Scientific Publishing Ecosystem

The book aims to converge the perspectives of authors, editors, and reviewers to discuss modern scientific publishing practice and emerging concerns in the contemporary world.  Authors, editors, and reviewers form a triage in a publishing ecosystem which is witnessing a huge pressure due to changing evaluation criteria for career progression and grant funding. The major perspective of this book is to put forth the present-day emerging ills of modern publishing system and sensitize the research fraternity - be it young researchers or established scientists towards practicing good science and preserving spirit of scientific discoveries.

The edited book consists of three parts viz, Part I “Authors, Authorship, and Scholarly Dissemination” features ten chapters devoted to describe authorship issues and good publication practice, plagiarism concerns, preprints, open access models, conflicting interests, rise of review papers, writing book reviews, and assessing faculty beyond metrics. Part II “Editors, Editorial Desks, and Issues of Scientific Misconduct” features eight chapters devoted to discuss on issues of editorial misconduct, desk rejections, paper mills, letters to editors, image duplication, emerging ChatGPT in writing/reviewing spaces, citation cartels, and retractions. Finally, Part III “Reviewers and Developing Evaluator’s Eye” features five chapters devoted to discuss peer review as an idea creating model, paying peer reviewers, training reviewers, peer review manipulations, and peer review in age of AI . All chapters in the book are written by expert contributors of the field that provides a systematic approach of understanding various challenges, opportunities, and ethical considerations of scientific publishing ecosystem. Most of the chapters have featured recent cases of scientific misconduct as examples to reflect scale of the problem.  

This book will serve as a reference to research practitioners in understanding assigning authorship on papers, modern-day publishing collaboration, role of editors to serve journals in a holistic manner and ensuring fair peer review mechanisms.

Payal B. Joshi, MSc, PhD, is currently serving as Director and Head, Operations and Method Development at Shefali Research Laboratories, Mumbai, India. She received her Master’s in Organic Chemistry in 2005 from Smt. Chandibai H. Mansukhani College (affiliated to University of Mumbai). After qualifying GATE in 2007, she went onto pursue her doctoral study and received PhD in Chemical Science in 2010 from School of Science, SVKMs NMIMS University, Vile Parle, Mumbai, India. Prior to joining industry, she served as Assistant Professor at Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management, and Engineering, SVKMs NMIMS University, India. With over 15 years of teaching experience and 3 years of industry experience, she is actively serving as a researcher in areas of green chemistry, artificial intelligence, organic and analytical chemistry. Besides chemistry, her peculiar interests include research integrity and sensitizing young researchers toward responsible scientific conduct. She is an affiliate member of Royal Society of Chemistry, Community Associate member at American Chemical Society, life member of Indian Pharmaceutical Association, and California Separation Science Society. She has authored 2 books, 30+ research papers, published 1 copyright, and 2 patents.

Prathamesh Churi, ME, PhD, is serving as a senior manager (Information Security) at SMFG India Credit Company (Formally Fullerton India Credit Co. Ltd). Prior to that, he served as a faculty member in Computer Engineering Department at Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management, and Engineering, SVKMs NMIMS University, Mumbai, India. He is currently serving as senior member of IEEE.  He is actively involved in peer-review process of reputed IEEE and Springer journals such as IEEE Transactions on Education, Springer Education and Information Technologies, and 17 other journals. He has 80+ research papers in National/International Conferences and Journals (Scopus, ESCI and SCI Indexed). He has five patents in the field of Privacy, Wireless Sensor Networks, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things. He is active leader, coach, mentor, and volunteer in many non-profit organizations. He is also involved as board of study member in many universities for curriculum development and educational transformation.

Manoj Pandey, PhD, DSc, schooled in the philosophy of Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University, i.e., selfless service for the benefit of mankind and care of the health needs of the needy, he has been trained as a surgeon.  His philanthropic approach to life, the uncertain and incurable aspects of cancer as a disease, and his natural compassion and desire to explore the unexplored and treat the non-treatable provided him with a valuable insight to discover a career in surgical oncology. Following the example of his own teachers and guides, he has tried his best with outstretched and guiding hands and has invested immeasurable personal and professional resources into training and mentoring of students, research scholars and upcoming surgeons to benefit them and help quality capacity building for the country. His aspiration for high quality research for cancer can be seen from his love of science and research in the specialty, which is reflected in a total of 328 publications and an overall impact: 308 (Average 67.34) , H-Index 50, I10-index- 130 and total citations – 7372 till date.  He is one of the few professional scholars nationally who have systematically contributed to the literature that addresses the determinants of cancer and oncology in general through peer-reviewed publications of high standard. Other than contributing through own publications, he has been an editor of prestigious journals of the specialty like “World Journal of Surgical Oncology,” published by Springer Nature group, Editorial board member of “International Journal of Wound” member of scientific advisory board of “Australasian Journal of Cancer,” and has been member of ICMR task force on cancer.