Purpose The multiyear COVID-19 pandemic has affected the volume and speed of publications in scientific journals. This study evaluated trends in the impact measures of international medical journals published in Korea, including the journal impact factor (JIF).
Methods We selected Science Citation Index Expanded journals with the country/region set to Korea and the academic category classified as “clinical medicine” in Journal Citation Reports. Trends in indicators such as the JIF and Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) were assessed for journals with JIF information from 2018 to 2022. Ratios and differences between the measures were calculated to determine the extent of the change.
Results We identified 43 journals, and the average JIF of those journals increased from 2.33 in 2018 and 2.50 in 2019 to 3.45 in 2020 and 3.86 in 2021. Other measures, such as the 5-year JIF and JCI, steadily increased, and the proportion of gold open access journals also increased significantly. However, the JCI and Eigenfactor scores remained steady or showed relatively small increases. Furthermore, impact measures declined in 2022, including a JIF decrease to 3.55.
Conclusion We presented trends in quantitative measurements for international medical journals in Korea, and found an overall increase. Journals need to maintain a rigorous publication process to improve the quality of their research and the research community needs to exercise caution when using quantitative measures to evaluate journals. Further research is required to examine the quantitative indicators of journals, including their publication policies, research topics, and long-term trends.
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Purpose This study aimed to investigate the changes that occurred in journal and article publishing during the noncontact period that started in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Methods The integrated journal list in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2017–2021 and the search results of Web of Science were analyzed using pivot tables in Microsoft Excel. The articles, citations, impact factor (IF), publishers, open access (OA) status, and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) were investigated using the data.
Results The CAGRs of articles, citations, and IFs in JCR journals increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the increase in OA articles was accompanied by a decreasing share of subscription articles. The top 20 journals in JCR-SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded), based on the number of articles, accepted OA policies and showed a strong influence, accounting for 7% to 9% of all articles. MDPI and Frontiers were OA publishers included among the top 10 publishers. Large publishers maintained their competitiveness through mergers and acquisitions with OA publishers. Due to the rapid distribution of OA and early access articles as part of the international response to overcome COVID-19, the CAGRs of citations and IFs increased more than that of articles, and the publication and use of journal articles have become more active.
Conclusion The publication and use trends in JCR journals analyzed herein will provide useful information for researchers’ selection of journals for article submission, analyses of research performance, and libraries’ journal subscription contracts.
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Purpose This study aims to analyze the digital standards of Asian journals registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which has been recognized as an index of quality for open access journals.
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Results Based on raw data from DOAJ from June 5, 2018, there are 11,534 journals registered in the directory. Among all journals in the directory, Asian journals comprise 1,972 journals from 18 countries. Indonesian journals rank at the top for Asian journals, with 1,322 journals originating from that country. Other major Asian countries’ registration status includes India (238), South Korea (82), China (80), Malaysia (45), Pakistan (39), Taiwan (30), Thailand (27), Japan (20), and Hong Kong (20). Eighty percent of journals (1,584) are using PDF-only as their full-text format, and DOI is adopted in 852 journals (43%). Almost 98% of journals (1,936) are having a Creative Commons license; however, 85% of journals (1,689) do not have a digital archiving policy.
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