Definitions What is the need for quality assurance in journals ? Type of journals Bibliometric indicators How to identify credible journals ? Predatory/cloned journals

1. Standards, Accreditation and
Quality Assurance for Journal
Guidance
Prof. (Dr.) Smriti Arora
Amity College of Nursing
Amity University Haryana

2. Objectives
• Definitions
• What is the need for quality
assurance in journals ?
• Type of journals
• Bibliometric indicators
• How to identify credible journals ?
• Predatory/cloned journals

3. Definitions
• Accreditation - a form of external quality assurance process
under which services and operations of educational institutions
or programs are evaluated by an external body (accrediting
agency) to determine if applicable standards are met.
• Quality Assurance - an ongoing, continuous process of
evaluating (assessing, monitoring, guaranteeing, maintaining,
and improving) the quality of a HEI, or programmes.

4. Definitions
• Standards- Statements regarding an expected level of
requirements and conditions against which quality is assessed
or that must be attained by HEI and their programmes in order
for them to be accredited or certified.
• The thresholds are defined at the level of minimally acceptable
quality.

5. Maintaining quality in journals
• As an academician we have social responsibility to give correct information
to our fellow colleagues, juniors, students and larger scientific community
• Increased competition, quick success, promotion; predatory journals:
research integrity is questionable, more emphasis on quantity rather than
quality
• unreviewed manuscripts that are published on these clone websites may
become sources of medical practice and health policy and might be
incorporated into systematic reviews on the clinical literature.
• their unreviewed outcomes could become sources for novel hypotheses.
• a severe threat to the reliability and validity of future medical research.

6. Why is it necessary ?
• Where you choose to publish your work will impact your
• career advancement,
• funding opportunities and
• professional reputation for years to come.
• Articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed, academic, and
refereed journals are more credible

7. Types of journals

8. Assessing Journal Credibility
1. Where is it indexed?
• Is the journal included or indexed in the major bibliographic
databases for the field?
• It is an organized collection of references to published digital literature,
which includes conference proceedings, journals and newspaper
articles, government and legal publications, patents, standards, reports,
books, periodicals, etc.
• Are its articles discoverable where the journal claims?
• Verify their claims, dig deeper into their websites

9. Major bibliographic database
1. Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic
databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any
discipline.
Provides research articles, academic journal rankings, author
profiles, and an h-index calculator.
Scopus can be used to measure the prestige of a particular
journal within the database.
Scopus Journal Analyzer uses certain metrics to analyze journals
and articles.
Provider: Elsevier

11. Scopus Metrics

13. Scopus metrics
• SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) indicator
It expresses the average number of weighted citations received in the
selected year by the documents published in the selected journal in the
previous three years
--i.e. weighted citations received in year X to documents published in
the journal in years X-1, X-2 and X-3.
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
A corrective metric to account or difference in citation potential in
different fields.

16. Scopus metrics
The h index (Hirsch Index), 2005
• snapshot of an individual’s research performance,
• author level metric
• h-index = 6
• means that this author has published at least 6 papers that
have each received at least 6 citations.

18. • i10 index
• refers to the number of paper with 10 or more citations.

19. 2. Web of Science (WOS)
also known as Web of Knowledge
is the second big bibliographic database.
Usually, academic institutions provide either
access to Web of Science or Scopus on their
campus network for free.
Provider: Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters)

21. Clarivate Analytics
WOS group
• Master Journal List- profile of journals
• JCR- impact factor
• Endnote- Referencing software
• Publons- researcher data base
• Scholar one – manuscript submission

22. JCR
• Journal Citation Reports (JCR) - allows you to evaluate and compare
journals using citation bibliometrics data drawn from over 11,000
scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in
over 80 countries.
• JCR provides information on the
• most frequently cited journals in a field,
• the highest impact journals in a field, and
• the largest journals in a field.
https://mjl.clarivate.com

25. JCR
• Immediacy Index- is the average number of times an article is
cited in the year it is published. It indicates how quickly articles
in a journal are cited.
• Eigenfactor (EF) - is an overall rating of the importance of a
scientific journal whereby all articles published in a journal
during a year are taken in to consideration when making the
calculation.

26. Major bibliographic database
3. Pubmed- is the number one resource for anyone looking for
literature in medicine or biological sciences.
PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than
30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites
or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC)
Provider: NIH (National Institute of Health)

28. Bibliographic data bases
4. ERIC- Education Resources Information Center, and is a
database that specifically hosts education related literature.
Provider: U.S. Department of Education
5. IEEE Xplore- Engineering
6. ScienceDirect- Multidisciplinary, Provider: Elsevier

29. 7. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and
provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed
journals, free of charge.

