Deficient editorial practices, perceived quality, and expedient scholarly publishing in a developing nation

Abstract

Background There is increasing concern about the quality, integrity, and accessibility to research published in the developing world. This study explores the editorial practices and editors’ perspectives to gain insight into the standard of scholarly publishing in Libya. Methods Between 21st January and 12th February, 2022, the editors-in-chief (EC) of Libyan academic journals were invited to complete a questionnaire on editorial practices, degree of satisfaction with submitted and published manuscripts, review processes, and journal performance, as well as challenges facing the journals. Journal websites were examined for quality, and indexation coverage and citations were assessed. We examined the number of citations in Google Scholar for all 2019 articles published in each journal. Descriptive statistics were used to quantitatively summarize the data and thematic analysis was used for the narrative text. Results 48 EC completed the questionnaire. The EC was affiliated with the institution that owns the journal in 92% of cases. Most EC (83%) were satisfied with the peer-review quality, 69% believed that most of their published papers add new ideas or findings, and 96% were satisfied with their journal’s performance. However, despite the high degree of satisfaction, only one journal was indexed in Web of Science or Scopus and only 17% of the journals were indexed in Google Scholar. A qualitative assessment of journal websites revealed shortcomings in publishing practices in a large proportion of the journals. Conclusions The discordance between the satisfaction of the journal editors and the journal quality indicators points to a break in the quality system of Libyan academic publishing. Similar expedient publishing practices might exist in other countries as well. A comprehensive action plan led by academic institutions to enforce high standards for scholarly publishing is needed to advance research and high-quality scholarly publications in developing countries.