Thomson Scientific Journal Evaluations: The Editorial Process

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Thomson Scientific Journal Evaluations The
Editorial Process
Colciencias Bogotá, Colombia 6 June 2007
Jeff Clovis Thomson Scientific
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The journal literature is vast and international.
What drives it?
Academia the culture of publishing.

• Publish or Perish to gain promotion and
  tenure one must publish in peer-reviewed journals
• Exposure/Recognition the desire to have ones
  work disseminated to the widest possible
  audience.
• Prestige publication in high-profile,
  influential journals brings prestige and career
  benefits.

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Therefore the culture of journal publishing
itself is an absolute foundation of the academic
research environment.

• The Benefits
• Cross-fertilization -- Publication provides
  access, allowing researchers to enhance their own
  work through the work of others. This is an
  accepted and expected role of the journal
  publishing system driving the progress of
  science through shared results. Of course, the
  corporate sector is very happy to benefit from
  this as well.

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Growth in Multi-author Papers
gt50 authors
gt500 authors
Source Science Watch, July-Aug. 2004
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Growth in Multinational Papers
gt5 countries
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Percent Single-country Papers
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Therefore the culture of journal publishing
itself is an absolute foundation of the academic
research environment.
The Downside Too much of the mediocre --
academias demands often produce publication for
the sake of publication. There is a lot of
information within the journal literature that
has little-to-no influence on the research of
others.
Enter Dr. Eugene Garfield and ISI
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First Why this is it that Thomson
Scientific-ISI performs extensive journal
evaluations to determine the content of its
indexes? Why this approach to journal coverage?
From the beginning, it was determined by ISI
founder Dr. Eugene Garfield that our
journal indexes would present a select body of
the worlds scholarly journals those which
display a significant level of international
influence within their respective disciplines of
study.
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TS Journal Evaluations
The Components

• Basic Journal Publishing Standards

• Editorial Content

• International Diversity

• Citation Analysis

• With regard to all journal evaluations
• We are publisher-neutral, no special
  consideration is given to a particular publisher.
  Commercial, academic, open-access, etc. all
  publishers are treated the same with regard to
  individual journal evaluations.

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TS Journal Evaluations
The Components

• Basic Journal Publishing Standards

• Editorial Content

• Timeliness of Publication the ability to meet
  a pre-established publication schedule. This is
  very important, and is the reason why we
  typically examine three subsequently published
  issues at minimum, and often more.
• International Publishing Conventions complete
  bibliographic information at all levels -- for
  journals, articles, authors, and cited
  references.
• English language article titles, abstracts,
  keywords, and cited references in the Roman
  Alphabet are highly desirable in order to reach
  the widest possible audience.
• Peer Review absolutely essential.

• International Diversity

• Citation Analysis

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TS Journal Evaluations
The Components

• Basic Journal Publishing Standards

• Editorial Scope
• -- topics covered
• -- the nature of overall content (original
  papers, review articles, methods papers, etc.)
• -- appropriate intellectual level

• Editorial Content

• International Diversity

• Citation Analysis

Subjective considerations are important
here. Essentially -- What does this journal
bring to the ISI database, to our collection of
influential titles?
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TS Journal Evaluations
The Components

• Basic Journal Publishing Standards

• Authors, Editors, and Editorial Advisory board
  Members
• Are they internationally diverse?
• Does this journal reflect the global nature of
  research today?
• Regional Journals
• We also seek to cover the best regional journals
  as well, again, to properly reflect the global
  nature in which research takes place.
• This is especially important for the social
  sciences, where local influence greatly impacts
  education, law, etc.

• Editorial Content

• International Diversity

• Citation Analysis

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TS Journal Evaluations
The Components

• Basic Journal Publishing Standards

• Editorial Content

• Journal Level
• If the journal has been in existence for
  several years, a citation history will be
  available. This of course can be extremely
  valuable to the process.
• Measure of overall Citations, approximate
  Impact Factor, and Immediacy Index would be
  typical statistics utilized.
• Authors and Editors
• An examination of individual citation histories
  for authors and editors is quite important, and
  in the case of a new journal is the only
  indication of the potential citation influence of
  that publication.

