PUBLISHING STANDARDS

Peer Review

Application of the peer-review process is another indication of journal standards and signifies the overall quality and integrity of the research presented and the completeness of bibliographic elements, especially cited references. Inclusion of Funding. 

Acknowledgements is also strongly recommended. Not only do they help create a greater context for the journal, they also function as a confirmation of the importance of the research presented.

Ethical Publishing Practices

Evidence of unethical policies such as predatory publishing practices or editorial instructions leading to excessive, inauthentic journal self-citation or any other fraudulent practices are not acceptable in any journal under evaluation and result in immediate rejection. When discovered in a journal already covered in Web of Science Core Collection they may result in deselection or the suppression of any affected citation metrics.

Publishing Format

Journals published in print or electronic formats (XML, PDF) are eligible for evaluation. A technical evaluation is applied to all journals accepted for coverage in their electronic format to assure that access to their content is compatible with our indexing systems.

Timeliness

Timeliness of publication is a basic criterion in the evaluation process. As noted above, it is of primary and fundamental importance. A journal must be publishing according to its stated frequency to be considered for inclusion in SCIE, SSCI or AHCI. The ability to publish on time implies a healthy backlog of manuscripts essential for ongoing viability. It is not acceptable for a journal to appear chronically late, weeks or months after its cover date. To measure timeliness we need to see three consecutive current issues, one after another, as soon as they are published online or in print.

 However, when a journal publishes articles online one at a time rather than collecting articles for release as an ‘issue’ we take a different approach. In these cases, the editor looks for a steady flow of articles over a nine-month period. The appropriate number of articles for the journal will be determined by the norms for its particular Web of Science category.

International Editorial Conventions

We also determine if the journal follows international editorial conventions, which are intended to optimize retrievability of source articles. These conventions include informative journal titles, fully descriptive article titles and author abstracts, complete bibliographic information for all cited references, and full address information for every author.

Full Text English

English is the universal language of science. For this reason our focus is on journals that publish full text in English or, at the very least, bibliographic information in English. There are many journals covered in Web of Science Core Collection that publish articles with bibliographic information in English and full text in another language. However, it is clear that the journals most important to the international research community are publishing full text in English. This is especially true in the natural sciences. There are notable exceptions to this rule in the arts & humanities and in social sciences topics. This is discussed further below. Nonetheless, full text English is highly desirable, especially if the journal intends to serve an international community of researchers. In addition, all journals must have cited references in the Roman alphabet.

EDITORIAL CONTENT

As mentioned above, an essential core of scientific literature forms the basis for all scholarly disciplines. However, this core is not static — scientific research continues to give rise to specialized fields of studies, and new journals emerge as published research on new topics achieves critical mass. Our editors determine if the content of a journal under evaluation will enrich the database or if the topic is already adequately addressed in existing coverage.

With an enormous amount of citation data readily available to them, combined with their daily observation of virtually every new scholarly journal published, our editors are uniquely well positioned to spot emerging topics and active fields in the literature.

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

Editors look for international diversity among the journal’s contributing authors, editors, and editorial advisory board members at a level that is appropriate for the journal’s target audience. If the journal’s content is aimed at an international audience then we expect to find an internationally diverse group of authors, editors and editorial advisory board members contributing to it.

We are also interested in excellent regional Journals and are able to include a relatively small proportion of these each year. Regional journals often target a local, rather than an international, audience requiring less emphasis on extensive international diversity. Citation analyses may also play a different role in the evaluation of regional Journals whose citation impact is characteristically modest. Otherwise, the selection criteria for regional journals are the same as for international journals. The importance of a regional journal is measured more in terms of the specificity of its content. Will it enrich our coverage of a particular subject or provide studies with a specific regional perspective? All regional journals selected must be publishing on time, have English-language bibliographic information (title, abstract, keywords), and be peer reviewed. Cited references must be in the Roman alphabet.

CITATION ANALYSIS

Because Web of Science Core Collection is a true Citation Index, all cited references from every item in every journal covered are indexed whether or not the cited work is also covered as a source publication. As a result, the Web of Science Core Collection Journal Selection Process is unique in that our editors have a wealth of citation data available to them. Through these data it is possible to measure the citation impact of journals that are still under evaluation.

We use Citation Analysis to determine the importance and influence of a journal in the surrounding literature of its subject. Citation analysis takes place on at least two levels. We analyze Total Citation counts to determine the integration of the journal into the surrounding literature over its entire publishing history. We use Impact Factor to determine the recent effect of the journal on the literature of its subject.

We also look at the citation history of contributing authors and editorial board members to determine if the journal is able to attract established scholars in the field of study.

For more information please refer to https://clarivate.com/essays/journal-selection-process/. 

Conference proceedings published as books are acquired and selected according to a set of specialized guidelines.

The Clarivate Analytics Publisher Relations staff is in regular.communication with every major scholarly publisher, and many professional societies and associations. These organizations publish and/or sponsor professional conferences and submit their publications for evaluation and possible coverage in Conference Proceedings Citation Index.

The Clarivate Analytics Editorial Development team evaluates each conference proceedings volume according to a set of well-established criteria. They include the following:

1. Basic Publishing Standards
   Editors examine each proceedings volume to insure that basic publishing standards are in place including sequential page numbering, timeliness, international editorial conventions such as fully descriptive article titles, and full cited references, author abstracts, and keywords.
2. Content
   The overall quality of the research presented is assessed, as is the.completeness of the cited references. In addition, the editors review the content to ensure that it enriches Clarivate Analytics coverage of a field or subfield, or of a geographic region, or that it.completes the coverage of the output of a prestigious scholarly society or organization. Clarivate Analytics gives priority to important serialized conferences sponsored by prestigious scholarly societies. The objective is to cover every instance of such conference series.
3. Copyright and Conference Date
   To insure that the content of Conference Proceedings Citation Index is timely, published conference proceedings must fall into a specific date range.
   • For scientific and technical proceedings, the meeting must have been held in the current or previous four years.
   • In the social sciences and humanities, the time parameters are broader. All conference dates are accepted for social sciences and humanities proceedings so long as the volume is a first edition and not ever previously indexed. 
     
     These policies take into consideration the greater time sensitivity of information in natural sciences and technology subject areas and the somewhat less urgent time sensitivity of information in the social sciences and humanities.
4. Conference Name and Location
   Proceedings literature must include the full name and location of the meeting. 

For more information please refer to http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/webofscience/cpci/cpciessay/.