Guidelines on Journal Indexing for PSSC Members
One of the requirements for being a regular member of the Philippine Social Science Council is to consistently publish a refereed journal. Over the years, the Council and its member-organizations have produced numerous peer-reviewed journals on diverse topics in the social sciences. While the scholarly rigour and quality of the journals cannot be questioned, there is still a need for these journals to benchmark with international standards and undergo a mechanism that proves the credibility and integrity of these publications. High citation index increases the journal’s standing in the academic community and affords higher points for promotion of those publishing in SCOPUS or ISI indexed journals.
During its 2019 Strategic Planning, one of the concerns raised by several member-associations was the difficulty of getting their journals indexed in SCOPUS or ISI. Not that the quality of their journals fall below standards; it is rather that, to some, the methods and procedures for getting citation indexes are difficult, tedious to accomplish, or at worse, unknown to them. Yet, there are several reputable international and national organizations that offer indexing and citation service to willing HEIs and academic organizations.
Thus, PSSC will embark on this Journal Indexing Guidelines to support the indexing and accreditation of PSSC and member-organizations’ journals to four reputable mechanisms: (1) CHED Journal Incentive Program, (2) SCOPUS, (3) the Andrew Gonzalez Philippine Citation Index (AGPCI), and (4) the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
CHED Journal Incentive Program
The Commission on Higher Education’s Journal Incentive Program (JIP). JIP prescribes a national standard for peer-reviewed journals. Locally, JIP is known as an accreditation program by CHED that helps HEIs and organizations with journals reach the minimum requirements of SCOPUS. There are two categories under the Journal Incentive Program: Journal Challenge (JC) and Journal Incubator (JI). JC caters to Scopus/WoS-indexed journals and promotes social media presence and public engagement profiles of scholarly articles in the journal. JI, on the other hand, will support promising Philippine journals towards the path to meet the minimum generally accepted standards for Scopus/WoS-indexability.
SCOPUS
Scopus is Elsevier’s abstract and citation database. The database is globally known as a source quality-assessed peer reviewed academic publications in all Sciences and Arts and Humanities. Scopus offers visibility to accredited journals.
Andrew Gonzalez Philippine Citation Index
Started by De La Salle University, the Andrew Gonzalez Philippine Citation Index has already accredited more than 30 journals. They are positioning to be the national indexing system, especially in light of CHED CMO 15 (2019) which requires graduate students to publish in a nationally indexed journal.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
The DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals. Today, this independent database contains over 15 000 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities. Open access journals from all countries and in all languages are welcome to apply for inclusion.
Objectives
- To assist regular member-organizations in the accreditation and indexing of their professional journals;
- To corroborate with member-organizations to add visibility of our peer-reviewed journals.
Selected Indexing Databases
CHED Journal Incentive Program
- Two distinct latest soft copies of the research journals and application form;
- Curriculum vitae of the members of the Editorial Board, including a list of publications for the last 5 years, H-index and citation count;
- Citation data on the article published in the last 2 issues of the journal-based on Google-scholar search;
- Proof that the journal is indexed in WoS (Thomson Reuters) and/or Scopus (Elsevier) databases;
- Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) or Impact Factor (IF);
- Certified copy of ISSN Certificate/Registration;
- Information on publication and refereeing history for the past 2 years for every article submitted to the journal (i.e. number of times the journal was late for publication; refereeing lag time or the length of time referees return their evaluations to the editor; length of time from author submission to editorial decision of acceptance or rejection of the article, and submission-to-publication time (electronics and/or print);
- URL of the journal website and other relevant links (Facebook page of the journal, etc.);
- Data on public engagement and influence of articles for the past 2 years or number of the following: (1) references in public policy documents, (2) commentary from experts and practitioners, (3-5) mentions in print, radio, and TV discussing or citing the published study in the journal, (6) presence of a dedicated social media page of the journal, (7) citations from online media. Attach proof of public engagement.
