Basics of choosing an academic journal to publish in.

1. Journal
Publication 101
It’s A Jungle Out There
GBES21 Talk
M. Rafee Majid
25.03.21

2. Which journal?
Among the things to consider:
The content & area of your paper
The audience intended for the paper
The aim & scope of the journal
Indexed vs non-indexed journal
Open access vs subscription journal
The regularity, number of issues, number of
articles per issues
The acceptance rate of the journal
The processing time (review & time to publication)
& fees.
The journal metrics

3. The content & area of your paper
The audience intended for the paper
The aim & scope of the journal
Learning from The Journal’s
Website

4. The content & area of your paper
The audience intended for the paper
The aim & scope of the journal
Learning from The Journal’s
Website

5. The content & area of your paper
The audience intended for the paper
The aim & scope of the journal
Learning from The Journal’s
Website

6. Journal matching tools
-Provided mostly by publishers & also
independent entities.

11. Indexed vs
Non-Indexed
What does indexed stand for?
• A journal whose articles are indexed in a
scientific database and available to all users of
that database. Some databases index titles,
some index full articles while some others
index only the abstract and/or references.
• Indexed journals considered to be higher
quality in comparison to a non-indexed
journal & the quality is also dependent on the
indexing database. Some databases (SCOPUS,
WOS) are more well-known then others
(EBSCO, MyCite). So, not only indexed but
indexed by whom?
• At UTM, indexed journals are always used to
refer only to journals indexed by SCOPUS,
WOS & ERA (Excellence in Research for
Australia.

12. Indexed vs Non-Indexed
Why is indexing essential?
• Indexing helps a journal achieve its main purpose of being
accessible to a wide audience.
• Being accessible in turn will improve the journal’s
reputation as a reliable source of high-quality information in
its field.
• Database research is the first activity researchers undertake
in a study, and established, well-known databases are their
natural first choices. Thus, being indexed in a known
database in its field will help increase the journal’s
readership.

13. How does indexing work?
• Some databases index titles, some index full articles while some
others index only the abstract and/or references.
• Several abstracting and indexing services available today. Some
are affiliated with institutions (e.g., PubMed maintained by
the United States National Library of Medicine at the National
Institute of Health) while some are provided by publishers
(e.g., Scopus by Elsevier).
• Among journal indexing agencies/entities:
o Google Scholar
o Scopus
o PubMed
o EBSCO
o IJIFACTOR
o EMBASE
o DOAJ
o SCIE
o SCIMAGOJR
o OAJI
o Index Copernicus
o Ulrich’s International Periodical Directory
o BASE
o WOS

14. WOS vs SCOPUS
FEATURE SCOPUS WEB OF SCIENCE (WOS)
Publisher Elsevier Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics
Number of
Journals
36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive
titles)
> 21,419 journals + books and conference proceedings
Content Biomedical sciences, natural sciences, engineering,
social sciences, arts & humanities. Strongest coverage
of biomedical & natural sciences and engineering.
Natural sciences, biomedical sciences, engineering,
social sciences, arts & humanities. Strongest coverage
of natural sciences & engineering.
Databases
Covered
100% of Medline and Embase - plus other content Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index,
Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Conference
Proceedings Citation Index, Book Citation Index,
Emerging Sources Citation Index, Index Chemicus,
Current Chemical Reactions
Time Period
Covered
Initially covered 1996-present. Now includes
substantial content prior to 1996, with some back to
1823.
Science component: 1990-
Social science component: 1975-
Arts & humanities component: 1975-
Citation
Analysis
Yes, including citation tracking, citation counts, and
author h-index calculations
Yes, including citation tracking, citation counts, and
author h-index calculations
Journal
Metrics
h-index, SJR, SNIP IF, 5-year IF, Qs, Eigenfactor, h-index, Immediacy Index
Relative
strengths
• More versatile search and refine options, including
ability to search for "first author"
• Tools for analyzing search results by author,
affiliation, country, journal title, and broad subject
categories.
• Scopus Author Identifiers are broadly assigned;
useful for distinguishing among publications from
authors with similar names
• Growing book chapter coverage, especially for
social sciences and arts & humanities
• Can search using controlled vocabulary terms
• More thorough coverage of older literature
• Ability to analyze search results by author,
affiliation, country, journal/book title, and broad
subject categories.
• Can sort search results according to how frequently
the articles have been cited.

15. WOS vs SCOPUS

16. WOS vs SCOPUS

17. OA vs
Subscription
Journals
Why is an Open Access?
• Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices
through which research outputs are distributed online, free of cost
or other access barriers. With open access strictly defined (according
to the 2001 definition), or libre open access, barriers to copying or
reuse are also reduced or removed by applying an open license for
copyright.
- Suber, Peter. "Open Access Overview". 2007.

