Abstract
The inclusion of a target journal in certain Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases is useful for authors to select an appropriate journal for publishing. This research aims to find the importance of a collection of A&I databases for authors. The reasons for targeting the journals included in certain A&I databases and challenges for publishing in the journals included in leading databases are among the main objectives of this research. This study conducted a web-based survey separately for authors in three subject domains. Approximately 40 to 50% of authors in each subject domain consider the inclusion of target journals in certain databases as very important. Social sciences and Technology authors give higher attention to Web of Science and Scopus while authors on Medicine consider PubMed and MEDLINE as the most important databases. The reputation of databases is the reason for considering the journals included in their preferred databases. Authors are used to checking the presence of target journals from the original sources to ascertain their inclusion in the target databases. The likelihood of rejection and inadequate financial support are the major obstacles to publish in journals included in leading databases. Further, this research has organized examined databases into three categories, namely, ‘Well-known databases’, ‘Subject-specific, but less-known databases’, and ‘Less-relevant databases’. In addition to authors, librarians, editors, publishers, administrators of academic institutions, and readers can use the results of this study to make critical decisions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alamri, Y. (2018). The dynamics of medical student journals: Effects of journal indexing on content visibility. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 15(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2018.1432437.
Arber, M., Glanville, J., Isojarvi, J., Baragula, E., Edwards, M., Shaw, A., et al. (2018). Which databases should be used to identify studies for systematic reviews of economic evaluations? International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 34(6), 547–554. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266462318000636.
Balhara, Y. (2012). Indexed journal: What does it mean. Lung India, 29(2), 193. https://doi.org/10.4103/0970-2113.95344.
Bar-Ilan, J. (2010). Citations to the “Introduction to informetrics” indexed by WOS, Scopus and Google Scholar. Scientometrics, 82(3), 495–506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0185-9.
Bartlett, M. S. (1950). Tests of significance in factor analysis. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 3(2), 77–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8317.1950.tb00285.x.
Beall, J. (2015). Predatory journals and the breakdown of research cultures. Information Development, 31(5), 473–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266666915601421.
Bhardwaj, S., & Bhardwaj, A. (2017). A review of abstracting and indexing services for biomedical journals. Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research, 11(10), 17–21. https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2017/28051.10770.
Blessinger, K., & Olle, M. (2003). Comparison of three primary aggregator databases. The Serials Librarian, 45(1), 53–58. https://doi.org/10.1300/J123v45n01_06.
Bonato, S. (2016). Google scholar and scopus. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 104(3), 252–254. https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.3.021.
Bracke, M. S., Weiner, S. A., Nixon, J. M., & Deatherage, S. (2012). Criteria for evaluating journals in the scholarship of teaching and learning in agriculture, natural resources, and the life sciences. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2012.060209.
Calafat, A. M., Ye, X., Valentin-Blasini, L., Li, Z., Mortensen, M. E., & Wong, L.-Y. (2017). Co-exposure to non-persistent organic chemicals among American pre-school aged children: A pilot study. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 220(2), 55–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2016.10.008.
Chadegani, A. A., Salehi, H., Yunus, M. M., Farhadi, H., Fooladi, M., Farhadi, M., et al. (2013). A comparison between two main academic literature collections: Web of Science and Scopus databases. Asian Social Science, 9(5), 18–26.
Chen, X. (2010). The declining value of subscription-based abstracting and indexing services in the new knowledge dissemination era. Serials Review, 36(2), 79–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2010.10765288.
Cummings, J. (2013). Open access journal content found in commercial full-text aggregation databases and journal citation reports. New Library World, 114(3/4), 166–178. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074801311304078.
De Groote, S. L., & Raszewski, R. (2012). Coverage of Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science: A case study of the h-index in nursing. Nursing Outlook, 60(6), 391–400. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2012.04.007.
Demir, S. B. (2018). Predatory journals: Who publishes in them and why? Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), 1296–1311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.10.008.
Fangerau, H. (2004). Finding European bioethical literature: An evaluation of the leading abstracting and indexing services. Journal of Medical Ethics, 30(3), 299–303. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2003.003269.
