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World-Class Scientific Journals – 2015 : Improving quality and expanding presence in the world information resources

St Petersburg : date etc

Scopus Content Selection Advisory Board : the role of the Subject Chairs and the journal review process

Karen Holland

Subject Chair: Nursing & Health Professions & Education

Dr David Rew

Subject Chair : Medicine

Emeritus Professor Peter Miller

Subject Chair: Psychology, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine

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An introduction to SCOPUS: The work of the Subject Chairs

David Rew

Consultant Surgeon

University Hospital Southampton

SCOPUS Content Selection Advisory Board

Subject Chair for Medicine

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A brief history of SCOPUS

• SCOPUS origins in 2003 as a competitor to Web of Science

• For peer reviewed worldwide academic literature

• Large and diverse founding advisory board

• Rapid acquisition of (18,000+) titles by 2009

• Unknown numbers of applicant journals still outside SCOPUS

• Need recognised for a fair, systematic accession process

• New Content Selection Advisory Board recruited in 2009

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The 2009 SCOPUS Content Selection Advisory Board

• +/-15 Subject Chairs on the Main Board

• Wide, broad and diverse subject expertise

• Experience as Journal Editors / Librarians /Bibliometricians

• International perspective

• Independent minded

• Collegiate = able to reach a happy consensus from diverse opinions

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My own journey to the SCOPUS CSAB

• Consultant Surgeon since 1994 in UK National Health Service

• Associate Editor, Eur J Surg Oncol 1996-2002• Editor in Chief, Eur J Surg Oncol 2003-2009

- Entered partnership with Elsevier 2003

- Set a Board Strategy based upon quality & readability

- Growth from 300 to 600 published manuscripts per year

- Growth from 6-12 issues per annum

- Growth in Impact Factor from <1.0 to 2.8

- Worldwide distribution on Science Direct

- 240,000 reported full article downloads by 2009

• Board Member, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 2008-2010

• Invited to join SCOPUS CSAB 2009

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The general work of CSAB Subject Chairs

• Adjudication on applicant journals through the STEP process

• Attend international board meetings twice per year

• Communicate by email on “hot topics” at other times

• Debate & inform Board & Elsevier on developments in publishing

• Undertake educational tasks, seminars

• Support for the growth & expansion of the Regional Boards

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The Brief of the SCOPUS CSAB Subject Chair:To create a journal accession & retention process which is

• Credible and Trusted (by all parties)

• Fair to all applicant journals• • Effective and Efficient

• Clear and Transparent

• Supportive of all applicant journals: constructive feedback & advice

• Which is under continuous development & review

• Which is flexible & adaptable (eg for Regional Boards)

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A broader personal view of the Subject Chair role

• To bring transparency & openness to the work of the Board = Trust

• To improve international academic cooperation & understanding through common standards in communication & publishing

• To protect the reputation & quality of the world’s academic work;

- Robust Policy on Publication Ethics & Malpractice

- Better understanding of the “predatory journal” sector

- Better measures of transparency for authors & readers

- New technologies for fraud detection

• To improve standards in the world academic literature through

education, feedback & support of editors & publishers

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Emeritus Professor Peter Miller

Subject Chair : Psychology, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine

The Scopus journal evaluation process from the perspective of the Subject Chair

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Pre-screening by Scopus staff• Key areas of journal evaluation• Detailed assessments in each area• Personal experiences with quantitative and qualitative judgments• How the final decision is made

What I Am Going to Discuss

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• International group of 15 journal editors and librarians; all major specialty fields represented

• Editorial role: evaluating quality of journals, making final decisions, supporting decisions with specific feedback, providing advice to editors on how to improve their journals, providing advice to Scopus on managing the review process

• Scopus Title Evaluation Platform (STEP): quantitative system used to evaluate journals

Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB)

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• 2 years minimum• Peer-reviewed content• Published on a regular basis (have a ISSN number registered with

the International ISSN Centre)• Relevant and readable for an international audience (for example

have references in Roman script and English language abstracts and titles)

• Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

Minimum Criteria to Qualify for Submission

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• Roman script, or Latin script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet

• Russian text or references based on Cyrillic script would not comply with our requirements

• “brain disorder” versus “браин дисордер”

References in Roman Script

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• Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement required• No specific wording suggested• Useful resources:

http://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/what-is-elseviers-position-on-publishing-ethics

http://publicationethics.org/• http://www.icmje.org/

Ethics Statement

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• Plagiarism• Collaboration• Originality• Fraud• Conflict of Interest

Important Ethical Issues

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Example of a Good Ethics Statement

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• All journals in these 3 areas are assigned to me for evaluation• I can evaluate them by myself or choose to request other referees to

review them• I make the final decision to include a journal into Scopus or not• My role, as a CSAB member, is to help manage and improve the

selection process, make objective selection decisions, and provide useful feedback to editors and publishers

My Personal Experience: Subject Chair of Psychology, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine

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Key Areas of Evaluation

• Journal Policy• Quality of Content• Journal Standing• Regularity• Online Availability

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• Convincing editorial scope• Type of peer review• Diversity in geographical distribution of editors• Diversity in geographical distribution of authors

Journal Policy

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• Aims and scope• Convincing and relevant to Scopus users?• Specific or too broad• Is it clear why an author might want to publish in this journal?• Example of poor journal policy: publishing all areas of science;

Journal of Scientific Information

Journal Policy

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Example of a Good Journal Policy Statement

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What Constitutes “Adequate” Peer Review?

