doubts" – and asked me to let them know if I wanted to be on the Board.
I wrote back to suggest again that they should modify the name to "allow the academic community to see your new journal as a genuine attempt to add to the range of scholarly publications in the field, rather than simply employing a cheap trick to mislead authors".
Taber, 2018, p.11
In view of the lack of concern about the similarity of name at the soon to be launched journal, I now suspect this similarity was likely deliberate – to conflate a top journal that did not charge publication fees with an unproven outlet that asks for a hefty fee.
A false claim (i.e., lie)
In any case, the journal website made it clear the journal was not actually specifically about chemistry education research and practice but was a general chemistry journal. The journal describes itself as:
"Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice is a leading International Journal for the publication of high quality articles…It welcomes publication of scientific research papers in the fields of Theoretical and Physical Chemistry, Analytical and Inorganic Chemistry, Organic and Biological Chemistry, Applied and Materials Chemistry, Spectroscopy, Chemical physics, Biological, Medicinal, Environmental chemistry, Biochemistry, Petroleum and Petrochemicals, Materials science, Nuclear chemistry, Polymer chemistry, Pharmacognosy & Phytochemistry, Stereochemistry and Clinical chemistry"
Website of OPAST Group LLC, publisher of the dodgy journal
It is certainly not a 'leading International Journal' even if it genuinely aspires to be one. So, that is simply a false claim. Perhaps a reader might wonder if this is just my opinion – but the journal was making such a claim before it had begun publishing when there could be absolutely no basis for the lie.
"I wrote back pointing out that the statement on their website that the 'Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice is a leading International Journal for the publication of high quality articles' had to be seen as a deliberately misleading claim given that the journal had not yet published a single article."
Taber, 2018, p.11
Who would want their scientific work published in an outlet which has such limited respect for truth? Is this meant to persuade researchers in the field – "it must be a leading journal, even though my colleagues in the field have never heard of it, because it says so there on the website". Or, are potential authors being invited to join in the conceit, perhaps, once having published in the journal, noting in their applications for scholarships, posts, promotions and so forth, that their work was published in one of the leading international journals?
A broad scope
The scope of the journal is clearly not just 'Chemistry: Education Research and Practice' if that is read to mean that it covers educational research and practice in chemistry. Perhaps they meant something more like – chemistry: education; research; and practice?
Indeed, chemistry education does not appear in the list above, although it does feature as one of a good many 'subject categories':
Analytical chemistry – Applied Chemistry – Biochemistry – Biological Chemistry – Chemical Biology – Chemical Sciences – Chemistry Education – Cryochemistry – Electrochemistry – Environmental Chemistry – Geochemistry – Green Chemistry – Histochemistry – Immunohistochemistry – Industrial Chemistry – Inorganic Chemistry – Material Chemistry – Medicinal Chemistry – Multi-disciplinary Chemistry – Nanochemistry – Nuclear Chemistry – Organic Chemistry – Petro Chemicals – Pharmaceutical chemistry – Photochemistry – Physical Chemistry – Phytochemicals – Polymer Chemistry – Supramolecular Chemistry – Theoretical Chemistry
https://opastonline.com/journal/journal-of-chemistry-education-research-and-practice
So that's pretty much 'chemistry' – with education research as very much one theme among many.
Parasitic, predatory, journals
To my eye, then, the so-called 'Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice' looks like one of those many new journals that has been set up by people who do not really know about the relevant field, and who seek to charge authors for publishing their work without any substantive concern for scientific quality or scholarly values.
That is, the business model is about attracting enough submissions to make a profit. (Which is not in itself wicked, of course, as long as profit is made by offering an honest and competent service.) That requires publishing a lot of papers. That could be seen as motivation to have a very light touch editorial and peer review policy – after all, if submitted work is rejected or authors are asked to make major revisions this will reduce, and slow, the flow of funds into the publisher.
Respected academic journals, even when published by commercial publishing houses, have high quality criteria (rejecting much work, requiring substantial revisions before publication for most that are accepted), and know their reputations depend upon the field evaluating the work that is published as being (at least generally) of high quality.
Leading journals publish significant, original articles: other respectable journals may have to settle for well-motivated, well-designed, carefully executed and thoroughly reported work that adds incrementally to a field (even if not in a seminal way).
Some of the new journals being launched to publish for a fee are not only not yet 'leading' in their fields, but are not even worthy of respect. They provide a means of publication regardless of academic quality. They accept work which authors should (and perhaps later will) be embarrassed about and they do not offer the rigorous review process that helps authors appreciate weaknesses in their work and improve it.2 They are not contributing to a field, but parasitic on it.