19. Scientific Impact of OA Journals vs
Subscription Journals

20. Citation Averages of OA Journals vs
Subscription Journals

21. OA’s APC

22. Understand Journal Metrics before you submit
Metric Name Metric Source Metric Description
Impact Factor Web of Science
The average number of times articles from the journal published in the past two
years have been cited in the JCR year. The Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the
number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the
two previous years.
5-Year Impact
Factor
Web of Science
The average number of times articles from the journal published in the past five
years have been cited in the JCR year. It is calculated by dividing the number of
citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the five previous
years.
Altmetrics (Any source)
Altmetrics go beyond more traditional citation metrics to measure social visibility
around scientific articles. These metrics are based on a broad spectrum of indicators,
such as tweets, blog mentions, news media, social bookmarking, article views, and
downloads.
- Understanding common journal metrics helps you decide which journal is right for your
research.
The “JCR Year” refers to the Journal Citation Report year, which is the individual year for which a metric is provided.

23. Metric Name Metric Source Metric Description
Eigenfactor Web of Science
Based on weighted citations in the JCR year to papers published within the
previous 5 years. Citations are weighted according to the prestige of the
citing journal - citations from highly ranked journals making a larger contribution to
the Eigenfactor than those from poorly ranked journals.
h-index
Web of
Science, Google
Scholar, or Scopus
The h-index attempts to measure the productivity and citation impact of the
published body of work of an author. The h-index indicates the number of
papers, h, that have been cited at least h times (e.g. an h-index of 15 means
that 15 papers have been cited at least 15 times each.) Note: Due to variations
in citation coverage between databases, each source may determine a different value
of the h-index for each author.
Immediacy
Index
Web of Science
The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the
year it is published. The Immediacy Index is calculated by dividing the
number of citations to articles published in a given year by the number of
articles published in that year.
Understand Journal Metrics before you submit

24. Metric Name Metric Source Metric Description
SJR Scopus
The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) Indicator is based on weighted citations in
Year X to papers published in the previous 3 years. Citations are weighted
by the prestige of the citing journal, so that a citation from a top journal
will have more impact than a citation from a low-ranked journal.
SNIP Scopus
The Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) measures average
citations in Year X to papers published in the previous 3 years. Citations are
weighted by the citation potential of the journal’s subject category, thereby
making the metric more comparable across different disciplines.
JIF Quartile
(Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4)
Web of Science
The quartile of journals in WOS based on the ranking of their IF. Top
quarter is Q1, second is Q2 and so on.
Understand Journal Metrics before you submit

25. Impact
Factors and
Immediacy
Index
• Developed by Eugene
Garfield in the 1950s
• Reflects average of number
of citations to recent
articles published in
journals JCR tracks
• Proxy measure for
importance of journal in
the field
• Impact Factor
• Current and 5-year IFs
• Immediacy Index
• Cites in 2012 to items
published in 2012
Formula
• The number of times that articles
published in that journal in 2016 and
2017, were cited by articles in indexed
journals during 2018 (X).
• The total number of "citable items"
published by that journal in 2016 and
2017 (Y).
• 2018 impact factor = X/Y.
• e.g. 1000 citations = 3.33
150 + 150 articles

26. Listing of Qs in WOS

27. One-Stop Centre (OSC):
UlrichsWeb Global Serials Directory
• Like one-stop shopping. Can pull up and
select the reviews you want, then
download them as .pdf, .txt, .csv or .xls
files with specific data:
Basic
Subject Classifications
Additional Title Details
History
Publisher & Ordering Details
Price
Online Availability
Abstracting & Indexing
Other Availability
Demographics
Reviews
Related Titles
Note: Institutional subscription. UTM
does not subscribe. Can
suggest to library.

28. Publishing speed
• Time to publish is important.
Many journals have now introduced a “Fast Rejection“ process by the journal Editor
3
2
1
Submission to Acceptance (short)
Submission to Acceptance (long)
Submission to first online (short)
Submission to first online (long)
Submission to Print (short)
Submission to Print (long)
5
25
8
31
13
50
Long and short publishing times (weeks)

29. Answering
Basic
Questions
QUESTIONS TOOLS
Peer-reviewed? UlrichsWeb
Focus? UlrichsWeb
Audience? UlrichsWeb
Publisher? UlrichsWeb
Scope? UlrichsWeb
Indexed and abstracted? UlrichsWeb
Impact factors(s)? Journal Citation Reports
(JCR)
Reviews of Journal UlrichsWeb
Acceptance/Rejection Rate Publisher

30. Use Journal
Finder Tools
for preliminary
search.
Use Ulrichʼs as
a quick
overview of
the journal.
Look at JCR for
impact and
subject
categories.
Then check
out the journal
website if you
are still
interested.
Keep a record
of the journals
in which you
are interested
-- tracking
impact,
publisher info,
audience,
focus, etc.
Because one
day you may
need it ..
To sum up

31. Thanks