The scientific community is paying increasing attention to the quality practices of journals and publishers. NIH recently released a Guide notice (NOT-OD-18-011) to encourage authors to publish in journals that do not undermine the credibility, impact, and accuracy of their research findings. This notice aims to raise awareness about practices like changing publication fees without notice, lacking transparency in publication procedures, misrepresenting editorial boards, and/or using suspicious peer review.

This may not be a big problem for NIH-funded publications now; our colleagues Jennifer Marill, Kathryn Funk, and Jerry Sheehan from the National Library of Medicine note that more than 90% of the 815,000 publicly available journal articles reporting on NIH-funded research are published in MEDLINE indexed journals. Nonetheless, we do know that a problem exists – there are articles reporting NIH-funded research appearing in journals that engage in questionable practices. Ensuring the credibility of NIH funded research is important to maintaining public trust in research.
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NIH has taken—and continues to take—many steps to ensure the credibility of the research it supports. From enhancing rigor and reproducibility, to encouraging sharing of data and protocols, to promoting pre-prints, and to requiring timely registration and reporting of clinical trial results, NIH establishes policies to make our funded research as credible, transparent, rigorous, and full of impact as possible.
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Also see:
In a world of hijacked, clone and zombie publishing, where shouldn’t I publish?
Examining publishing practices: moving beyond the idea of predatory…
Continuing Steps to Ensuring Credibility of NIH Research: Selecting Journals with…
Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and…
Open access, power, and privilege