Journals That Will Soon Lose Their Scopus Indexing, Part 15

Article

Category: Candidates for removal from Scopus

Date: 20.07.2026

Greetings, dear colleagues!

With you Vasily Malets — Director of the «Academy of Articles» and author of an analytical column «Journals That May Lose Their Indexing in Scopus».

Today marks the third issue of 2026, and once again, it makes you stop and think.

This time, our list includes four journals: three from Q3 and one from Q2. And it’s the Q2 journal that I want to highlight separately—not because it’s an exception, but because it’s already a trend.

If, just a year or two ago, there were almost no magazines in our section with a rating higher than Q3— as we showed in the previous part of this review — so today, a Q2 rating here doesn’t surprise anyone anymore. Let me remind you: a Q2 rating isn’t a permanent mark of quality. It’s a snapshot of the magazine’s status at the time the quartile was assigned. And from there on, it all depends on who manages it and how.

Journals are for sale. Editorial policies can change in a single season. And a publication that seemed reliable a year ago may now be sending out mass invitations promising «quick publication on any topic.».

In this episode, we'll take a look at:

3 Q3 Magazines That Have Become Classics publication mills — submission channels without a thematic filter and without peer review;
1. Q2 magazine, which is still «on paper» but is already showing all the signs of a predatory transformation.

List of applicants:

1. Journal of Daoist Studies

ISSN: 1941-5524

🔗 Link to Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21101033328

🔗 Magazine website: https://journalofdaoiststudies.org

Review:

The journal has been in publication since 2008 and, until 2026, was a niche academic publication with a strict focus on Daoism: one volume per year, 14–16 articles, all exclusively on Daoist philosophy, history, and practice. The publisher is the University of Hawaii Press.

In 2026, something clearly went wrong. In the first 7 months, the magazine had already published 12 (!) rooms — 9 of which are designated as «special» (S1–S9). These special issues cover just about anything: orthodontics, cybersecurity, Indonesia’s carbon tax, banking analysis of Iraq, automotive springs, and dental case reports. The connection to Daoism is purely cosmetic: some authors add the word «Dao» to the title of an article that has absolutely nothing to do with Daoism.

It is telling that: The submission date and publication date for special issues are the same—there is effectively no peer review.

At the time of this analysis, the articles from the special issues had not yet been indexed in Scopus, and the journal appears to already be under review by the CSAB.

Magazine profile:

Quartile: Q3;

Country: U.S.;

Subject: Taoist philosophy, history, religion;

Article Processing Charge (APC): 1,800 USD.

Main violations:

9 special issues over 7 months instead of 1 volume per year;

Articles from special issues are not related to Aims & Scope;

zero review time—the submission date is the same as the publication date;

The word «Dao» in the article’s title is used as a formal justification for publishing any material.

Risk assessment:

Probability of a journal being removed from Scopus: 100%.

The likelihood of articles from special issues being indexed and subsequently de-indexed: 100%.

2. International Journal of Computer Information Systems and Industrial Management Applications (IJCISIM)

ISSN: 2150-7988

🔗 Link to Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21101017598

🔗 Magazine website: https://cspub-ijcisim.org

Review:

The journal has been in publication since 2004 and was published by Machine Intelligence Research Labs until 2024. Its focus is on computer information systems and industrial management applications. It has a strong academic reputation and a consistent publication schedule: one volume per year.

Everything changed in 2024, when the magazine switched to a new publisher— Cerebration Science Publishing Co., Limited (Hong Kong). That alone should have raised some red flags.

In 2025, the journal published one volume, but it already contained more than 100 articles—and among them, there was a sharp increase in the number of Chinese articles on pedagogy, where the connection to information systems is limited to the words «big data» or «AI» in the title. Research on dance, music education, physical education, and party-ideological education in universities no longer falls under the category of “computer information systems,” no matter how the authors phrase the title.