34. 8. ABDC list
• Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List
• The 2019 List follows an extensive review conducted by Expert Panels,
which assessed journals relating to :
• Business and Taxation Law; Economics; Finance including Actuarial
Studies; Information Systems; Management, Commercial Services and
Transport and Logistics; Marketing and Tourism; and other areas.

35. 9. UGC
UGC CARE list I and II , 2019
Consortium for Academic Research and Ethics (CARE)

36. 2. What is its publishing history?
• How long has the journal been available?
• For new journals, is the journal mission clearly available?
• Who are the members of the editorial board? Chief editor ?
• Governing Body
• Journals shall have editorial boards or other governing bodies
whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas
included within the journal’s scope.
• The full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors shall be
provided on the journal’s Web site.

37. Editorial team/contact information
• Journals shall provide the full names and affiliations of the
journal’s editors on the journal’s Web site as well as contact
information for the editorial office.
• Geographical diversity among the editorial board
• No gender bias

38. 3. Is it peer-reviewed?
• Defined as obtaining advice on individual
manuscripts from reviewers expert in the field who
are not part of the journal’s editorial staff.
• Peer review procedures, shall be clearly described
on the journal’s Web site.
• How long does the peer review process take?
• Is this a reasonable time frame for a quality
assessment?
• Is it fair and does it help eliminate bias – race,
gender, institution?
• Are manuscripts anonymized, blinded ?

39. 4. What is its impact factor ?
• JIF attempts to measure the quality of
a journal in terms of its influence on the
academic community.
• In general, the higher the IF, the more
important and prestigious the journal within
its particular field.
• Does the journal have an impact factor?
• If not, are other bibliometric measurements
(Cite score, Scimago JR, SNIP) available to
determine if scholars are reading and citing
articles from this journal?

40. Impact factor
• For example, Nature had an impact factor of 41.577 in 2017:

41. 5. Ask about ORCID ID- Open Researcher and
Contributor ID
• ORCID ID provides a persistent digital identifier that you own
and control
• distinguishes you from every other researcher.
• You can connect your iD with your professional information —
affiliations, grants, publications, peer review, and more.

43. 6. Provide a DOI to your article
• Digital Object Identifier, is a string of numbers, letters and
symbols used to permanently identify an article or document
and link to it on the web.
• A DOI will help your reader easily locate a document from your
citation.
• Indian J Community Med. 2008 Jul; 33(3): 160–162.
• doi: 10.4103/0970-0218.42053

44. 7. Author fees:
• Any fees or charges that are required for manuscript processing
and/or publishing materials in the journal shall be clearly stated
in a place that is easy for potential authors to find prior to
submitting their manuscripts for review or explained to authors
before they begin preparing their manuscript for submission.
• APC

45. 8. Copyright
• Copyright and licensing information shall be clearly described
on the journal’s Web site, and licensing terms shall be indicated
on all published articles, both HTML and PDFs.

46. 9. Identification of and dealing with
allegations of research misconduct
• Publishers and editors shall take reasonable steps to identify
and prevent the publication of papers where research
misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation
manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others.
• In no case shall a journal or its editors encourage such
misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware
of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published
article in their journal – the publisher or editor shall follow
COPE’s guidelines (or equivalent) in dealing with allegations.

47. 10. Ownership and management
• Information about the ownership and/or management of a
journal shall be clearly indicated on the journal’s Web site.
• Publishers shall not use organizational names that would
mislead potential authors and editors about the nature of the
journal’s owner.

48. Other factors
• Web site: A journal’s Web site, including the text that it contains, shall
demonstrate that care has been taken to ensure high ethical and
professional standards.
• Name of journal: The Journal name shall be unique and not be one that is
easily confused with another journal or that might mislead potential
authors and readers about the Journal’s origin or association with other
journals
• They will not send u mail- publish with us
• Editor will not have a Gmail account
• No advertisements
• Manuscript is submitted online and there is deadline for submission