Garg, K. C., Kumar, S., & Singh, R. K. (2020). Bibliometric study of the coverage and overlap of journals indexed by four abstracting and indexing services in library and information science. The Serials Librarian. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2019.1704341.
Gasparyan, A. Y., Nurmashev, B., Yessirkepov, M., Endovitskiy, D. A., Voronov, A. A., & Kitas, G. D. (2017). Researcher and author profiles: Opportunities, advantages, and limitations. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 32(11), 1749–1756. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.11.1749.
Grindlay, D. J., Brennan, M. L., & Dean, R. S. (2012). Searching the veterinary literature: A comparison of the coverage of veterinary journals by nine bibliographic databases. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 39(4), 404–412. https://doi.org/10.3138/jvme.1111.109R.
Gusenbauer, M. (2019). Google Scholar to overshadow them all? Comparing the sizes of 12 academic search engines and bibliographic databases. Scientometrics, 118, 177–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2958-5.
Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. R. (2020). Which academic search systems are suitable for systematic reviews or meta-analyses? Evaluating retrieval qualities of Google Scholar, PubMed, and 26 other resources. Research synthesis methods, 11(2), 181–217. https://doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1378.
Hinkle, D. E., Wiersma, W., & Jurs, S. G. (2003). Applied statistics for the behavioral sciences (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Jacsó, P. (2004). Citation-enhanced indexing/abstracting databases. Online Information Review, 28(3), 235–238. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520410543689.
Jalalian, M. (2015). The story of fake impact factor companies and how we detected them. Electron Physician, 7(2), 1069–1072. https://doi.org/10.14661/2015.1069-1072.
Kaiser, H. F. (1958). The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 23(3), 187–200. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02289233.
Kaiser, H. F. (1960). The application of electronic computers to factor analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 141–151. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446002000116.
Kaiser, H. F. (1974). An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika, 39(1), 31–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02291575.
Kaiser, H. F., & Rice, J. (1974). Little jiffy, mark IV. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 34(1), 111–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447403400115.
Khamis, H. (2008). Measures of association: How to choose? Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography, 24(3), 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756479308317006.
Kocak, Z. (2019). Predatory publishing and Turkey. Balkan Medical Journal, 36(4), 199–201. https://doi.org/10.4274/balkanmedj.galenos.2019.2019.4.001.
Labbe, D. R., De Guise, J. A., Mezghani, N., Godbout, V., Grimard, G., Baillargeon, D., et al. (2010). Feature selection using a principal component analysis of the kinematics of the pivot shift phenomenon. Journal of Biomechanics, 43(16), 3080–3084. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2010.08.011.
Lawlor, B. (2003). Abstracting and information services: Managing the flow of scholarly communication—Past, present, and future. Serials Review, 29(3), 200–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0098-7913(03)00060-1.
Lewandowski, D. (2010). Google Scholar as a tool for discovering journal articles in library and information science. Online Information Review, 34(2), 250–262. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011036972.
Löhönen, J., Isohanni, M., Nieminen, P., & Miettunen, J. (2009). A guide for medical information searches of bibliographic databases-psychiatric research as an example. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 68(4), 394–404. https://doi.org/10.3402/ijch.v68i4.17366.
Lorenzo-Seva, U., & Ferrando, P. J. (2006). FACTOR: A computer program to fit the exploratory factor analysis model. Behavior Research Methods, 38(1), 88–91. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192753.
Martin-Martin, A., Orduña-Malea, E., Harzing, A.-W., & López-Cózar, E. D. (2017). Can we use Google Scholar to identify highly-cited documents? Journal of Informetrics, 11(1), 152–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.11.008.
Misra, D. P., Ravindran, V., Wakhlu, A., Sharma, A., Agarwal, V., & Negi, V. S. (2018). Better understanding of publishing practices and indexing of target journals is essential. Rheumatology International, 38(2), 317–318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-017-3880-5.
Moed, H. F. (2017). A critical comparative analysis of five world university rankings. Scientometrics, 110(2), 967–990. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2212-y.
