The document discusses the responsibilities and ethical considerations of journal editors, highlighting the potential for misuse of their position to increase their own citations and the journal's impact factor through self-citation and coercive practices. It provides examples of editors exploiting their roles, including specific cases of self-citation and editorial abuses in various journals. Additionally, it notes the prevalence of citation coercion in academia, particularly among younger faculty, and the need for transparent guidelines for handling submissions and misconduct.

1. Malibu Rohwani
*

2. *
*Editor

3. *
*"With great power
comes great responsibility“
Peter Parker

4. *
*To decide which papers meet the criteria for
scientific excellence and relevance for the
community the journal serves
*To seek out exciting new areas for publication;
identify and solicit thought-provoking and
controversial papers
*To assure that all submitted manuscripts
receive prompt, critical evaluation, and meet
or better timeliness goals

5. *
*The instructions to authors will need reviewing
to ensure they are up to date with current
guidelines.
*They should clearly state what is expected of
authors and what the editor will do in cases of
suspected misconduct such as plagiarism or
data fabrication.

6. *
*Editors should work with the journal
publisher/editorial office to agree processes
for handling submissions that are the most
efficient and appropriate for the journal

7. *
*Editors should not be able to publish in their
own journal, but they must not exploit their
position.
*The journal must have a procedure for handling
submissions from the editor or members of the
editorial board that ensures that peer review is
handled independently of the author/editor.

8. *
*Increase Journal’s Impact Factor
*Publish own work
*Increase own citations

9. *
*Editors may artificially increase their journal’s IF by
*(1) Coercive citation: facilitating or even
demanding self-citation
*(2) increasing editorials with citations,
*(3) limiting the total number of articles and/or the
number of original papers and increasing the
number of review and/or technical articles that are
more likely to be
*(4) prerelease or timing of publication early during
a year thus allowing more time for citation for a
given year

10. *
*The World Journal of Gastroenterology
*In 2000, the journal received its first impact
factor, 0.993.
*The next year, in 2001, it increased to 1.445.
*In 2002, It increased again to 2.532 and
*In 2003 to 3.318.

11. *
*96% of citations contributing to Cereal
Research Communications‘ impact factor in
2007 were self-citations.

12. *
*The IF Algorithm
The number of times items published in Nature during
2006-2007 were cited in journals during 2008
divided by
____________________________________________
The number of ‘citable’ articles published in Nature in 2006 and
2007 (substantive items, primary research articles, reviews)
= a journal publishing lots of ‘non-citable’ items can achieve a
higher IF than journals that predominantly publish ‘citable’
items
= More Editorials!

13. *
*Editorials
*Exempt from peer review
*an editor is able to cite many articles from
one’s own journal and have it published quickly
and without delay.

14. *
*“The NHJ 2012 in retrospect: which articles are
cited most?” by E.E. Van der Wall, editor of the
Netherlands Heart Journal.
*Published in December 2012, the brief editorial
contains 25 self-citations to the NHJ, 24 of
which cite articles written between 2010 and
2011 — the window from which the journal’s
next impact factor will be calculated.

15. *
*Some editors used their journal as a
personal vehicle for dissemination and
promotion of their own work
*December 2008 issue of Chaos, Solitons &
Fractals, Five of the articles are written by
the editor, Mohamed El Naschie.
*In 2008, he wrote 60 papers in the journal.
*He has written nearly 300 articles in the
journal since its inception.

16. *
*Of the 31 papers not written by El Naschie in
the an issue of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, at
least 11 are related to his theories and include
58 citations of his work in the journal.

17. *
* The International Journal of Nonlinear Science and Numerical
Simulation (IJNSNS), founded in 2000 by Ji Huan-He.
* In 2008 IJNSNS had an impact factor of 8.91
* Ji-Huan He, the founder and editor-in-chief of IJNSNS, is also
an editor of another journal Chaos Solitons and Fractals
(CSF).
* Both He and El Naschie publish a lot, not only in their own
journals but also in each other’s, and they cite each other
frequently.
* The top-citing author to IJNSNS in 2008 was the journal’s own
editor-in-chief, Ji-Huan He, who cited the journal 243 times.
* The three editors of the journal account for 29% of the
citations counted toward the impact factor.

18. *
*Editorial feedback to corresponding authors to
include self-citations
*Citation coercion has been experienced by about
20% of academic authors, and younger faculty are
more likely to succumb when editors or publishers
“request” more journal citations.
*While the vast majority of respondents (86%)
viewed citation coercion as inappropriate behavior,
more than half (57%) indicated that they would
consent to the request.

19. *
*Becoming editor or guest editor of a journal
*“you cite my article only once in your 40
references. Consequently, I kindly ask you to
add references of my articles to your present
article”.

20. *
*IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology
*Special Issue Volume 9, Issue 4 (April 2013).
*Recent advances in solid state lighting
*Guest Editor: Nelson Tansu

21. *
* Effects of H2 in GaN barrier spacer layer of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum-
well light-emitting diodes. Lai, W.-C., Yang, Y.-Y. 2013
* 10 citations to Tansu
* Investigating the effect of piezoelectric polarization on GaN-based LEDs
with different quantum barrier thickness. Wang, C.K., Chiang, T.H., Chen,
K.Y., Chiou, Y.Z., Lin, T.K., Chang, S.P., Chang, S.J.
* 9 citations to Tansu
* Lateral current spreading effect on the efficiency droop in GaN based
light-emitting diodes. Huang, S., Fan, B., Chen, Z., Zheng, Z., Luo, H.,
Wu, Z., Wang, G., Jiang, H.
* 8 citations to Tansu
* Effect of polarization-matched n-type AlGaInN electron-blocking layer on
the optoelectronic properties of blue InGaN light-emitting diodes. Li, Y.,
Gao, Y., He, M., Zhou, J., Lei, Y., Zhang, L., Zhu, K., Chen, Y.
* 11 citations to Tansu

22. *
*All 17 papers have 6-10 citations to Tansu, and
all papers are from China, Taiwan and
Singapore
*A single special issue = 160 citations to Tansu
*Journal Editor as a personal vehicle for
promotion of their own work and increasing
citation

23. *
*Editor position can be abused
*To increase journal’s impact factor
*To increase Editor’s own publications
*To increase Editor’s own citations and h index

24. *“I wish you all a nice, productive, and citable
2013.”