Lecture on 25 May th

SJR and Quartile ranking

Principles of transparency
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)
• The SJR indicator is a measure of the scientific influence of 
scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations
 received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals
where the citations come from.
• A journal's SJR is a numeric value indicating the average number of
weighted citations received during a selected year per document
published in that journal during the previous three years.
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Quartile
ranking
• Each subject category of journals is divided into four
quartiles: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. 
• Q1 is occupied by the top 25% of journals in the list; Q2 is
occupied by journals in the 25 to 50% group; Q3 is occupied
by journals in the 50 to 75% group and Q4 is occupied
by journals in the 75 to 100% group.
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is one of the internationally
recognized standards for identifying the quartile of a journal.
Principles of transparency and best
practice in scholarly publishing
Organisations responsible for maintaining
and implementing ethical practices in
scholarly publishing
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association
(OASPA)
Principles of transparency
Website
• There shall be a website and that should convey that
care has been taken to ensure high ethical and
professional standards
• ‘Aims & Scope’ should be included in the website
• Recommendations regarding ‘Requirements for
authorship’ and ‘eligibility for publication’ should be in
place
• ISSNs (electronic and print) should be shown clearly.
Name of the Journal
• Should be unique, not one that is easily
confused with another journal
• Name should not mislead potential authors and
readers about the origin or association of the
journal with other journals
Peer review process
• Mechanism and any policies relating to peer
review procedures of the journal shall be
explicitly outlined on the journal’s website,
including the peer review system used.
• Journal websites should not guarantee approval
of manuscripts or rather a fast peer review
Governing body
• Journals should be comprised of editorial boards or
other governing bodies whose members are
recognized experts in the subject areas covered by the
journal
• Full names and affiliations of the editorial
board/governing body shall be made available on the
website of the journal
Copyright and Licensing
• Copyright policy shall be explicitly stated in the author
guidelines and the copyright holder listed on them
• Licensing information should be clearly described on the
website
• If authors are allowed to publish under a creative common
license, they must note any specific requirements
• Any rules on posting on third party websites of final
approved versions or released documents shall be explicitly
stated.
Author fees
• Any costs or charges incurred for manuscript processing
and/or printing shall be specified in a way that it is easy for
the prospective writers to take note before submission.
• The writers should be clear about the charges/fees, before
they begin preparing the manuscript for submission.
• If no such fees are charged, then it should be so stated
clearly
Process for identifying and dealing with
allegations of research misconduct
• Publishers and editors shall take appropriate measures to
identify and prohibit the publication of papers where
research misconduct has occurred.
• In no case shall a journal or its editors facilitate such
misconduct or allow such fault to occur knowingly.
• If an allegation regarding research misconduct is made
known to the publisher or editors of a journal, they shall deal
with the allegations as per the guidelines of COPE (or
equivalent)
Publication ethics
• A journal should have writing ethics policy on its website
• Policy to cover
• Journal Policies on authorship
• How the journal handles complaints and appeals
• Journal policies on conflict of interest
• Journal policies on data sharing and reproducibility
• Journal’s options on post-publication discussions and
corrections