Assignment on JOURNAL INDEXING

DHRUVI PATEL
23 –pch-074
MSc. Sem 1 (analytical chemistry )
Submitted on: 4 November 2023
th

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY
ST. XAVIERS COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)
AHMEDABAD, 380009

What is a journal index ?

A journal index is also called as a ‘bibliographic index’ or ‘bibliographic
database’, is a collection of journals arranged according to discipline ,subject,
geography , or other criteria.
You can look for research and information on certain subjects by using journal
indexes. Journal indexes can be searched by academics as well as by general
public.
Index journals have undergone review to verify that they fulfil certain
requirements. These standards include :
1)Policies for peer review and ethics
2)Evaluation standards for items submitted transparency of the editorial board
3)other people
Because they are frequently thought to be of higher scientific quality than non-
indexed journals, indexed journals are important. For this reason, you ought to
strive for publication in an indexed journal. You can locate one with the aid of
AJE’s Journal guide journal selection tool.

What is journal indexing. How does it function?

In the realm of research journal indexing serves as a resource that aims to make
relevant scholarly content easily accessible, to an audience. It essentially acts as
a tool for information retrieval in libraries and archives. By utilizing journal
indexing users have the opportunity to get acquainted with an article and
determine if they wish to delve into its contents.

The process of being included in a journal index involves scrutiny and

assessment to ensure that a particular journal adheres to standards of scholarly
publishing. To be considered for integration into a database provided by a
journal indexing service journals must submit an application. The service then
conducts an evaluation process based on industry norms, which includes;

Assessing the scope of the journal (especially if it pertains to subjects)

Verifying the registration of its International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
Confirming commitment to regular publishing schedules
Providing transparent information about the Editorial Board
Offering details regarding peer review procedures, copyrights, ethics, etc.
Ensuring that Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are present
Including essential article level metadata such as persistent identifiers,
copyright licenses, open abstracts, etc.

Once this evaluation is successfully completed and the journal is indexed within
the database it becomes accessible, to users who rely on that particular journal
indexing service.
What’s Journal Quartile and Rankings of a Research Journal ?
A quartile represents a journals or paper’s specific ranking in a database,
determined by journal’s impact factor (IF), citations and indexing.
It can be divided into four quadrants numbered Q1 , Q2 , Q3, Q4.
The term “Q index’ means that the quartile , which is a measurement or ranking
system used for the journals & it represents the ranking of any journal within a
given topic.
First of all , depending upon the quality of journal and the citations received,
indexing agencies often classify all the journals into four different quadrants.
The quartile rank and journal impact factor % , which are based on the (IF) data
and are issued by any indexing agency yearly, are for science and social science
journals in any subject category.
In order to determine the ranking of journal in each of its subject categories, the
quartile rankings are derived based on which quartile of the impact factor (IF)
allocates that journal for that subject category.
IF distribution – based Quartiles Rankings
Quartile 1(Q1) :- The top 25% of the journals within a given category are
ranked first in this category (top 25%).
Quartile 2(Q2) :- This Quartile category includes the middle-high position that
25% of journal occupied after quartile 1 (between top 25% to 50%).
Quartile 3(Q3) :- This category includes the middle-low position of the next
25% of journal titles after Q2 (between 50% to 75%).
Quartile 4(Q4) :- This Quartile category includes the final or lowest place
(between 75% to 100%) after 25% of the journal title of a chosen field.
What is Scopus?
Scopus is a bibliographic database that cover citations and abstracts for
academic journal articles.
Scopus is owned by Elsevier, & it can be accessed online through subscription.
Patent database searches are included in Scopus searches. Nearly 24000 titles
from more than 5000 publishers are covered by Scopus, of which 20,000 are
peer-reviewed journals in the fields of science, technology, medicine, and social
sciences.
Educational Institutions The goal of Scopus is to meet the information needs of
academics everywhere—researchers, teachers, students, administrators, and
librarians.
Scopus gained notoriety throughout the year for its high-caliber, consistently
indexed journals. A journal's indexation is thought to be an indicator of its
caliber. When compared to other well-known indexation services like
Pubmed, EMBASE, EBSCO, MedLine, and SCIRUS, among others, journals
that are indexed by Scopus are thought to be of a higher caliber scientifically.
Value of scopus Index journal
 Publication in a journal with a Scopus index is a testament to and
acknowledgement of the excellence of your work.
 Additionally, it raises the possibility of being cited, which raises your
citation score.
 As a result, the university is more visible.
 Scopus has very stringent standards for the caliber of its journals and
proceedings.
 It is possible that publishing in a journal without an index won't bring
you the attention you merit.

