Journal related information by a faculty member of the National Centre of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

1. SCHOLARLY JOURNALS AND
THEIR SELECTION
Dr. Irfan U. Jan
Associate Professor (NCEG)
University of Peshawar
(Invited Talk 1)

2.  A scientific experiment is not complete until the results have been
published and understood! (peer-reviewed)!.
 A scientific paper is a written and published report describing
original research results.
 Journals are scholarly publications, published on a regular basis,
that keep the academic community well-informed of current
research in various fields.
 If you can think of a topic, there is probably a journal somewhere
that covers it.
 Each issue of a journal has several articles, depicting research that
researchers have conducted that they want to share with the rest
of the researchers in their discipline

3. Types of Scholarly Journals
1. International Journals (impact Factor)
2. National Journals (HEC recognized/Unrecognized).
There can be other types too, like internationally abstracted
and indexed journals but not recognized by HEC! As well as
predatory journals
Warning!!

4. Beware of Predatory Journals
What are they?
Earlier, renowned publishers had the expertise of starting a journal.
The monopoly was broken by the online publishers who could now
start journals independently.
However, this resulted into a new kind of academic fraud named
“predatory Journal”. The name predatory journals is coined by Jeffrey
Beall a librarian from University of Denver, Colorado.
List of Predatory Journals
https://beallslist.weebly.com/ (However, this list if no exhaustive!!).

5. Identifying predatory or pseudo-journals
WAME (http://www.wame.org/ ) provide guidance to help editors,
researchers, funders, academic institutions and other stakeholders
distinguish predatory journals from legitimate journals.
Contrary to the claim to conduct peer review and mimic the
structure of legitimate journals, they publish all or most submitted
material without external peer review
Do not follow standard policies advocated by organizations such as the
WAME, COPE, ICMJE and CSE regarding issues such as;
 archiving of journal content,
 management of potential conflicts of interest,
 handling of errata, and
 transparency of journal processes and policies including fees.

6. A common practice among predatory publishers is sending
frequent e-mails to large numbers of individuals soliciting manuscript
submission and promising rapid publication for author fees that may be
lower than those of legitimate author-pays journals.
In the most cases, they collect publication fees but the promised
published articles never appear on the journal website. In some cases,
authors publishing in such journals are aware that the journals do not
adhere to accepted standards but choose to publish in them anyway,
hence they are not “prey” Therefore, “pseudo-journals” may be a more
accurate name.

7. International Journals (Impact Factor)
Impact Factor ? = rank of the journal/monopoly of TR
A = the number of times articles published in 2008 and 2009 were cited by
indexed journals during 2010.
B = the total number of "citable items" published in 2008 and 2009.
A/B = impact factor (2010)
https://researchguides.uic.edu/c.php?g=252299&p=1683200
Several factors are taken into account when evaluating journals for coverage ranging
from the qualitative to the quantitative. These include the following:
1.Basic publishing standards
2.Editorial content
3.International focus
4.Citation Analysis
Journal Selection Process

8. Tools to Measure Journal Impact
Journal Citation Reports (Thomson Reutors)
Journal Citation Reports provides ranking for journals in the areas of science,
technology, and social sciences; Citation and article counts, Impact factor, Immediacy
index, Cited half-life, citing half-life, Source data listing, Citing journal listing, Cited
journal listing, Subject categories, Publisher information.
Eigenfactor (Thomson Reutors)
Eigenfactor scores are intended to give a measure of how likely a journal is to be used,
and are thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content
from that journal.
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) (Elsevier)
“The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and
country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus®
database (Elsevier B.V.).
Scopus (Elsevier)
The Scopus Journal Analyzer provides a view of journal performance, enriched with
two journal metrics - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) and SNIP (Source Normalized Impact
per Paper).

9. National Journals
(HEC recognized/Unrecognized)
Criteria for Recognition of International Science Journals by HEC
Criteria for HEC Journals
The journal should be regularly published.
The old journals published regularly should meet the following criteria in order to prove
the regularity.
1. Annual publication It should have published 5 issues in the last 5 years
2. Six monthly publication It should have published 6 issues in the last 3 years
3. Quarterly publication It should have published 8 issues in the last 2 years
4. Monthly publication It should have published 24 issues in the last 2 years
The journal should have Impact Factor or appear in the ISI Master list
Diverse Editorial Board / Advisory Board.
‘Peer Reviewed’. (blind dreview) at least by two reviewers (including one international
reviewer [i.e. from Industrially/ Academically advanced country in the respective
discipline.)
It should be abstracted / indexed internationally. ‘Abstracting and Indexing Services’ as
posted on HEC website http://www.hec.gov.pk/.
The journal published in any language other than English should publish abstract of
each paper in English.
References should be provided according to the international standard as per policy of

10. HEC’s Journal Expert Committee’s Role
• HEC has devised group of experts in the Science, Social Sciences and
Multidisplinary Sciences subject.
• These experts meet every year at the Higher Education Commission under
the chairmanship of Chairman/ED/Consultant QAD.
• The committee is constituted for 3 years.
• They members evaluate, upgrade, downgrade and even de-recognize the
existing national journals.
• They also evaluate the new journals.
• They review the SOP’s and can modify and update these SOP’s.
• These SOP’s are then communicated to the Chief Editors/Editors.

11. HEC Grant Eligibility
Z= 200000 PKR
Y=350000 PKR
X= 500000 PKR
W= 750000 PKR

12. HEC Expert Committee SOP FOR Editors

14. Many thanks for your attention!
http://nceg.uop.edu.pk/faculty.php?uname=drirfanullahjan