Moed, H. F., Bar-Ilan, J., & Halevi, G. (2016). A new methodology for comparing Google Scholar and Scopus. Journal of Informetrics, 10(2), 533–551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.04.017.
National Science Foundation. (2020). Academic R&D in the United States. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20202/academic-r-d-in-the-united-states#support-for-academic-r-d. Accessed 28 April 2020.
Nazarovets, S., & Nazarovets, M. (2018). Local journals and misleading metrics: A quantitative analysis of publication activity of LIS PhD students in Ukraine. Bilgi Dünyası, 19(1), 85–104. https://doi.org/10.15612/BD.2018.643.
Orduna-Malea, E., Martín-Martín, A., & Delgado Lopez-Cozar, E. (2017). Google Scholar as a source for scholarly evaluation: a bibliographic review of database errors. Spanish Journal of Scientific Documentation. https://doi.org/10.3989/redc.2017.4.1500.
Parsian, N., & Dunning, T. (2009). Developing and validating a questionnaire to measure spirituality: A psychometric process. Global Journal of Health Science, 1(1), 2–11.
Pearson, K., & Pearson, E. S. (1922). On polychoric coefficients of correlation. Biometrika, 14(1–2), 127–156. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/14.1-2.127.
Pietrucha, J. (2018). Country-specific determinants of world university rankings. Scientometrics, 114(3), 1129–1139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2634-1.
Popoola, S. (2008). The use of information sources and services and its effect on the research output of social scientists in Nigerian Universities. Library Philosophy and Practice, 183(4), 1–10.
Sahoo, B., & Kumar, A. (2018). Indexing and abstracting bibliographic electronic database: A comparative analysis. International Journal of Information Dissemination and Technology, 8(2), 99–103. https://doi.org/10.5958/2249-5576.2018.00021.3.
Shrestha, J., Subedi, S., Shokati, B., & Chaudhary, A. (2018). Predatory journals: A threat to scholarly publishing. Journal of Education and Research, 8(1), 89–101. https://doi.org/10.3126/jer.v8i1.25482.
Singh, S., & Pandita, R. (2017). Indexing of Indian journals in SCImago citation database: A decadal study (2005–2014). DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 37(1), 51–57. https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.37.1.10343.
Somoza-Fernández, M., Rodríguez-Gairín, J.-M., & Urbano, C. (2018). Journal coverage of the Emerging Sources Citation Index. Learned Publishing, 31(3), 199–204. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1160.
Stevens, J. (2002). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (4th ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Subramanyam, N., Krishnamurthy, M., & Asundi, A. Y. (2017). Developmental features of biomedical bibliographic databases. Annals of Library and Information Studies, 64(1), 16–20.
Tian, M., Su, Y., & Ru, X. (2016). Perish or publish in China: Pressures on young Chinese scholars to publish in internationally indexed journals. Publications, 4(2), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications4020009.
Vassar, M., Yerokhin, V., Sinnett, P. M., Weiher, M., Muckelrath, H., Carr, B., et al. (2017). Database selection in systematic reviews: An insight through clinical neurology. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 34(2), 156–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12176.
Wijewickrema, M., & Petras, V. (2017). Journal selection criteria in an open access environment: A comparison between the medicine and social sciences. Learned Publishing, 30(4), 289–300. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1113.
Wijewickrema, M. (2019). Developing a content and knowledge-based journal recommender system comparing distinct subject domains (Doctoral dissertation). Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany, https://doi.org/10.18452/20132.
Williams, B., Onsman, A., & Brown, T. (2010). Exploratory factor analysis: A five-step guide for novices. Australasian Journal of Paramedicine, 8(3), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.33151/ajp.8.3.93.
Yang, W.-C., Cheng, C.-H., Wang, H.-K., Lin, K.-H., & Hsu, W.-L. (2015). Multi-muscle coordination during a challenging stance. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 115(9), 1959–1966. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3158-0.
Zwick, W. R., & Velicer, W. F. (1986). Comparison of five rules for determining the number of components to retain. Psychological Bulletin, 99(3), 432.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wijewickrema, M. Authors’ perception on abstracting and indexing databases in different subject domains. Scientometrics 126, 3063–3089 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03896-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03896-0