- Sustainability plans to maintain open access publishing
- Two distinct latest soft copies of the research journals and application form;
- Curriculum vitae of the members of the Editorial Board, including a list of publications for the last 5 years, H-index and citation count;
- Brief description of the peer review or refereeing system;
- Publication ethics and scientific malpractice statements, if any, or a draft of the aforementioned which shall be adopted by the Editorial Board, signed by the Editor-in-Chief;
- List of external reviewers/referees per article published in the last 2 issues of the journal and a list of their publications in Scopus/WoS-indexed journals;
- Publication schedule and history for the past 2 years showing the dates when the journal was printed and/or when its content was posted online;
- Reviewer(s) comments and recommendations on article each published in the last 2 issues of the journal (proof of proper evaluation);
- Citation data on the article published in the last 2 issues of the journal based on Google-scholar search;
- Certified copy of the ISSN Certificate/Registration;
- Information on publication and refereeing history for the past 2 years for every article submitted to the journal (i.e. number of times the journal was late for publication; refereeing lag time or the length of time referees return their evaluations to the editor; length of time from author submission to editorial decision of acceptance or rejection of the article, and submission-to-publication time (electronics and/or print);
- Data on public engagement and influence of articles for the past 2 years or number of the following: (1) references in public policy documents, (2) commentary from experts and practitioners, (3-5) mentions in print, radio, and TV discussing or citing the published study in the journal, (6) presence of a dedicated social media page of the journal, (7) citations from online media. Attach proof of public engagement.
- Certification signed by the President/head of the Philippine HEI or the scholarly and scientific organization that publishes the journal indicating:
- Intended publication schedule of the journal (e.g. annually, in December of every year; or twice a year in March and September of every year);
- Actual month(s) of publication of the issues in the last 5 years submitted for evaluation;
- Number of copies per issue;
- Intent to apply for inclusion in Scopus/WoS databases within 3 years after grant approval
Process
(Only online submissions in soft copies with complete requirements shall be entertained by the TWG)
- Proposal applications for the Journal Challenge Grant shall be submitted by the Editor-in-Chief of journals indexed by Scopus/WoS coming from HEIs/scholarly and scientific organizations. The project proposal shall have the objectives of improving the impact factor (IF) and/or Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) of the journal and the extent of public engagement or influence associated with the articles published therein. Measures of public engagement/influence include, but not limited to the following:
- References in public policy documents;
- Commentary from experts and practitioners;
- Print, radio, and TV features discussing or citing the published study in the journal;
- A dedicated social media page of the journal; and
- Citations from online media
- Proposals for JC and JI are reviewed and assessed for merit based on the following: Indexing in WoS and/or Scopus databases; qualifications and diversity of the editorial board, peer reviewers/external referees; quality of content; and other requirements to meet current scientific publication standards. Proposals will be reviewed by the Research Management Division (RMD)-Journal Incentive Program TWG.
- The individual scores of the panel of reviewers will be averaged to generate a Journal Review Score. Journals with scores ranging from 70-100 (JC) and 50-100 (JI) shall be short-listed for the grant.
- The panel, thru OPRKM, submits the results of the review to the Commission en Banc (CEB) for approval. The review results of the publications submitted for CHED Journal Incentive Program have no bearing with any accrediting body. The accrediting body may authorize the use of the CHED Journal Incentive Program findings, which in its discretion, may be necessary for dissemination purposes of aforementioned recognition to the journal.
- All Philippine HEIs/scholarly and scientific organizations with CHED Journal Incentive Program are required to submit subsequent electronic copies of issues during the three (3) years of the grant.
- Grantees are required to acquire Turnitin or any equivalent software for plagiarism screening.
- HEIs/scholarly and scientific organizations can apply their journals only once, either fro the JC and JI Grants. Recipients of the JI grant who have their journals successfully included in Scopus/WoS database can apply for the JC grant after the end of the contract. Journals that are originally indexed in Scopus/WoS but later delisted cannot apply for the JI grant.
- Members of the TWG may be tapped to conduct data quality check and verification, and monitoring of print and online journal web pages, in order to ensure high quality, relevant and accurate implementation of the grants.
- Each journal shall be evaluated by at least three (3) members of the TWG and concurred in by the Chair or Co-Chair.
- Journals that have been reviewed but have not qualified for the Journal Incentive Program can be submitted for another review when the recommendations made by the TWG have been addressed, and new journal volumes/issues are submitted for review.
Timeline
| Submission Deadline | Evaluation Schedule | Release of Results | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1st Submission |
December 29 |
January 31 |
February 28 |
|
2nd Submission |
May 31 |
June 30 |
July 31 |
Incentives and Targets
| Category | Incentives | Targets |
|---|---|---|
|
Journal Challenge Grant |
|
|
|
Journal Incubation Grant |
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Validity
The status accorded to a journal under CHED JIP shall be valid for 3 years.