That is a pattern I see quite a lot these days.
A prejudiced view?
However, it is unfair to prejudge the journal without looking to see if what it is publishing is actually quality work.
I looked at the most recent issue of Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice, and saw it contained five papers – only one of which seemed to have anything to do with education – Chemistry Laboratory Safety Signs Awareness Among Undergraduate Students in Rivers State.
I decided to take look at the paper to see if I thought this article might indeed be of 'publishable quality' by one of the journals taken seriously in the field. Of course, all editors have bad days, and it would be wrong to scrutinse one education paper among many, and use that to characterise the general standard of work in a journal. So, I also looked back at previous issues, but found only a handful of other articles that seemed to be located in the field of education:
- Students' Perception of Chemistry Teachers' Characteristics of Interest, Attitude and Subject Mastery in the Teaching of Chemistry in Senior Secondary Schools
- An overview of the first year Undergraduate Medical Students Feedback on the Point of Care Ultrasound Curriculum
- Raman Spectroscopy: A Proposal for Didactic Innovation (IKD Model) In the Experimental Science Subject of the 3rd Year of the Primary Education Degree
- Assessment of Chemistry Laboratory Equipment Availability and Practice: A Comparative Study Between Damot and Jiga Secondary Schools
I also noticed a couple of articles on general chemical themes which looked like they might be of wider interest (and accessible to a non-specialist like myself).
So, I decided to take a quick look at these seven articles. I was aware I approached these studies with an existing bias based on the rather 'un-scholarly' and dishonest way in which this journal went about the business of attracting submissions. But I was also aware that even if a journal does not have careful procedures and proper editorial processes, this does not mean that it might not sometimes attract excellent work. I am only going to make brief comments here on most of these articles, but I have included links to more detailed discussions of them.
An invalid research instrument
The most noteworthy thing about the study 'Chemistry Laboratory Safety Signs Awareness Among Undergraduate Students in Rivers State' was that it used a data collection instrument which was invalid. The authors seemed to want to know if students would reognise the hazards signified by different laboratory signs, but provided a test instrument which told respondents the answer to this question as each sign was labelled with its meaning. The authors tested instead – inadvertently it seemed – whether students knew the hazards associated with a range of laboratory reagents.
(Read about 'Laboratory safety – not on the face of it')
A surprising research hypothesis
The article 'Students' Perception of Chemistry Teachers' Characteristics of Interest, Attitude and Subject Mastery in the Teaching of Chemistry in Senior Secondary Schools' reports a study using a questionnaire to study student perceptions of their chemistry teachers. The population of students sampled was reported to be "four hundred and ten (431)" but also "six hundred and thirty" students.
The study tested a hypothesis that there would not be a gender difference in student perceptions, and, indeed, found no statistically significant difference. (I suspected that I would not be visited by a fire inspector as I read his paper, and this also proved to be correct.) But then, no rationale have been given for thinking there was any reason to consider gender might be a factor – leaving a reader wondering what had motivated the test.
(Read about 'Not motivating a research hypothesis')
Out of scope and incomplete
The study 'An overview of the first year Undergraduate Medical Students Feedback on the Point of Care Ultrasound Curriculum' was very short, and did not fit in the scope of journal as it was not about chemistry/chemistry education but medical education. The paper was incomplete in several senses – it did not have a full methodology section, and indeed did not seem to actually have any meaningful data analysis. It was also incomplete as it referred readers to figures which were not there: something that the author, the editor, and any peer reviewers who might have been invited to evaluate the work, seem to have all missed.
Indeed the article, which the journal bizarrely considered a review article (it was not), seemed to be the text of a conference poster which had been presented under a somewhat different authorship at different conferences. To see something so thin and insubstantial published in a supposed research journal is quite surprising.
(Read about 'The mystery of the disappearing authors')
A speculative proposal
The study 'Raman Spectroscopy: A Proposal for Didactic Innovation (IKD Model) In the Experimental Science Subject of the 3rd Year of the Primary Education Degree' does not report any empirical work, but just a proposal for a teaching sequence for including in undergraduate primary teacher education. It is suggested that these future primary teachers should prepare crystals from supersaturated solutions, and examine the different crystal shapes from different salts, and then run Raman spectra of them.
This activity is claimed to have a wide range of benefits at the levels of the undergraduates, their future teaching, and society more widely, but no evidence is presented for any of the claims. It seems to be suggested that these students will later want to use Raman spectroscopy in their primary school teaching. This is rather ambitious, and serious research journals would be unlikely to publish such a speculative proposal without any evaluation of the idea being put into practice.
