Simon Linacre Academic Publishing, Scholarly Communication

Gray area

While Cabells spends much of its time assessing journals for inclusion in its Verified or Predatory lists, probably the greater number of titles reside outside the parameters of those two containers. In his latest blog, Simon Linacre opens up a discussion on what might be termed ‘gray journals’ and what their profiles could look like.

 

The concept of ‘gray literature’ to describe a variety of information produced outside traditional publishing channels has been around since at least the 1970s, and has been defined as “information produced on all levels of government, academia, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing (ie. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body*” (1997; 2004). The definition plays an important role in both characterizing and categorizing information outside the usual forms of academic content, and in a way is the opposite of the chaos and murkiness the term ‘gray’ perhaps suggests.

The same could not be said, however, if we were to apply the same term to those journals that inhabit worlds outside the two main databases Cabells curates. Its Journal Whitelist indexes over 11,000 journals that satisfy its criteria to assess whether a journal is a reputable outlet for publication. As such, it is a list of recommended journals for any academic to entrust their research to. The same cannot be said, however, for the Journal Blacklist, which is a list of over 13,000 journals that NO ONE should recommend publication in, given that they have ‘met’ several of Cabells’ criteria.

So, after these two cohorts of journals, what’s left over? This has always been an intriguing question and one which was alluded to most intelligently recently by Kyle Siler in a piece for the LSE Impact Blog. There is no accurate data available on just how many journals there are in existence, as like grains of sand they are created and disappear before they can all be counted. Scopus currently indexes well over 30,000 journals, so a conservative estimate might be that there are over 50,000 journals currently active, with 10,000 titles or more not indexed in any recognized database. Using Cabells experience of assessing these journals for both Whitelist and Blacklist inclusion, here are some profiles that might help researchers spot which option might be best for them:

  • The Not-for-Academics Academic Journal: Practitioner journals often fall foul of indexers as they are not designed to be used and cited in the same way as academic journals, despite the fact they look like them. As a result, journals that have quite useful content are often overlooked due to lack of citations or a non-academic style, but can include some good quality content
  • The So-Bad-it’s-Bad Journal: Just awful in every way – poor editing, poor language, uninteresting research and research replicated from elsewhere. However, it is honest and peer reviewed, so provides a legitimate outlet of sorts
  • The Niche-of-a-Niche Journal: Probably focusing on a scientific area you have never heard of, this journal drills down into a subject area and keeps on drilling so that only a handful of people in the world have the foggiest what it’s about. But if you are one of the lucky ones, it’s awesome. Just don’t expect citation awards any time soon
  • The Up-and-Coming Journal: Many indexers prefer to wait a year or two before including a journal in their databases, as citations and other metrics can start to be used to assess quality and consistent publication. In the early years, quality can vary widely, but reading the output so far is at least feasible to aid the publishing decision
  • The Worthy Amateur Journal: Often based in a non-research institution or little-known association, these journals have the right idea but publish haphazardly, have small editorial boards and little financial support, producing unattractive-looking journals that may nevertheless hide some worthy articles.

Of course, when you arrive at the publication decision and happen upon a candidate journal that is not indexed, as we said last week simply ‘research your research’: check against the Blacklist and its criteria to detect any predatory characteristics, research the Editor and the journal’s advisory board for their publishing records and seek out the opinion of others before sending your precious article off into the gray ether.

*Third International Conference on Grey Literature in 1997 (ICGL Luxembourg definition, 1997 – Expanded in New York, 2004

***LAST CHANCE!***

If you haven’t already completed our survey, there is still time to provide your feedback. Cabells is undertaking a review of the current branding for ‘The Journal Whitelist’ and ‘The Journal Blacklist’. As part of this process, we’d like to gather feedback from the research community to understand how you view these products, and which of the proposed brand names you prefer.

Our short survey should take no more than ten minutes to complete, and can be taken here.

As thanks for your time, you’ll have the option to enter into a draw to win one of four Amazon gift vouchers worth $25 (or your local equivalent). More information is available in the survey.

Many thanks in advance for your valuable feedback!

Simon Linacre Academic Publishing, Research, Scholarly Communication

Doing your homework…and then some

Researchers have always known the value of doing their homework – they are probably the best there is at leaving no stone unturned. But that has to apply to the work itself. Simon Linacre looks at the importance of ‘researching your research’ and using the right sources and resources.

Depending on whether you are a glass half full or half empty kind of a person, it is either a great time for promoting the value of scientific research, or, science is seeing a crisis in confidence. On the plus side, the value placed on research to lead us out of the COVID-19 pandemic has been substantial, and rarely have scientists been so much to the fore for such an important global issue. On the other hand, there have been uprisings against lockdowns in defiance of science, and numerous cases of fake science related to the Coronavirus. Whether it is COVID-19, Brexit, or global warming, we seem to be in an age of wicked problems and polarising opinions on a global scale.

If we assume that our glass is more full than empty in these contrarian times, and try to maintain a sense of optimism, then we should be celebrating researchers and the contribution they make. But that contribution has to be validated in scientific terms, and its publication validated in such a way that users can trust in what it says. For the first part, there has been a good deal of discussion in academic circles and even in the press about the nature of preprints, and how users have to take care to understand that they may not yet have been peer reviewed, so any conclusions should not yet be taken as read.

For the second part, however, there is a concern that researchers in a hurry to publish their research may run afoul of predatory publishers, or simply publish their articles in the wrong way, in the wrong journal for the wrong reasons. This was highlighted to me when a Cabells customer alerted us to a new website called Academic Accelerator. I will leave people to make their own minds up as to the value of the site, however, a quick test using academic research on accounting (where I managed journals for over a decade, so know the area) showed that:

  • Attempting to use the ‘Journal Writer’ function for an accounting article suggested published examples from STM journals
  • Trying to use the ‘Journal Matcher’ function for an accounting article again only recommended half a dozen STM journals as a suitable destination for my research
  • Accessing data for individuals journals seems to have been crowdsourced by users, and didn’t match the actual data for many journals in the discipline.

The need for researchers to publish as quickly as possible has perhaps never been greater, and the tools and options for them to do so have arguably never been as open. However, with this comes a gap in the market that many operators may choose to exploit, and at this point, the advice for researchers is the same as ever. Always research your research – know what you are publishing and where you are publishing it, and what the impact will be both in scholarly terms and in real-world terms. In an era where working from home is the norm, there is no excuse for researchers not to do their homework on what they publish.

***REMINDER***

If you haven’t already completed our survey, there is still time to provide your opinion. Cabells is undertaking a review of the current branding for ‘The Journal Whitelist’ and ‘The Journal Blacklist’. As part of this process, we’d like to gather feedback from the research community to understand how you view these products, and which of the proposed brand names you prefer.

Our short survey should take no more than ten minutes to complete, and can be taken here.

As thanks for your time, you’ll have the option to enter into a draw to win one of four Amazon gift vouchers worth $25 (or your local equivalent). More information is available in the survey.

Many thanks in advance for your valuable feedback!

Simon Linacre