Abstract
This article raises the awareness of university-sponsored supplements in high-impact journals and the issues of this new practice. Based on a library user’s complaint of a dead OpenURL link, this study looks over dozens of articles from university-sponsored supplements in Science, Nature, and Cell Press journals. It compares their metadata with those of regular articles from the parent journals. It also compares how these supplements are indexed by comprehensive journal indexes (Academic Search Complete, Scopus, and Web of Science). It found that various universities and research institutes in East Asia, mainly China, are major sponsors of supplements of key journals in recent years. The issues along with this new practice include dead OpenURL linking, index irregularities, self-congratulatory sponsors and their misled audience in East Asia. The media in China was so misled that it ranked one sponsored story among world top 10 news. It questions the ethics in publishing university-sponsored supplements, and calls for standardizations of assigning metadata including DOI as well as adding a disclaimer to all supplement articles.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ARWU (2015). Greater China ranking top 100 universities methodology (in Chinese). http://www.shanghairanking.cn/Greater_China_Ranking/Greater-China-Ranking-Methodology-2014.html. Accessed February 23, 2015.
Bero, L., Galbraith, A., & Rennie, D. (1992). The publication of sponsored symposiums in medical journals. New England Journal of Medicine, 327(16), 1135–1140.
Caelleigh, A. (1993). Journal supplements, libraries, and the FDA. Bulletin of Medical Library Association, 81, 237–239.
China Overseas Net (2015). World top 10 news of Chinese medicine in 2014 released (in Chinese). http://www.chinaqw.com/zhwh/2015/01-12/33441.shtml. Accessed February 20, 2015.
Citrome, L. (2010). Citability of original research and reviews in journals and their sponsored supplements. PLoS ONE, 5(3), e9876. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009876.
Cui, F. (2015). World top 10 news of Chinese medicine in 2014. Health News (in Chinese). http://www.jkb.com.cn/news/industryNews/2015/0112/359240.html. Accessed February 20, 2015.
Dong, C. (2014). Shanghai Jiaotong University President Jie Zhang published in Nature “Chinese university reform in three steps”. Jiefang Daily (in Chinese). http://www.jfdaily.com/jizhe/201410/t20141016_866894.html. Accessed February 24, 2015.
Huanqiu (2014). Science. Chinese medicine supplement in the US is an advertisement (in Chinese). http://world.huanqiu.com/exclusive/2014-12/5309226.html. Accessed February 24, 2015.
Lin, S. (2013). Why serious academic fraud occurs in China? Learned Publishing, 26(1), 24–27.
Lurie, P., Newman, T., & Hulley, S. (1993). Caution over journal supplements. BMJ, 307, 1140–1141.
Nahai, F. (2012). The role of sponsored supplements in a peer-reviewed journal. Aesthetic Surgery Journal, 32(2), 245–247.
Rochon, P., Gurwitz, J., Cheung, C. M., Hayes, J., & Chalmers, T. (1994). Evaluating the quality of articles published in journal supplements compared with the quality of those published in the parent journal. New England Journal of Medicine, 272(2), 108–113.
Sismondo, S. (2007). Ghost management: How much of the medical literature is shaped behind the scenes by the pharmaceutical industry? PLoS Medicine, 4, e286. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040286.
Smith, G. (2000). Scientific journals with editorial independence: An endangered species? Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology, 13, 187–190.
The Lancet Editorial. (2010). The perils of journal and supplement publishing. The Lancet, 375(9712), 347.
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to Ellie Hansen of Bradley University (Emeritus) for editing this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, X. Questionable University-sponsored supplements in high-impact journals. Scientometrics 105, 1985–1995 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1644-0
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1644-0