Web of science (WoS)

A platform called Web of Science houses multiple literature search databases
that are intended to assist scholarly and scientific research.
Other products offered by Web of Science include data, analytics, insights,
workflow tools, and professional services for use by researchers, academic
institutions, governments, funding agencies for both public and private research,
publishers, and companies involved in a lot of research.
Because its database was established later and is "younger," Scopus
concentrates on more recent sources, whereas Web of Science offers a deeper
level of scientific citations.

H-Index
In 2005, J.E. Hirsch proposed the H index.. The H-index is a
quantitative metric.
J.E Hirsch made the h index suggestion in the year 2005 and it was
published in the American proceedings of the national academy of
sciences.
The h index is basically a quantitative indicator which uses
publications and citations to analyse the publishing data and give “an
estimate of the importance, significance and broad impact of a
scientist’s cumulative research contributions”.
The h index is calculated by counting the total number of publications
for which an author has been cited by other writers at least that same
number of times.
For instance, a scientist with an H index of 17 has at least 17 papers
to their credit, each of which has been cited at least 17 times.
Remember that different databases give different range of values for
the H index. This is because each databases may determine its value
using the citations that it has. The H index result will differ since the
databases cover a variety of articles from a range of years.
As well as you should be aware of that depending on the scientific
field, different definitions of a “good” h index may exist. A number
of H index that is considered low in one field might be considered
higher in another field.
Observations on google scholar
Comparing other databases, google scholar provides the highest h
index. This is because, unlike sources, google scholar indexes
individual web pages rather than organized collections of article
citations. This means Google scholar :
-tally all publications, including books
-tally all preprints of a paper
-tally all versions of a publication that are found
-counts citations that have been added manually but have not yet been
reviewed by a publisher or another source.
How can I find out how often a particular item was cited ?
There are few websites which allow users to view the number of
times an article has been cited.
One resource for determining an article’s citation count is the web of
science database maintained by the libraries. Enter the article’s title,
author and journal for the article you have in mind (as shown
below) :-

You will get a list of matching articles when you click search. You
have to click the number (see arrow below) to view a list of the
articles that cite the original article. From there you can see how many
times your content has been cited.
You can also use google scholar to discover the citation details. If you
click on find databases above the search box on the homepage and
enter in google scholar, the GS you access will be linked to our online
collections & provide access to more article full texts.
In the search box on google scholar homepage, enter the title of your
article. If you like to add further details, including the author and the
journal where the article appears, you can also use the advanced
scholar search by clicking that arrow shown in the picture below :

