Scholarly communications as an industry is nothing if not symbiotic. Publishers, authors, institutions, and information providers are part of a dynamic web, constantly adding complex structures to an already labyrinthine universe of academic endeavor. As a result, those actors operating from within these interconnected systems need to behave – or at least they should behave – in such a way that they are able to trust each other.
Working on trusted sources of data at Cabells, we take our role in supporting people seeking to navigate these complexities very seriously. We do this by updating our data as much as possible and using a team of (human) experts to make judgements based on sound criteria. However, we also depend on other agencies to provide us with key information that will be useful to our users.
First suppressions
Recently, fellow information provider Clarivate announced some updates to the journals it indexes in its Web of Science database. Among these was a notice that, as of June 18th 2025, it was suppressing the Impact Factor and other bibliometric data associated with 20 individual journals. These suppressions tend to happen each June when Web of Science updates its data and usually cause a stir among commentators in the scholarly communications industry due to the importance some people place on the Impact Factors of those journals that have them. This year was no exception, especially as research and publishing integrity issues being so high on the agenda.
As a service to our users, Cabells has taken the decision to add an advisory notice to its entries for 10 of the journals suppressed by Web of Science (see example above). This is not to apportion any judgement on these journals from Cabells, but rather to reflect the original decision by Web of Science, and to share this information with Cabells users.
Opening up
Cabells has also started adding advisories to other journals where major changes have been made to the publishing outputs of the publication due to integrity concerns. For example, the journal information card below represents a journal that has had numerous article retractions, as highlighted by the Retraction Watch database:
There is a policy for customers that explains these advisories. Cabells’ Journalytics and Predatory Reports databases are some one of the most trusted tools that authors and institutions use for deciding where to research and publish articles, and these notices should help users navigate the ever more complicated process of publishing in academic papers.