(Read about 'Spectroscopy for primary school teachers?')
Comparing two (allegedly) below average schools
The article 'Assessment of Chemistry Laboratory Equipment Availability and Practice: A Comparative Study Between Damot and Jiga Secondary Schools' uses a rather dubious questionnaire to survey chemistry teachers and students in two schools (supposedly chosen as they have different approaches to chemistry lab. work, although nothing more is offered about what these approaches are) about their perceptions of aspects of chemistry practical work. The authors conclude that both schools have very low levels of both lab equipment and laboratory practice – although this seems to be based on an entirely arbitrary guess about what should be considered an average level.
The authors seem to want their study to be considered as comparative education, seemingly on the basis that they compare chemistry practical work in two neighbouring schools. There are problems with both the data collection and analysis aspects of the study.
(Read about 'Assessing Chemistry Laboratory Equipment Availability and Practice')
A fundamental challenge to chemistry
The article 'Nature of Chemical Elements' makes claims that are potentially of great interest to chemists and chemistry teachers everywhere: that there are errors in the periodic table as chemists have got the atomic numbers wrong for many of the chemical elements; a new model of nuclear structure explains the proton:neutron ratio in different atoms; and there are new elements to be discovered to fit the gaps that had not been noticed in the periodic table.
These are pretty major claims (were they to be substantiated, probably several Nobel prizes' worth!), and any respectable research journal would engage in very careful peer review before publishing such claims. However, the journal managed to complete editorial and peer review processes in four days, apparently not spotting or being concerned about a range of conceptual issues that I felt needed correction or clarification. Like most of the articles examined, the published study contains various sloppy errors which should have been questioned or corrected by the journal's production department.
(Read 'Move over Mendeleev, here comes the new Mendel')
An author embarrasses himself
I found 'The Chemistry of Indigenous Peoples' most disappointing as it was very brief and yet incoherent in places. It made the illogical claim that the survival of the way of life of indigenous people that live in the rainforest depends upon deforestation! There seemed to be odd errors and discontinuities (that seemingly had not been spotted by the editor or any peer reviewers asked to evaluate the work). After a while, I found the cause of this: a combination of poor translations and plagiarism.
Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work as your own. This paper in 'Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice' that is supposed to be by one author, is actually a patchwork of paragraphs copied from three other published works by others.
This was the most disappointing read of the sample. I felt most of the studies at least represented honest attempts to contribute to the research literature even if all seemed to suffer from limited significance (although the article which wanted to overturn a good deal of canonical physics and chemistry was at least potentially significant), most raised unexplored issues of generalisation, and most included conceptual, logical and/or methodological weaknesses as well as language/typographical errors. However, stealing other people's scholarship, and presenting it as your own work is not just poor scholarship but academic malpractice.
(Read 'Can deforestation stop indigenous groups starving?')
This incoherent montage of other people's scholarship was also submitted to another journal two days before it was submitted to the 'Journal of Chemistry: Education, Research and Practice': it is also published in an outlet called 'Acta Scientific Pharmaceutical Sciences'.
(Read about 'A failure of peer review')
Poor quality work
In summary, from the papers I looked at, that is those in the journal that I felt most qualified to evaluate, the work in Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice is not of 'publishable quality'. Some of the articles might be useful starting points for a publication, and may have been suitable for improvement and development through the peer review process. However, if there was any meaningful peer review of some of these papers, it was clearly not by anyone who was both qualified to, and prepared to, carefully evaluate the manuscripts.
This lets down the community as poor quality work appears in the literature. This journal also lets down the authors as they should expect their work to be challenged and so improved, through rigorous peer review – which clearly has not operated here. The exception is the author who simply translated and pasted segments of other people's work into an incoherent composite. That is not a matter of needing editorial support, but simply of learning that it is wrong to steal. That author let themselves down.
Work cited:
Taber, K. S. (2018). The end of academic standards? A lament on the erosion of scholarly values in the post-truth world. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 19(1), 9-14. doi:10.1039/C7RP90012K
Notes
1 Of course, there is the matter of claiming priority by publishing first. In the mythology of science this is very important – though in practice this is seldom as critical as the myth suggests. In science education someone would have to be incredibly unlucky to miss winning a major award or getting that dream job because they published a week or two after a colleague made substantially the same claim – I doubt this has ever occurred.
2 Peer review (psychologically, at least) can seem to be a bit like an irregular verb, in that my work does not really need peer review, but yours will benefit from it; the requests I get to change my submitted manuscripts are misguided, unhelpful or petty, but the recommendations I make about improving other people's work are appropriate, necessary and insightful.