50. International Journal of Current Research
www.journalcra.com
Journal Impact Factor: 7.766
Invited for Research Articles / Volume 12, Issue 08, August - 2020
Fast Publication/Multidisciplinary
Dear Colleague,
The International Journal of Current Research (IJCR) (ISSN: 0975-833X) is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal published monthly is dedicated to
increasing the depth of Science and Technology across disciplines with the ultimate aim of improving research.
Call for Research and Review Articles
IJCR will cover all areas of
PHYSICAL SCIENCE:
Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth and Planetary Science, Energy, Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, Engineering
LIFE SCIENCE:
Material Science Agricultural, Biological Sciences, Biochemistry, Genetics, Molecular Biology, Environmental Science, Immunology and Microbiology
HEALTH SCIENCE:
Neuroscience Medicine and Dentistry, Nursing and Health Professions, Pharmacology, Toxicology, Pharmaceutical Science, Veterinary Science, Veterinary
Medicine
SOCIAL SCIENCE:
Arts and Humanities, Business, Management, Accounting, Decision Sciences, Economics, Econometrics, Finance, Psychology, Social Sciences
The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area, and will
publish:
• Original articles
• Short Communication
• Critical reviews, surveys, opinions, commentaries and essays
submit your Research and Review Articles to: journalcra@gmail.com or articles@journalcra.com
Online submission: https://www.journalcra.com/submit-article
With regards
Editorial Office
International Journal of Current Research
www.journalcra.com
Email id: journalcra@gmail.com

51. Predatory publishing
• It is write only publishing or deceptive publishing.
• It is an exploitive publishing business model that involves charging
publication fees to authors without checking articles for quality and
legitimacy
• 60 %, no citation even after 5 years of publication

52. Important links
• https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/
• https://beallslist.net/
• titlesuggestion@scopus.com

54. Fake metrics
• Cosmos IF
• Index Copernicus
• Global Impact factor

55. Cloned journals
• Clone journal web pages are a counterfeit mirror of an authentic journal that exploit
the title and ISSN of legitimate journals.1
• In contrast to predatory journals, clone journals are more likely to accept papers from
authors, since they have developed as the mirror image of reputable journals,
including their domain name.
• Usually, they receive massive attention through claiming that they have earned high
impact factors from reputable indexing agencies such as Web of Science and Scopus.
• Some of these counterfeit journals actively chase authors by trawling through the
latest conference proceedings to acquire the e-mail addresses of participants.
• These people are then approached through a modified e-mail message that announces
a fake call for papers in a current issue of the journal.
• Careless authors may be duped by these solicitations into paying an open-access
publication fee, trusting that their work is about to be published in a reputable journal.

56. UGC

57. Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria
In 2016, researchers Stefan Eriksson and Gert Helgesson identified 25 signs of predatory publishing
1.The publisher is not a member of any recognized professional
organisation committed to best publishing practices
(like COPE or EASE)
2.The journal is not indexed in well-established electronic
databases (like MEDLINE or Web of Science)
3.The publisher claims to be a "leading publisher" even though it just
got started
4.The journal and the publisher are unfamiliar to you and all your
colleagues
5.The papers of the journal are of poor research quality, and may not
be academic at all (for instance allowing for obvious pseudo-science)

58. Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria
6.There are fundamental errors in the titles and abstracts, or
frequent and repeated typographical or factual errors throughout
the published papers
7. The journal website is not professional
8. The journal website does not present an editorial board or
gives insufficient detail on names and affiliations
9. The journal website does not reveal the journal's editorial office
location or uses an incorrect address
10.The publishing schedule is not clearly stated

59. Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria
11. The journal title claims a national affiliation that does not match its
location (such as "American Journal of ..." while being located on another
continent) or includes "International" in its title while having a single-country
editorial board
12.The journal mimics another journal title or the website of said journal
13. The journal provides an impact factor in spite of the fact that the journal
is new (which means that the impact cannot yet be calculated)
14. The journal claims an unrealistically high impact based on spurious
alternative impact factors (such as 7 for a bioethics journal, which is far
beyond the top notation)
15. The journal website posts non-related or non-academic advertisements

60. Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria
16. The publisher of the journal has released an overwhelmingly large suite
of new journals at one occasion or during a very short period of time
17. The editor in chief of the journal is editor in chief also for other journals
with widely different focus
18. The journal includes articles (very far) outside its stated scope
19. The journal sends you an unsolicited invitation to submit an article for
publication, while making it blatantly clear that the editor has absolutely no
idea about your field of expertise
20. Emails from the journal editor are written in poor language, include
exaggerated flattering (everyone is a leading profile in the field), and make
contradictory claims (such as "You have to respond within 48 h" while later
on saying "You may submit your manuscript whenever you find convenient")

61. Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria
21. The journal charges a submission or handling fee, instead of a publication fee
(which means that you have to pay even if the paper is not accepted for
publication)
22. The types of submission/publication fees and what they amount to are not
clearly stated on the journal's website
23. The journal gives unrealistic promises regarding the speed of the peer review
process (hinting that the journal's peer review process is minimal or non-existent)
—or boasts an equally unrealistic track-record
24. The journal does not describe copyright agreements clearly or demands the
copyright of the paper while claiming to be an open access journal
25. The journal displays no strategies for how to handle misconduct, conflicts of
interest, or secure the archiving of articles when no longer in operation

62. Avoiding predatory journals
• You can easily avoid publishing in an untrustworthy title by
taking a few minutes to investigate the journal before
submitting.
• The Think, Check, Submit campaign provides further
information on what to look out for when assessing a journal.

63. Are you submitting your research to a trusted journal?
Is it the right journal for your work?
• More research is being published worldwide.
• New journals are launched each week.
• Stories of publisher malpractice and deception are also on
the rise.
• It can be challenging to find up-to-date guidance when
choosing where to publish.
How can you be sure the journal you are considering is the
right journal for your research?

64. Use the checklist to assess the journal or publisher
• Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
– Have you read any articles in the journal before?
– Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the journal?
• Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
– Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website?
– Can you contact the publisher by telephone, email, and post?
• Website
• The look and feel of the website - Reliable websites usually have a more professional look,
less advertisements
• Check when was the last time page updated.
• Check the URL - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, http://www.ijmr.org.
• Check the links on the page - Broken or incorrect links can mean that no one is taking care
of the site and that other information on it may be out-of-date or unreliable.

65. • Is the journal clear about the type of
peer review it uses?
• Are articles indexed in services that you
use?
• Is it clear what fees will be charged?
– Does the journal site explain what
these fees are for and when they will be
charged?

66. • Do you recognize the editorial board?
– Have you heard of the editorial board members?
– Do the editorial board mention the journal on their own websites?
• Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative?
– Do they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ?
– If the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ) ?
– If the journal is open access, does the publisher belong to the Open
Access
Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA) ?
– Is the journal hosted on one of INASP’s Journals Online platforms (for
journals published in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Central America and
Mongolia) or on African Journals Online (AJOL, for African journals)?

67. COPE- Committee on Publication Ethics- Promoting
integrity in scholarly research and its
publication

69. Indexing in pubmed

70. 1. Submit Application
• Information you'll need to submit when applying
• Journal title and ISSN
• Date of first publication and publication frequency
• Journal website URL
• Links to the editorial board; editorial policies; peer review process; and
policies on Conflict of Interest, Human and Animal Rights, and Informed
Consent
• Publisher name and information about its management, qualifications, and
publishing policies

72. 2. Scientific Quality Review

74. Scientific quality Review
• There are numerous resources available that can aid authors and
journals in improving article quality. As examples, some resources
NLM encourages journals and authors to reference are:
• Human research: Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA guidelines
• Case reports: the CARE case report guidelines
• Clinical trials: CONSORT

75. 3. Technical evaluation
• Each sample package must be complete: all required data files (XML,
PDF if available, image files, supplementary data files) for every
article in the package must be present and named correctly.
• XML and PDF base file names must match exactly.

76. 4. Pre-Production
• In the pre-production phase, the journal is set up in PMC’s systems.
Generally, at this time, PMC will request the following from the
publisher:
• A formal PMC Participation Agreement
• A complete set of article files, in accordance with PMC’s Back
Content policy
• Journal banner images that meet PMC’s banner specifications

77. Live Release
• NLM countersigns the publisher's PMC Participation Agreement and
releases the journal to the PMC public site with the publisher's
approval.
• Ongoing participation in PMC requires a journal and the journal
publisher to continue to meet NLM's quality standards for PMC and
the NLM collection.

78. Summary
• Find and make use of quality control
already carried out by reliable services
• Keep a critical mind with regard to sources
• Stay updated
• Use own professional network
• Use own judgement

79. Thank You

80. References
• https://www.elsevier.com/en-in/solutions/scopus
• http://health.library.emory.edu/writing-publishing/quality-
indicators/journal-credibility.html
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/pub/addjournal/
• https://mjl.clarivate.com/home
• https://doaj.org/application/new
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing#:~:text=of%20pr
edatory%20behaviour.-, Eriksson%20and%20Helgesson’s
%2025%20criteria