In 2026, the special editions will be fully rolled out: in just 7 months, already 10 rooms (2 regular issues + 8 special issues—ranging from 1s to 8s). Special issues regularly feature articles on government procurement in Kyrgyzstan, geopolitical shocks in the Indian stock market, coffee production in Southeast Asia, and concrete structures reinforced with rubber. The connection to computer information systems is either formal or nonexistent.

At the time of this analysis, articles from the special issues have not yet been indexed in Scopus, and the journal may already be under review by the CSAB.

Magazine profile:

Quartile: Q3;

Country: Hong Kong (new publisher starting in 2024);

Subject: computer information systems, industrial management;

Article Processing Charge (APC): 1,500 USD.

Main violations:

A change in publisher in 2024 — immediate launch of a mass-market publishing model;

8 special issues over the first 7 months of 2026;

Articles in special issues go beyond the scope of "Aims & Scope";

The 2025 regular volume features a flood of Chinese educational articles with a formal connection to AI.

Risk assessment:

Probability of a journal being removed from Scopus: 100%.

The likelihood of articles from special issues being indexed and subsequently de-indexed: 100%.

3. International Journal of Special Education (IJSE)

ISSN: 0827-3383 / E-ISSN: 1917-7844

🔗 Link to Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/33328

🔗 Magazine website: https://internationalsped.com

Review:

The magazine has been in publication since 1985 — more than 40 years academic reputation in the field of special and inclusive education. Publisher: Sped sp. z o.o. (Bielsko-Biała, Poland). It is indexed in both Scopus and Web of Science. Until 2025, it was published regularly: two issues per year, with a strict focus on special education, special needs education, and assistive technologies for people with disabilities.

In 2026, everything fell apart. In the first 7 months alone—already 14 rooms: 2 regular issues and 13 special issues (1s–13s). Just one special issue, S13, contains about 110 articles. And this is where things get really interesting.

Of the approximately 110 articles in S13, only 5 to 8 actually pertain to the topic of special education. The rest cover topics such as lower extremity surgery under local anesthesia, the accuracy of dynamic navigation systems in dental implantology, the classification of skin cancer using multifractal analysis, ACL reconstruction and quadriceps training on a treadmill, financial hedging and CVaR-based portfolio optimization, analysis of the fiscal potential of South Sulawesi Province, the Janissaries and Bektashism in the Ottoman Empire—and this is no exception; it is the norm for every special issue.

A separate red flag: Contact information for authors: WhatsApp number +968 96502464 (the code +968 is for Oman). A Polish company with an Omani WhatsApp number is a classic sign that the magazine’s actual operators are not in Poland at all.

At the time of this analysis, the articles from the special issues had not yet been indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, and the journal is almost certainly already under review by the CSAB.

Magazine profile:

Quartile: Q3;

Country: Poland (Sped sp. z o.o.), actual operators—Oman;

Subject: special and inclusive education;

Article Processing Charge (APC): Not listed publicly; contact via WhatsApp.

Main violations:

13 special issues over the first 7 months of 2026;

~95% articles in special issues are not related to specialized education;

Contact information for authors—Omani WhatsApp instead of the editorial email address;

The stated peer-review process is incompatible with the publication pace and the volume of articles.

Risk assessment:

Probability of a journal being excluded from Scopus and Web of Science: 100%.

The likelihood of articles from special issues being indexed and subsequently de-indexed: 100%.

4. Journal of Intelligent Decision Making and Information Science (JIDMIS)

eISSN: 3079-0875

🔗 Link to Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21101392299

🔗 Magazine website: https://jidmis.org

Review:

The magazine was founded in 2024—which means it has only been around for 2 years. Publisher: Nexora Academic Press (Romania). Stated focus: decision sciences, AI, and information systems.

On its home page, the magazine states CiteScore 3.4 (2026) — This is an unusually high metric for a journal that didn’t even exist three years ago. By comparison, for established journals, this figure takes decades to develop. For a journal with only two full volumes to its credit, this is either the result of citation manipulation or incorrectly reported data. Regarding, Which publishers work with journals that Scopus never excludes?, and we discussed in detail in a separate article what criteria are used to determine this.

