Five years ago, it would take a lot of effort just to find a single scientific journal devoted to stem cells. Now, the authors of a survey of the field found 34 of them without even trying that hard; meanwhile, major results can find a home in less-specialized journals like Development, Nature, and Science. The authors consider two possible outcomes of this proliferation of journals, both of them potentially disturbing for the scientific community: either the new journals pay host to a lot of low-quality papers, or abuse of peer review is driving otherwise good work into obscure outlets.

To a certain extent, a growth in stem-cell-focused journals is no surprise. The field produced a number of well-publicized results that made stem cells easier to work with, and their potential for use for medical therapies has excited both the public and biomedical community. Both of these things have contributed to a huge growth in the number of people studying stem cells, and a corresponding need for them to have a place to publish their results.

But as the authors, Paul Sanberg and Cesar Borlongan, note, many stem cell papers continue to appear in journals that predate recent discoveries, and the addition of 32 specialized journals since 2004 would seem to provide an outlet that outstrips the growth of the field. There's a real risk that some of these journals will publish lower-quality papers, or even end up as a dumping ground for data that can't be published elsewhere. "So many journals have 'stem cell' in their titles," the authors note, "that it may be difficult for the public, governments, and scientists outside the field to determine the quality of what they are reading, and the caliber of stem cell science and medicine." They also suggest that there might be nefarious aspects to some publications, which could be used to promote stem cell tourism for sham treatments.

(Ironically, that list would include Stem Cell Reviews and Reports, which published this critique; I was unaware of the journal's existence prior to today.)

Right now, it's difficult to tell whether quality is a problem—the standard (although somewhat flawed) measure of a journal's quality is its impact factor, and that requires a three-year publication history. Many of the new journals haven't gotten there yet.

Refuse or refuge?

But Sanberg and Borlongan also consider another possibility: overly aggressive peer review could be forcing papers out of mainstream journals, turning these lower-profile, specialized outlets into the only place that will publish some high-quality work. As evidence, they cite a BBC report in which a group of biologists accused journals of relying on a limited set of reviewers that would only accept papers that supported their views, or to delay competing publications for long enough that the reviewers can publish their own work

Stem cells aren't the only field where this sort of complaint has been voiced, but most other fields have a set of established journals that are lower profile, but don't rely on the same reviewers. If the work is of reasonable quality, researchers can publish in these journals if their studies are bounced from the high-profile ones.

Until recently, stem cell researchers didn't have that luxury. It's only the addition of dozens of new outlets over the last few years that assures researchers that their work will eventually find a home unless it's seriously flawed, even if that home isn't in one of the high-profile journals.

So are these new journals dung heaps of low-quality work, or a host of solid research that just doesn't make it into the high-profile journals? The authors can't really tell, and (correctly) suggest that the work can only be analyzed on a case-by-case basis by someone with relevant expertise. Which really isn't much use to the public or policymakers that want to follow the field.

Prospects for reform

Over the longer term, the balance between the number of journals and quality of publications has tended to work itself out in a Darwinian manner; journals that consistently published low-quality work attracted fewer subscribers, lost money, and shut down. But that process may have been undercut by the rapid rise of open access, online-only publications, something that Sanberg and Borlongan suggest may have been essential to the fast expansion of stem cell journals.

The costs of starting and maintaining an online-only publication appear to be significantly lower than that of traditional print journals. It's apparently so easy that one online publisher, BioMed Central, actually has a webpage that promotes the use of its services to anyone who's considering founding a new, open-access journal. BioMed Central is now owned by Springer, which is also launching its own set of open access journals. Even established journals such as PNAS have adopted an open access model for some publications and, this week, announced that it would be experimenting with online-only publications.

So the proliferation of journals is likely to become more pronounced. Which, as discussed above, is not necessarily a bad thing; it allows the publishing field to rapidly adapt to the changing scientific landscape as entire fields, such as stem cell research, take off.

The same proliferation that is causing some problems, however, may provide a solution to the quality issue. A recent article in The Scientist has examined how a number of journals are experimenting with ways to alter peer review to get rid of some of the problems that may keep quality papers out of high-profile journals. It details a few cases where some journals (including some online-only ones) are eliminating the anonymity of the reviewers, publishing the reviews with the papers, and speeding up the review process.

So far, these efforts are few and far between. But it's possible that, if they successfully eliminate some of the problems that make peer review less about quality and more about the personal interests of reviewers, then they'll be adopted more widely. Or quality papers will simply gravitate towards the journals that adopt them, which might return us to the days where a Darwinian competition among journals prevailed.

Stem Cell Reviews and Reports, 2010. DOI: 10.1007/s12015-010-9181-y (About DOIs).