After that you can see how many times your article has been cited on
the results page. You may now access the list of articles that have
specifically cited your article by clicking the “cited by” like (arrow
below).
Impact factor
The impact factor (IF) OR Journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic
journal is an index that reflects the yearly average number of citations
of articles published in the last two years in the given journal. It was
introduced by Eugene Garfield.
Despite IF is widely used by institutions and physicians, people have
many misconceptions about the method for calculating the journal IF,
why it matters and how it can be utilized.
The Impact factor is commonly used to evaluate the relative
importance of a journal and to measure the frequency with which the
“average article” in a journal has been cited in a specific time
duration.
The journal which publishes more number of review articles gets the
highest Ifs. Journal with higher IF more important than those with
lower ones. Thus, a journal will receive the most IFs if it publishes the
most review articles.
Journal IF cannot be determined for new journals since the impact
factor cannot be calculated until the journal has published for
minimum 3 years.
Unlike the “H-Index”, that is applicable to individual papers or
scientists, the IF is exclusive to journals. The relative number of
citations an individual article receives is evaluated as “citation
 impact”. The average number of citations received per article
published in a journal during the two years prior to the current year is
the Journals impact factor (IF). Imfact factor is calculated each , year
by Thomson scientific for the journals it indexes and are published in
journal citation reports.
For example, a journal with an IF of three in 2008, then its papers
published in year 2008, then its papers published in year 2006 and 2007
received three citations each on average in 2008. The 2008 IFs are not
calculated until after the indexing agency (Thomson Reuters) have been
processed all the 2008 publications, they are actually published in 2009.
The impact factor of biomedical can vary from 5 to 8%. The IF of any
journal can be calculated using the following formula :
Impact factor for 2012 = A/B
Where A is the total number of times articles published in 2010 and
2011 were cited by indexed journals. B is the total amount of citable
items like articles and reviews that is published in 2010 and 2011 by
that journal.

How to get a journal indexed ?

 Pick an appropriate databases
Indexing businesses do not take part into consideration journals
that are outside their purview, in the similar way that journal
editors do not examine papers that lie outside their scope.
Select a database that has journal indexes from your field. It is
also necessary to understand the functions that databases
provides. Some of the databases only index abstracts of articles
published in your journal. Some pay experts to index keywords
& also scan entire documents. Citations are also included in the
indexing system used by others. Selecting the appropriate
journal indexing database will also be aided by knowing
precisely how the user will be able to view and access your
journal.
  To understand how the database you have chosen selects content
it evaluates factors
These factors include the quality of the published content, timely
publishing and the journals workflow and processes. In order for a
journal to be indexed it must formally apply to the database. Provide
supporting documents and evidence. If the journal meets all the
criteria it will be indexed. The process is similar, to submitting a
manuscript for peer review; journals submit their documents. Wait for
them to be reviewed by the database. If your journal does not meet the
indexing criteria you may need to make some changes, in your
journals workflow to ensure eligibility.
 Make sure your journal has streamlined and effective processes,
in place
It is important to meet the industries publication standards, such, as
having author systems conducting smooth and timely peer reviews
and ensuring easy accessibility. Your application should demonstrate
that your journal is deserving of being indexed by the chosen
database.
 Consider reaching out to a company that has databases
For ex ,companies like Elsevier and Thomson Reuters offer a range of
indexes that are specifically designed for journals. It would be
beneficial to review the list of products or services they offer and
apply to those that align with the focus of your journal.
Why indexing is essential ?
1) Indexing helps your journal achieve its primary objective of
being broadly available.
2) Being reachable will enhance the standing of your journal as a
trustworthy source of excellent quality information in your field.
3) Database research is the first task researchers perform as a part
of their study and they naturally turn to reputable, well -
established databases. Thus, having your journal indexed in a
 reputable database in your field will help increase your journal’s
readership.
Few Journals with high Impact factor –
The new England journal of medicine
CA- A cancer journal for clinicians
JAMA- Journal of the American medicine association
Abbreviations used :
JIF – Journal impact factor
WoS – Web of science
IF – Imfact factor
GS – Google scholar

References :
https://researcher.life/blog/article/journal-indexing/
https://www.editage.com/insights/journal-indexing-101-
understanding-the-basics
https://undetectable.ai/
https://www.grammarly.com/paraphrasing-tool
https://scientific-publishing.webshop.elsevier.com/publication-
recognition/what-good-h-index/
https://freequillbot.com/
https://blog.scholasticahq.com/post/how-to-get-journals-indexed-
scopus/
https://www.researchgate.net/post/
How_to_make_a_Journal_indexed_in_Scopus
https://direct.mit.edu/qss/article/1/1/363/15569/Web-of-Science-as-a-
data-source-for-research-on
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