Volume 58 Issue 01 January/February 2025
Publications

SIAM Publications: Safeguarding Quality in a Changing Landscape

As a nonprofit and independent society publisher, SIAM has always maintained an unremitting focus on quality above all else. This core principle is increasingly at risk across the scholarly publishing landscape.

Three unfortunate incentives are collectively compromising the quality and integrity of scientific publishing: (i) the “publish or perish” culture of academia; (ii) the gold open access/transformative agreements model, which financially motivates publishers to accept more papers; and (iii) the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to turbocharge commercial paper mills, i.e., fraudulent organizations that produce fake manuscripts, data, and authorship. Some publishers are now finding that their emphasis on quantity over quality has allowed the publication of content that should never have survived a robust editorial review process. Open access without quality is pointless and erodes trust among all stakeholders — including the public.

In this broader context, SIAM’s longstanding focus on quality—through the publication of first-rate, cutting-edge, vetted research for a global audience—has never been more important. The many strong testimonials from authors and readers attest to the high standards of SIAM publications. However, we cannot be complacent in the face of growing threats to research integrity, including plagiarism; citation and reviewer cartels [2]; citation coercion by peer reviewers [5]; paper mills; paid guest/ghost authorship; data fabrication; image manipulation; and the hijacking of identities, special issues, journals, and publishers [1].

Generative AI large language models remain prone to mistakes or “hallucinations,” such as the appearance of nonexistent references in bibliographies. But these errors will likely be eradicated in the near future, and publishers may soon receive AI-generated papers with entirely plausible abstracts, body text, figures, data, and bibliographies. While most researchers behave honestly, a small minority of bad actors will likely use AI tools to quickly produce questionable publications. To minimize fraudulent activity, the publishing industry is considering the use of identity checks for authors and reviewers. Academic institutions must also proactively address alleged research misconduct issues and affirm research integrity; one possible idea is that “[e]very research article submitted to a journal should come with a digital certificate validating that the authors’ institution(s) has completed a series of checks to ensure research integrity” [3].

SIAM is actively assessing new tools to identify submissions that may potentially come from paper mills or are duplicated across publishers. We have long used an industry-wide plagiarism checker called Similarity Check to assess all submissions; staff also review the results manually. In addition, authors who publish in the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing and SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications can request a reproducibility badge if their code and data are available in supplementary materials or a permanent public repository.

SIAM published its Editorial Policy on Artificial Intelligence in October 2023, but policy is not prevention. While attempts are underway to watermark AI-generated content [4], it is unlikely that any detection tool will be able to robustly identify AI-generated text in the long term. As such, the system will always involve an element of trust that determined bad actors can exploit to their advantage. This is where the human element of SIAM’s editorial process will continue to be absolutely vital, so let me take this opportunity to thank SIAM editors, reviewers, and staff for their tireless and vigilant work.

Join Our Accessibility Advisory Group

Are you a person with a visual impairment who reads SIAM publications online, or have you helped colleagues or students navigate accessibility challenges? Please fill out the online form to join our new Accessibility Advisory Group! SIAM is looking to improve the accessibility of its online publications and would highly appreciate your input and feedback on issues such as effective alternative text for figures and user-friendly file formats.

We have been actively working with our platform and production vendors to design a roadmap for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, which form the standard for digital accessibility. These efforts will broadly ensure that the SIAM Publications Library is compliant with the upcoming European Accessibility Act as well as U.S. mandates under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

New SIAM Journal on Life Sciences

Following a successful proposal by Jonathan Rubin of the University of Pittsburgh and Simone Bianco of Altos Labs, SIAM is delighted to announce that the new SIAM Journal on Life Sciences (SIALS) was approved by the SIAM Board of Trustees and SIAM Council and will begin accepting submissions in spring 2025. Rubin will serve as editor-in-chief (EIC) and Bianco will serve as one of three section editors. SIALS will publish research about the substantive use of quantitative methods—including modeling, computing, and mathematical analysis—in the study of biological systems and their applications. Submissions should involve new mathematical models of biological systems, the development and application of novel quantitative methodologies, and/or the use of existing mathematical methodologies for the analysis of biological models. All articles must include a clear connection to life sciences topics with biological, medical, or industrial relevance.

We thank everyone in the SIAM life sciences community who has supported this journal’s launch. To receive updates and announcements about SIALS, please fill out the online contact form.

Book Series on Mathematical Neuroscience

SIAM has launched a new book series on Mathematical Neuroscience that is led by three EICs: Daniele Avitabile of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Mathieu Desroches of the Inria Branch of the University of Montpellier, and Serafim Rodrigues of the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics. The series will comprise tutorials, monographs, and textbooks that address mathematically grounded work on neural models at all scales.

If you have an idea for a book in this series—or any other SIAM book series, for that matter—please contact Elizabeth Greenspan (Executive Editor of SIAM Books) at [email protected]. SIAM publishes high-quality monographs and textbooks and is also seeking proposals for more general interest books.