• Single blind peer review

• Double blind peer review

• Open peer review

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What is Questionable Peer Review?

• Single review by main editor

• Very fast reviews: 2 weeks or less, guaranteed

• New journal increasing volume very quickly

• The case of the author who served as his own referee

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• Editors and Editorial Board: single institution, multiple institutions within one country, regional diversity, global diversity

• Authors: single institution, multiple institutions within one country, regional diversity, global diversity

• Which is best? – depends on the aims and scope and the subject area

• Journal claims to be international; board and authors are regional

Judging Geographical Diversity

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• Academic contribution to the field• Clarity of abstracts• Quality of and conformity with stated aims• Readability of articles• Check hypotheses and conclusions• iThenticate• Frequent problems: vague, descriptive reports; not adding to extant

literature; small sample sizes; not in line with the journal’s aims and scope

Quality of Content

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Judging Academic Contribution to the Field

Good science?• Unique contribution to the

existing literature?• Merely a publication

outlet for one faculty?• Publishing all or most

submissions? Acceptance rate?

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• Extremely important for literature searches in Scopus or any database

• Content: Is it a useful and comprehensive summary• Language: Is the English language understandable and correct

(grammar, spelling, etc.)• Abstracts extremely important for non-English language journals

Judging Clarity of Abstracts

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• Citedness of journal: percentage of articles cited, number of times individual articles are cited, how recent are the citations

• Editor standing: widely published, widely cited, recognized in their field

Journal Standing

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• Review articles• Commentaries• Debates• Invited articles• Editorials• Special issues• English language website

Increasing Citations: Acceptable Ways

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Increasing Citations: Unacceptable Ways

• Writing heavily self-referenced editorials

• Pressuring authors to cite the journal

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• How many issues per year• How many articles per issue• How many issues delayed• A journal publishing 2 issues a year with only 6 articles in each issue

(5 year publication history; is it viable?; will it last?)

Regularity

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• I usually check this first• Check content available online• How many issues per year; articles per issue• English-language homepage option available?• Quality of homepage; ease of use, how comprehensive it is

Online Availability

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• Scoring Overview: Low, medium or high in each area

• Qualitative judgment looking at the overall picture

Basis of Final Decision

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• Accept or Not Accept• Specific reasons given• Email letter to publisher and editor with specific reasons why

publication was accepted or not accepted• If Not Accepted, specific recommendations on how to improve

(VERY IMPORTANT) – more similar to a “Revise and Resubmit” than a rejection

• Reapply in ? years

Final Decision

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The Way Forward : working with the Russian CSAB and developing good practice in journal publishing

Karen Holland

SCOPUS Content Selection Advisory Board ( CSAB )

Subject Chair : Nursing / Health professions / Education

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Subject Chair role and the Local / Regional CSAB

• Scopus Subject Chairs and the Russian CSAB : working together• The Russian Board like all the other Regional Boards is now working with Scopus team to

enhance their country’s submission success

Evaluations undertaken by members of the Board are submitted along with the journal submission to the Subject Chair desk top in STEP

Current personal experience is that of undertaking a Double blind peer review then contact and discussion with a Board member on the decision for that journal .This is very new and we will need to ensure whenever possible that all journals being submitted to Scopus evaluation have an internal review report attached to the submission **

• Attend periodic Workshops when necessary or invited by the Russian CSAB such as the one at this conference to share best practice and update on new developments

• We have developed a set of Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQ’s ) for journal submissions and the role of editor which you all have a copy and will be found on the new Russian CSAB web –site **

• :• http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/scopus/content-overview#content-policy-and-selection *

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SCOPUS : How do journals get included ?And most importantly how do they stay in ? In summary

• The Scopus Content Selection Advisory Board ( CSAB ) • http://www.info.sciverse.com/scopus/csab/members• Selection system is called STEP • http://www.info.sciverse.com/scopus/scopus-in-detail/content-selection

• Once a journal is accepted there is no long term guarantee that a journal will remain in the Scopus database – Re-Evaluation of journals already in Scopus by the CSAB Subject Chairs and their reviewers will begin soon

• The Role of the Russian Regional CSAB will be critical to the future success of journal acceptance into Scopus

• Their contribution will also bring a quality assurance vision supported by the principles of transparent Publication Ethics to Scopus content

• We wish the Board every success with their Project and offer the support of the Scopus CSAB Subject Chairs to the work being undertaken for this exciting future development for Russian Scholarship and Science.

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Resources for Editors : For information only

1. http://www.elsevier.com/editors

2. http://www.elsevier.com/ethics/home#journal-editors

3. http://www.elsevier.com/ethics/toolkit

4. http://publicationethics.org/

5. http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

6. http://publicationethics.org/international-standards-editors-and-authors

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www.elsevier.com/research-intelligence

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