See website: CHED CMO 53 s. 2016
SCOPUS
Journal Technical Criteria
- Consist of peer-reviewed content and have a publicly available description of its peer review process
- Be published on a regular basis and have an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) registered with the ISSN International Centre
- Have a publication history to be reviewed
- Have content that is relevant for and readable by an international audience. Have English language abstracts and titles.
- Have publicly available publications ethics and publication malpractice statements
Journal Selection Criteria
Journals that meet all the technical criteria and are eligible for review by the CSAB will be evaluated on the following five categories of criteria:
- Journal policy
- Convincing editorial policy
- Type of peer review
- Broad geographical distribution of editors
- Broad geographical distribution of authors
- Content
- Academic contribution to the field
- Clarity of abstracts
- Quality and conformity to the stated aims and scope of the journal
- Readability of articles
- Journal standing
Citedness of journal articles in Scopus
Editor standing
- Publishing regularity
- No delays or interruptions in the publication schedule
- Online availability
Full journal content available online
English language journal home page available
Quality of journal home page
Process
Journals may be suggested to the CSAB for inclusion in Scopus by the publisher or editor(s) of the title. Before suggesting a serial title, please:
- Check the current Scopus title lists to be sure it’s not already indexed (Journals List)
- Read the CSAB’s statement: An Introduction to the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB)
- Ensure that all technical criteria are met
- Review the selection criteria
- Read the Scopus Journal FAQs for the content selection process
- Review the CSAB’s FAQs for journal editors: Role of an Editor
If all criteria are met and you find that the title is ready to be suggested for Scopus review, you can use the Scopus Title Suggestion Form
Timeline
Depending on the number of suggestions received and the available information about the suggested title, it will take 6-12 months before the review process is completed.
Validity
Once a journal is selected for Scopus, it will be covered from the year of selection onwards. Journals that are selected for Scopus within the third publication year will be covered from the first publication year onwards. If complete journal archives are available in digital format, the publisher may request to add backfiles to Scopus. Journals selected for Scopus will be covered in the database on a continuous basis; however, the performance of journals included in Scopus is being evaluated and poor performing journals may be discontinued.
Scopus reserves the right to re-evaluate and remove journals as it sees fit and journals with a proven case of publication malpractice will be cancelled for Scopus coverage and removed from the database.
Validity: The status accorded to a journal under CHED JIP shall be valid for 3 years.
See website: CHED CMO 53 s. 2016
Andrew Gonzalez Philippine Citation Index
Initial Requirements
- A self-assessment form (provided by AGPCI and to be accomplished by the journal’s editorial team)
- Soft copies of the journal’s two most recent issues
- Referee reports for each published article
Person-in-charge
Dr. Feorillo Petronilo A. Demeterio III, feorillo.demeterio@dlsu.edu.ph
See post: DLSU AGPCI
Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ)
Basic criteria for inclusion
- Open access journals published in any language may apply. Journals should adhere to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
- The journal must be actively publishing scholarly research
- All research subject areas are accepted
- Should publish at least 5 research articles per year
- The primary target audience should be researchers or practitioners
- Newly launched journals
- Before applying to DOAJ, a new journal must demonstrate a publishing history of more than one year or have published at least ten open access research articles
- DOAJ only accepts open access journals.
- We define these as journals where the copyright holder of a scholarly work grants usage rights to others using an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent) allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose.
- The journal must display an open access statement indicating that it fulfills the DOAJ definition of open access.
- The full text of all content must be available for free and open access without delay
- No embargo period
- No requirement for users to register to read content
- A charge for the print version of a journal is permitted
- Publishing non-open access content
- Within an article, text and figures may be used with permission or under fair use. All non-open access content must be clearly indicated and attributed
- Journals may publish a small amount of non-open access, free-to-read content relevant to the journal’s scope provided it is not scholarly articles and is clearly attributed and copyright status is clearly attributed and copyright status is clear
- The journal must have its own dedicated URL and homepage that is accessible from any location
- Each article must be available as an individual, full-text article
- One unique URL per article
- HTML or PDF, as a minimum
- Journals that include intrusive advertising will not be accepted. See best practice recommendations for advertising .
- As a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), DOAJ does not endorse using Impact Factors or other bibliometrics to assess the quality of journals or researchers. However, journals may display widely adopted metrics, including Clarivate’s (e.g., the Journal Impact Factor), Scopus’ (e.g., CiteScore, SCImagoJR), official national accreditation lists such as Qualis in Brazil or the Norwegian Register, the Eigenfactor, Google Scholar’s h5-index, or article-level metrics including Altmetric and Crossref Event Data. Journals must not display any reference (images, links, logos) to Impact Factors or ranking metrics from any other service. Journals must avoid being listed in unreliable indexes.