• International Diversity

• Citation Analysis

Estimating Potential Influence
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TS Journal Evaluations
The Components

• Basic Journal Publishing Standards

• Editorial Content

Comparing Results and Making Selections Journals
under evaluation are compared to journals that
are already covered in the TS database, as well
as other journals under evaluation again, this
is done within the realm of specific subject
categories. In consideration of all factors, we
are looking to add journals that
best enhance the
collection.

• International Diversity

• Citation Analysis

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• Utilizing the Impact Factor and other JCR data
• Immediacy Index How quickly are articles cited
  within a particular journal, on average?
• Citations in 2005 to articles
  published in 2005
• Cited Half-Life the median age of cited
  articles, their distribution over time.
• The cited half-life calculation finds the
  number of publication years from the current JCR
  year that account for 50 of citations received
  by the journal.

Immediacy Index and Cited Half-Life, along with
Impact Factor, help to define the traits of a
journal to characterize it.
.
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Impact Factor
Origin created in the early 1960s by Dr.
Eugene Garfield and Dr. Irv Sher in order to help
select journals for the Science
Citation Index (SCI).

• A Journal-Level metric
• Average citation activity journal citation
  counts normalized by the number of documents that
  could be cited.
• Reactive it reflects actual citation use of
  articles after their initial publication Impact
  Factor follows citations.
• Comparative within but not between subjects
  areas

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2005 Impact Factor
All Previous Years
2005
2004
2006
2003
Impact Factor Citations during the current
year, 2005 in this example, to articles
published within the prior two years.
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Impact Factor in context the only valid method
of comparison.
Aggregate treats the category as though it were
a single journal comprised of many articles.
Thomson Scientific-ISI has always stated that
one should never compare the Impact Factors of
journals from different categories as citing
behavior varies greatly from discipline to
discipline. This is very evident with Aggregate
Impact Factors.
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Editorial Manipulation for the sake of Impact
Factor?
Do some journals make decisions to include more
Review Papers for the sole purpose of acquiring
more citations to the journal?
Have some authors been asked to include
additional cited references to material published
in a journal to which they were submitting a
paper?
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Journal Self-Citation

• 80 of all journals listed in the JCR Science
  Edition have self-citation rates of less than
  20.
• Excessive self-citation weakens the integrity
  of the journals Impact Factor.
• Journals with excessive self-citation are
  recognized by the TS Editorial Development Group,
  are carefully examined, and may be deleted from
  the Journal Citation Reports until the issues are
  resolved.

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In the Natural Sciences...
Molecular Biology in Spain Molecular
Biology in the US
Organic Chemistry in Germany Organic
Chemistry in the UK
The conditions for research within the natural
sciences are physically unaffected by country,
culture, societal structure, etc. A molecule is
a molecule, a chemical reaction a chemical
reaction, regardless of nationality.
In the Social Sciences and Arts Humanities
Of course we know that for most of the social
sciences and arts humanities, outside of
fundamental theory, this is not the case
educational, legal, social service systems,
policies, etc. vary greatly from country to
country, differentiating social science and
humanities research.
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In terms of gauging the success of programs of
research and publication within particular
countries or regions -- one of course needs to
look beyond sheer volume of coverage of journals
from that region in the Web of Science.
More importantly -- How do researchers from that
country or region fare in getting work published
within the entire collection of influential
journals indexed within Web of Science?
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From the Web of Science
Very steady growth of the volume of papers
affiliated with Colombian authors indexed within
Web of Science over the past 10 years.
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Thomson Scientific Journal Evaluations The
Editorial Process
Colciencias Bogotá, Colombia 6 June 2007
Jeff Clovis Thomson Scientific