4 ms·

It's run by a reputable publisher (Springer) and the editorial board consists of scientists at major universities: https://foodcontaminationjournal.biomedcentra

It's run by a reputable publisher (Springer) and the editorial board consists of scientists at major universities: https://foodcontaminationjournal.biomedcentral.com/about/editorial-board https://foodcontaminationjournal.biomedcentral.com/about/edi....

timr 5y ago
It's not a great journal. Per the metrics: 0.882 - Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 0.37 - SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 4 - Cite Score This is a place where niche papers get published. Springer runs tons of crap journals. (for reference, SJR scores for all journals: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php)
- spekcular 5y ago
  Low citation count does not imply it's an untrustworthy journal. Sometimes niche knowledge is useful – as in the present case of food contamination studies!
  - timr 5y ago
    No, but it implies they have a low bar for acceptance. You can't take impact factor of the journal as the sole indicator of quality for a particular paper (even NEJM publishes garbage), but it should strongly influence your prior. Especially for general-interest studies like this, if the results were impactful and well done they'd be published in a better journal. Assuming that this is done well (I have no idea), the fact that it's in a super-niche journal means that it's likely not surprising/interesting to anyone in the field.
    - spekcular 5y ago
      Let's not conflate "quality" of the paper with whether the results are surprising or interesting to experts. As far as I tell, the work is competently done and provides useful information to consumers. Namely, that commercially available ceramic mugs likely do not pose a lead hazard, with quantitative estimates of the lead they leach. It's not going to win a Nobel prize – but I don't think that should be the bar for taking food safety research seriously.
      - timr 5y ago
        I'm not conflating the two. I said explicitly I don't have any basis to judge.

timr 5y ago

It's not a great journal. Per the metrics: 0.882 - Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 0.37 - SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 4 - Cite Score This is a place where niche papers get published. Springer runs tons of crap journals. (for reference, SJR scores for all journals: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php)

spekcular 5y ago
Low citation count does not imply it's an untrustworthy journal. Sometimes niche knowledge is useful – as in the present case of food contamination studies!
- timr 5y ago
  No, but it implies they have a low bar for acceptance. You can't take impact factor of the journal as the sole indicator of quality for a particular paper (even NEJM publishes garbage), but it should strongly influence your prior. Especially for general-interest studies like this, if the results were impactful and well done they'd be published in a better journal. Assuming that this is done well (I have no idea), the fact that it's in a super-niche journal means that it's likely not surprising/interesting to anyone in the field.
  - spekcular 5y ago
    Let's not conflate "quality" of the paper with whether the results are surprising or interesting to experts. As far as I tell, the work is competently done and provides useful information to consumers. Namely, that commercially available ceramic mugs likely do not pose a lead hazard, with quantitative estimates of the lead they leach. It's not going to win a Nobel prize – but I don't think that should be the bar for taking food safety research seriously.
    - timr 5y ago
      I'm not conflating the two. I said explicitly I don't have any basis to judge.