The website states: 1 volume per year, a 17% acceptance rate, and 75 days until a decision. It looks like a reputable publication. But here’s the reality as of 2026: three issues (Vol. 3 + Vol. 3 No. 1s + Vol. 3 No. 2s), and the first special issue was published two years after the journal’s founding.

Vol. 3, No. 2s (56 articles, June 2026) contains approximately 40% articles are unrelated to decision making or information science: mathematical modeling of tumor growth, water uptake by plant roots, fracture mechanics in concrete beams, hydrodynamics of aerosols in the respiratory tract, mathematical constraints on DNA supercoiling, and tissue regeneration based on PDE models. There is no connection whatsoever to the stated Aims & Scope.

But the most telling aspect is the authorship structure. In a single special issue, the same 5–6 Indian authors appear simultaneously in 5–8 completely different articles, while the same group of Chinese and Central Asian «co-authors» pops up in articles on entirely different topics. This is a classic example of ghostwriting. paper mill: a network of authors who distribute publications among themselves regardless of their actual contribution.

At the time of this analysis, the articles from the special issues had not yet been indexed in Scopus, and given the journal’s rate of growth, it may already be on CSAB’s radar.

Magazine profile:

Quartile: Q2;

Country: Romania (Nexora Academic Press);

Subject: decision sciences, AI, information systems;

Article Processing Charge (APC): 1,200 USD.

OMain violations:

A reported CiteScore of 3.4 for a 2-year-old journal is a sign of citation manipulation;

The stated frequency of «1 volume per year» actually amounts to 3 issues for 2026;

~40% articles from a special issue outside of Aims & Scope;

paper mill: the same authors appearing simultaneously in 5–8 articles on different topics in a single issue;

The publication was created from scratch for commercial purposes, with no academic background.

Risk assessment:

Probability of a journal being removed from Scopus: 100%.

The likelihood of articles from special issues being indexed and subsequently de-indexed: 100%.

Conclusions

In this issue, we reviewed four magazines, and when you look at them together, a very clear picture emerges.

All four use the same pattern: Special Issue Factory. A reputable journal with a high impact factor is launching a series of special issues that cover just about everything—dentistry, civil engineering, financial hedging, the Janissaries in the Ottoman Empire—anything and everything. Payment accepted, article published, peer review completed in zero days.

But this issue has revealed something new. Previously, we mainly examined journals that had strayed from the right path—that is, journals that once had an academic reputation but later declined. Today, our list includes JIDMIS—a two-year-old journal that was created from the outset for commercial purposes and has, in that time, managed to achieve a Q2 ranking in Scopus through citation manipulation. This represents a different level of threat: not a decline in quality, but the systematic fabrication of an academic reputation from scratch—this is precisely the kind of scheme we’re discussing in our A Guide to Journals That Are «Supposedly» Indexed in Scopus.

And most importantly: the quartile failed to save the day again. IJSE—Q3, a journal with a 40-year history—already has 13 special issues in the first 7 months of 2026, with Omani WhatsApp as the sole channel of communication with the editorial board. JIDMIS—Q2 in Scopus—and in one special issue, the same 5–6 authors appear simultaneously in 8 unrelated articles.

Authors who choose a journal based solely on its quartile run the risk of ending up with the same classic scenario in 2026: money and time wasted, and an article that will either never be indexed in Scopus or will be de-indexed after the very first CSAB review. And this is no longer a hypothetical scenario— the hundreds of millions of tenge that Kazakhstani scientists have already lost in sensationalist magazines—they speak for themselves.

Therefore, before each submission, check the actual publication trends, examine the authorship structure in special issues, and pay attention to the details: who the publisher is, where the contact email is listed, and how many special issues have been published in the last six months. Or consult specialists who monitor these journals daily and are aware of the risks even before they become apparent.