Reactions: In defense of Frontiers’ self-citation rates

Letters to the editor

Frontiers’ self-citations

We read with interest the article “2 Open-Access Publishers Accused of Excessive Self-Citation.” Citation data and facts matter, as the article suggests, and Frontiers would like to present facts and additional data for C&EN readers to consider.

The C&EN article is based on a preprint’s conclusions, which contradict the recognized guardian of citation data—Clarivate. Clarivate’s criteria are clear for acceptable self-citation, and the company has issued expressions of concern when unacceptable levels are detected. No Frontiers journal has ever been the subject of such concern from Clarivate. According to Clarivate’s latest Journal Citation Reports (JCR) data, the median Frontiers journal self-citation rate is 5%—slightly lower than the market average of 6%. The preprint’s authors use a new and complicated model for self-citations that does not take into account growth dynamics. Clarivate accounts for the increases and decreases in publication volume as standard practice, as they do affect citation dynamics. The fact that the preprint’s analysis and conclusions are at odds with all other readily available data indicates that the methodology or execution of the analysis is flawed.

A certain rate of self-citation is normal, and levels depend on the journal and the field. Legitimate self-citation can be influenced by a range of factors, such as percentage of review articles, degree of specialization in journal scope, repeat authorship, and the publication of article collections, which bring together leaders in a small and evolving research subject area. Larger journals can have higher self-citation rates because they are publishing a significant fraction of all articles within certain subdomains of research. For instance, according to Clarivate data, 20 of the journals published by the American Chemical Society have double-digit self-citation rates, such as the Journal of Chemical Education (55%) and the Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data (21%), to name just two. Frontiers’ own analysis (based on recent JCR data) confirms that in almost all cases, Frontiers journals would rank more highly in their research area categories if self-citations were entirely excluded from the Journal Impact Factor. For example, Frontiers in Animal Science would be ranked six places higher in the “Veterinary Sciences” category, and Frontiers in Aging would rank five places higher in the “Geriatrics and Gerontology” category.

Frederick Fenter
Lausanne, Switzerland

Editor’s note: Frederick Fenter is chief executive editor at Frontiers.