TCSR – an Open-Access Journal for Those Who are not Afraid of Peer Review

In a paper well worth reading recently published in Science,[1] John Bohannon describes what happened to a fake manuscript full of mistakes and without meaningful scientific content, which was sent to 304 Open-Access journals: 157 (51.6%) journals accepted the manuscript – sometimes without recognizable reviewing process, sometimes requesting extremely high prices for publication of the paper. Bohannon: “Only 36 of the 304 submissions generated review comments recognizing any of the paper's scientific problems.” While Open-Access was invented to make scientific data rapidly and easily available to the scientific community at no cost, it is now sometimes used with fraudulent intent.

The manuscript was not sent to the TCSR, most probably simply because it is a case-report journal. There are, however, two other facts that would speak against sending the fake scientific manuscript to TCSR: one is that TCSR is not on the blacklist of Jeffrey Beall,[2] a journalist noted for publicly describing Open-Access journals he thinks are faulty, the other that it is the daughter journal of The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon, a well-reputed journal with a history of more than 60 years.

If such a manuscript would have been sent to the TCSR, I don't believe it would have survived the reviewing process which keeps up high scientific standards. Although it is an Open-Access journal, around 50% of the submitted manuscripts have been rejected in 2013. I am deeply thankful to all reviewers who invested parts of their lifetime making the young TCSR a success in 2013, and I hope they will continue their efforts during the years to come to achieve the next goal which is aiming for the famous, but quite debatable “impact factor.”[3] One important step on the way to this goal has already been made in 2013: TCSR was admitted into the “Index Medicus,” which means it is now citable.

In contrast to the “internet predators,”[2] TCSR publishes papers at a comparatively low fee which is further reduced for members of the DGTHG. This could stimulate authors – especially from the German, Austrian, and Swiss societies who are associated with the TCS – to continue submitting case reports to our young journal and thereby help to establish it as a serious, successful and honest member of the “Open-Access” community.

• References

• 1 Bohannon J. Who's afraid of peer review?. Science 2013; 342 (6154) 60-65
• 2 Beall J. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature 2012; 489 (7415): 179 . doi: 10.1038/489179a
• 3 Heinemann MK. On metrics. Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2013; 61 (5) 377-378