Check Before You Publish!

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The two main international and multidisciplinary databases of academic journals are ISI and Scopus. These two databases are usually used in the evaluation of academic performance in many countries. Each one has at least one indicator of quality of journals as well as quantity indicators. Web of Science (WoS) publishes anually the Journal Citation Report (JCR) for all journals in science and social sciences. Scopus publishes two quality indicators for journals: the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), those values are provided free of charge in this url: http://www.journalmetrics.com/.

Also you can find all indicators of journals of Scopus and its evolution from 1999 to 2012, in the portal of free access SCImago Journal & Country Rank: http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php. This portal includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.)

Publication malpractice is an unfortunate occurrence in the world of scholarly literature. It happens in all subject areas and in all jurisdictions and few journals or books are immune. Here , we have recently received notification of journals that purport to be indexed by Scopus or Web of Science (WoS) but really are not. These journals have even gone as far as to forge letters And just because a journal may have a Scopus or WoS logo on their web site, this does not mean they’re indexed in Scopus or WoS.

As an author, if you would like to know if your published article will be included in Scopus and WoS, we urge you to take note of the following before submitting your work to a journal or conference.

 

  1. Check the title list.
  1. Search in Scopus and WoS.
  • Use a Scopus search and WoS browse search for the name of the journal or conference and check if any current content is available to see if the title is indeed indexed.
  1. Ask! 
  • When in doubt, send an email to the Scopus Helpdesk and one of their Customer Service representatives they can let you know if that title is indexed (or is going to be indexed).

Recently, these titles have either never been included in Scopus OR have recently been discontinued in Scopus.

  • British Journal of Education and Science (ISSN 0309-1114) – never in Scopus
  • Academic Journal of Cancer Research (ISSN 1995-8943 / 2221-3422) – discontinued
  • Advances in Environmental Biology (ISSN 1995-0756 / 1998-1066) – discontinued
  • Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences (ISSN 1995-0772 /1998-1090) – discontinued
  • American-Eurasian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture (ISSN 1995-0748 / 1998-1074) – discontinued
  • Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences (ISSN 1991-8178 / 309-8414) – discontinued
  • Global Journal of Pharmacology (ISSN 1992-0075 / 2221-3449) – discontinued
  • Global Veterinaria (ISSN 1992-6197 / 1999-8163) – discontinued
  • Journal of Applied Sciences Research (ISSN 1816-157X / 1819-544X) – discontinued
  • Life Science Journal (ISSN: 1097-8135 /2372-613X) – discontinued
  • Middle East Journal of Scientific Research (ISSN 1990-9233 / 1999-8147) – discontinued
  • World Applied Sciences Journal (ISSN 1818-4952 / 1991-6426) – discontinued
  • World Journal of Medical Sciences (ISSN 1817-3055 / 1990-4061) – discontinued

It is extremely difficult to judge the quality of a journal. However, here are two more lists (the so-called Beall’s lists) of presumably problematic journals and publishers that should better be avoided:

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