Editor-in-chief Transitions

2025 will see EIC transitions for three SIAM journals: the SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification, SIAM Journal on Computing, and SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis (see Figure 1). We extend our sincere gratitude to the outgoing EICs for their excellent leadership and welcome their successors.

<strong>Figure 1.</strong> The outgoing and incoming editors-in-chief for the <em>SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification (JUQ)</em>, <em>SIAM Journal on Computing (SICOMP)</em>, and <em>SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis (SIMA)</em>. Figure courtesy of the author.
Figure 1. The outgoing and incoming editors-in-chief for the SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification (JUQ), SIAM Journal on Computing (SICOMP), and SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis (SIMA). Figure courtesy of the author.

Record Readership and New Enhancements

The continued evolution of the SIAM Publications Library has again led to record readership and engagement with SIAM publications. Journal article downloads are up by 50 percent since 2020, and 2024 saw a 23 percent increase from 2023. A SIAM journal article is now downloaded once every 21 seconds.

Librarians look at full-text article downloads as a key metric when deciding whether to renew your SIAM resources. With that in mind, please access SIAM journals on the SIAM Publications Library from within your campus IP range or institutional VPN whenever possible. Every download of the SIAM version of an article (rather than a preprint from arXiv) is a vote for your library to maintain a subscription to SIAM journals.

Following the success of the SIAM Epidemiology Collection, we launched the SIAM High Impact Article Collection: a selection of frequently downloaded and highly cited articles. In 2024, the collection featured 75 articles that rotated periodically and were freely available for a limited time.

The new SIAM Bookstore, which is fully integrated with the SIAM Publications Library, officially launched in January 2024. SIAM can now sell e-books directly to individuals, and the implementation of single sign-on allows members to use the same login to secure their member book discount. Early data indicates that the new bookstore is also reaching nonmembers more successfully, thereby broadening the scope and sale of SIAM books.

Thanks to developments last year, it is now possible for journal and book authors to directly embed playable video content within the body of a journal article or book chapter. SIAM also published its first two books with full-text XML versions—Mathematical Foundations of Finite Elements and Iterative Solvers by Paolo Gatto and Fundamentals of Numerical Computation: Julia Edition by Tobin Driscoll and Richard Braun—which provide a much-improved alternate reading experience, particularly on mobile devices.

Continued Expansion of SIAM Proceedings

We strengthened the SIAM Proceedings collection last year by expanding the number of proceedings that SIAM publishes and further investing in the production process. In 2024, SIAM secured three new proceedings agreements:

If you know of any other high-quality proceedings that SIAM should consider publishing, please reach out to me at
[email protected].

SIAM Book Donations in Nepal

Students in EducationUSA Nepal’s Opportunity Funds Program peruse a selection of donated SIAM textbooks. Photo courtesy of Daniel Smartt.
Students in EducationUSA Nepal’s Opportunity Funds Program peruse a selection of donated SIAM textbooks. Photo courtesy of Daniel Smartt.

In 2024, SIAM donated slightly worn undergraduate and lower-level graduate textbooks to students in EducationUSA Nepal’s Opportunity Funds Program, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. This program aims to improve the accessibility of U.S. higher education for international students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Please Recommend SIAM Journals and E-books to Your Libraries

As always, I will close with a very important request: Please contact your librarian and recommend that your institution subscribe to the full collection of SIAM journals and e-books for your research and teaching needs. Given static or declining library budgets, large commercial publishers increasingly dominate library subscription spending. These publishers focus on delivering profits to shareholders, whereas SIAM—a nonprofit society publisher—invests its revenue surplus back into the global scientific community through its programs, policy advocacy, and outreach projects. A subscription with SIAM means that your institution is actively supporting the people in your field, rather than just numbers on a balance sheet. And if your librarian hears strong faculty support from you and your department, they are far more likely to renew or expand their SIAM publication holdings.

Finally, let me say thank you to our readers, authors, editors, and reviewers. It is a privilege to work with you all, and we excitedly anticipate our continued collaboration to publish the best research globally and serve the SIAM community. I look forward to chatting with many of you at a SIAM conference later this year, and please feel free to reach out to me at any time at [email protected] with any ideas, questions, or comments.

References
[1] Besançon, L., Cabanac, G., Labbé, C., & Magazinov, A. (2024). Sneaked references: Fabricated reference metadata distort citation counts. J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol., 75(12), 1368-1379.
[2] Catanzaro, M. (2024). Citation manipulation found to be rife in math. Science, 383(6682), 470.
[3] Cochran, A. (2024, March 28). Putting research integrity checks where they belong. The Scholarly Kitchen. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/03/28/putting-research-integrity-checks-where-they-belong.
[4] Dathathri, S., See, A., Ghaisas, S., Huang, P.-S., McAdam, R., Welbl, J., … Kohli, P. (2024). Scalable watermarking for identifying large language model outputs. Nature, 634(8035), 818-823.
[5] Wren, J.D., Valencia, A., & Kelso, J. (2019). Reviewer-coerced citation: Case report, update on journal policy and suggestions for future prevention. Bioinform., 35(18), 3217-3218.

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