Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kim, Seong-Gon

Titel

Critics for major indexing service

Ist Teil von

• Maxillofacial Plastic Reconstructive Surgery, 2021, 43(0), , pp.1-2

Ort / Verlag

Singapore: Springer Singapore

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The main task of scientific journals is publishing highlyimpactful articles in their field. However, publishing isnot free. Financial pressure can be found from the operating submission system, article review process, editingthe accepted articles, etc. The classic article has asubscription-based model, which readers pay to view. Although large companies save money by distributinglabor-intensive work to the low- and middle-incomecountries, small regional publishers cannot endure thisincrease in publication fees. Accordingly, except for afew publishers, most publishers select an open-accessmodel as their publication model. Now, only rich peoplecan submit their work for publication to a scientificjournal. At a glance, this is not fair; a big company givesa waiver for a submission from underdeveloped countries. While this is fine, the number of submissions fromthese countries is limited and the general quality of articles is not good enough. Thus, most editors still rely onsubmissions from qualified scientists, but not all of thesescientists are rich. Accordingly, the article processingcharge (APC) should be paid by public funds, universities, or academic societies. Otherwise, these parties willnot have a chance for publication. The article indexing service shows its power at thispoint. In the case of Korea, most universities support theAPC only for articles published in Scientific CitationIndex Expanded (SCIE) journals (operated by ClarivateAnalytics). Some universities also pay for the articlesindexed by Scopus (operated by Elsevier). Therefore, theeditor should try their best to index their journal to oneof these services. Otherwise, the number of submissionswill not increase. As the importance of indexing increases, the transparency of selecting criteria is also important for maintaining the authority of the indexingservices. Three years ago, the following reason for rejection was suggested by a famous indexing service: “It is agreat pity that the society was advised to drop the wordKorean from the title, as this gave the journal a veryclear geographic distinction and discriminator fromother journals, which it has now lost.” Even though weremoved “Korean” from the title, I do not believe thisdecision damaged the quality of our journal. If this is themain reason for rejection, we will not have a secondchance until correcting our journal title. This can be evidence that politics intervened in this decision process,even in major indexing services. In the case of ClarivateAnalytics, the service did not communicate with the editor, who is mainly responsible for the quality control ofthe journal. Although Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (MPRS) has been indexed by the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), I have not receiveda single mail from Clarivate Analytics for the background of this decision. If the editor does not know theweakness of their journal, there will be no way to improve the journal. Recently, Clarivate Analytics launched the “JournalCitation Indicator (JCI)” for evaluating both SCIE andESCI titles. It looks like a wonderful trial and can be thefirst step for a fair comparison among titles. Fair competition should not be the motto exclusively for the sportsgame only. Some titles have extremely low impact, butstill, stay in the SCIE. Without political consideration,this is poorly explained. Most major indexing servicesasked for a new journal to be included as the first or thesecond quartiles (Q1 or Q2) in terms of citations. However, it is unclear whether it should be positioned justonce or should be positioned serially. There has been upand down in the citation number of indexed journals. Ifonly new born journals should keep their status as Q1or Q2, it should be unfair. According to JCI, MPRS hasbeen ranked 62nd in 2019 and the 80th in 2020 amongthe category of the Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine. KCI Citation Count: 0