- The website does not need to be in English. If the site is available in multiple languages, the information provided must be the same in all languages
- The following information must be available online, and easily accessible from the journal homepage:
- Open access policy
- Aims and scope
- Editorial board (including institutional affiliations of all members)
- Instructions for authors
- Editorial process (peer review)
- Licensing terms
- Copyright terms
- Author charges
- If a journal doesn’t have any charges then this must be stated
- Must include all fees that may be charged to the author, from submission to publication, including: submission fees, editorial processing charges, article processing charges (APCs), page charges, colour charges
- Any fee waiver must be clearly specified with the conditions of waiver, e.g. amount, time period
- If there are charges for withdrawing the article after submission, they cannot exceed the author charges
- Publisher information
- The journal must provide the name and address of the publisher, with a link to the publisher website, if available
- Include the name of a contact person and the journal’s dedicated email address
- The country given in the application and on the journal website must be where the publisher is registered and carries out its business activities
- A journal must have at least one ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) which is registered and confirmed at issn.org.
- The ISSN(s) must be displayed on the website.
- The name of the journal in the application and on the website must match what is shown at issn.org.
- A journal must have an editor and an editorial board.
- The editorial board must be listed on the website.
- The name and affiliation of all editors and board members must be included.
- Journals that display a list of reviewers must include their names and affiliations
- The editorial board for the journal should consist of at least five editors with appropriate qualifications and expertise. It is recommended that board members should not all come from the same institution
- All articles must pass through a quality control system (peer review) before publication.
- The type and details of the peer review process must be stated clearly on the website, including the process for special issues, if applicable
- At least two independent reviewers should review each article
- Use of a plagiarism checking service is highly recommended, but not required for inclusion in DOAJ.
- Endogeny should be minimised
- The proportion of published research papers where at least one of the authors is an editor, editorial board member, or reviewer must not exceed 25% in either of the latest two issues
- Where content is not divided into issues, for example in a continuous publication model, endogeny must not exceed 25% in the last calendar year (minimum 5 articles per year)
- It is strongly recommended that articles should display submitted/accepted/published dates
Journals that publish special issues or other curated by guest editors must adhere to these additional criteria:
- The Editor-in-Chief must be responsible for the content of the entire journal, including all special issues, which must fall within the scope of the journal
- Special issue articles must have the same editorial oversight as regular papers, including external peer review, and be clearly labelled
- Journals must ensure that guest editors’credentials are checked and approved
- The Editor-in Chief or dedicated board members must oversee the guest editors
- Papers submitted to a special issue by the guest editor(s) must be handled under an independent review process and make up no more than 25% of the issue’s total
- The licensing terms for use and re-use of the published content must be clearly stated on the website.
- DOAJ recommends the use of Creative Commons licenses for this purpose.
- If Creative Commons licensing is not used, similar terms and conditions should be applied. Extra care must be taken to state these terms clearly.
- It is recommended that licensing information is displayed or embedded in full text articles, but this is not required for inclusion in DOAJ.
- The copyright terms applied to the published content must be clearly stated and separate from the copyright terms applied to the website.
- Copyright terms must not contradict the licensing terms or the terms of the open access policy. “All rights reserved” is never appropriate for open access content.
When concerns regarding a journal or publisher’s quality and publishing practices arise during our regular review process or are flagged by community members, such cases are escalated to the quality team. In addition to the normal application review, this investigation focuses on five key areas mentioned in detail in our blog:
- Presence of clear and reliable key information on the journal’s website
- Composition of the journal’s editorial board
- Signs of poor peer review processes
- Reputation of the journal, including any association with paper mills, excluded journals or publishers, or other disreputable organisations
- Journal management and operation
Preparation for Accreditation/Indexing
- Presentation to the BOT of the concept paper/ project details
- Distribution of informational materials regarding the process to regular member-organizations
- Assessment of publications based on accreditation/indexing system
- Publications that have already been indexed by Scopus can pursue the Journal Challenge track of the CHED Journal Incentive Program.
- Publications working towards the indexing of Scopus can pursue both Scopus indexing process and the Journal Incubator track of the CHED Journal Incentive Program
- Gathering of requirements for the accreditation process
- Submission of requirements to accrediting bodies
For inquiries, contact: pdmshead@pssc.org.ph
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