Introduction of S2Journal for the aggregation of journal information

Article information

Sci Ed. 2017;4(2):89-92
Publication date (electronic) : 2017 August 16
doi : https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.102
Medical Library, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Guri, Korea
Correspondence to Hyun Jung Yi hjyi@hmc.hanyang.ac.kr
Received 2017 July 28; Accepted 2017 July 30.

Introduction

There are many information resources relating to the scholarly publication market. These resources exist in various forms, such as programs, systems, and databases. These services have been developed based on scholarly information resources produced by researchers and editors, and the forms of information contained in these services include journals, books, proceedings, and technical reports. Of these forms of information, journals play the most active role in the forefront of scholarly communication. In light of the tremendous number of journals that are published, with considerable variation across fields, each resource evaluates journals according to its own evaluation criteria and indexes them with various types of services. The Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) are representative services that are widely known worldwide as well as domestically.

Librarians support researchers in the utilization of information that is scattered in complicated ways and try to collect identifiable resources. Moreover, institutions use journal indices to measure the performance of researchers. As this requires considerable manpower and time to process massive quantities of data, the need to find ways to carry out this process easily and simply has been raised.

Main Services of S2Journal

Most of the questions that many researchers and editors have are about whether an academic journal is indexed. In other word, answers to questions like ‘Is journal a Science Citation Index (SCI) journal?’, ‘What is the impact factor of journal B?’, ‘Does journal C have a high impact factor in its field?’, or ‘Is journal D an open access journal?’ can be found using the above resources. However, information about the journal should be searched for through a database or list operated by those who evaluated the corresponding journal and published the results, and one should also learn all the appropriate search methods. This process can be confusing, because the place where one can determine whether the journal has been registered and the source that one can use to search the evaluation index may be different, despite being based on the same original source.

S2Journal is a tool that addresses these difficulties experienced by researchers. As an integrated platform for journal information, it is a database that is served by Argonet. Indices related to journals can be searched in a single place, eliminating the need to use multiple sites. The S2Journal service is divided into 2 sections: the Journal Ranking section, where information on the journal level can be checked, and the Master Journal List section, where indexing information about the journal in various databases can be viewed.

The Journal Ranking section displays the impact factor provided through Journal Citation Reports (JCR), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), and CiteScore, which are serviced by Scopus, and Korea Citation Index (KCI) ranking information on domestic journals. As shown in Fig. 1, when the JCR ranking is clicked, the name of the journal, the JCR publication year, ISSN (International Standard Serial Number), topic title, impact factor, impact factor ranking (%), and the total list based on the impact factor appear. If the top 1%, 3%, 5%, or 10% in the top of Fig. 1 are clicked, the total list is narrowed down to the list that corresponds to the chosen ranking. Each database provides information by journal topic, which is chosen via the summary by topic. The Master Journal List section provides updated registration information contained in the databases of SCI, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), Medline, DOAJ, KCI, and Embase. If the journal is listed in 2 or more databases, all sources for the relevant journal can be checked at the same time. However, the use of JCR is available only if the institution has the necessary license.

Fig. 1.

Journal Citation Ranking (JCR) ranking screen.

The journal shown in Fig. 2 is listed on SCI, Scopus, Medline, and Embase, and its open access policy can be confirmed on the same screen. If the ‘Article’ button on the right in Fig. 1 is clicked, the papers published in that journal can be viewed. Although it is not reflected in real time, there is a single place where papers indexed in the journal are collected and information on the papers is provided based on their digital object identifiers (DOIs). Fig. 3 shows a screenshot of part of various indices on a page providing detailed journal information. As shown in this example, if the timeline from paper submission to its acceptance and its official publication is provided, the uncertainty that researchers feel in the process of paper submission and publication can be reduced.

Fig. 2.

Journal information on the detailed journal information screen.

Fig. 3.

Example of indices on the detailed journal information screen.

Additional Services of S2Journal

Information that had to be checked manually, requiring much time and cost, can now be conveniently used in a single platform. Based on the top 1%, 3%, 5%, and 10% rankings for the JCR impact factor, which is announced every year, information can be extracted in various formats, such as Excel or PDF, in a single step using a dedicated functional. As this tool can be used to check the paper impact factor and registration status through an additional application programming interface (API) function during meetings about faculty appointments or researcher assessments, work efficiency can be enhanced through linkage with institutions’ performance evaluation systems.

Additionally, S2Journal provides services such as the management of journals of interest, journal selection, and paper publication trends. The management of journals of interest is a function that shows an index of journal collections corresponding to specific interests. Meanwhile, the journal selection service uses artificial intelligence to suggest the most appropriate journals for the topic of a manuscript when the title and abstract of a manuscript that has been written is entered, and provides a recommendation regarding the highest-ranked journals in JCR, SJR, CiteScore, and KCI. As shown in Fig. 4, it allows the authors of an article to select 5 recommended journals, check the presence or absence of copyright as well as various journal indices, indexing speed, and the open access policy, enabling them to submit their paper to the journal of their choice. Moreover, the tool for assessing paper publication trends will increase the utilization of this database by providing information about new developments in journal publication and the publishing world.

Fig. 4.

Journal selection service.

Conclusion

As a variety of information resources have been launched in the scholarly publication market, the tools that researchers or editors can use have become more numerous and complicated. S2Journal can be recommended as a platform that can help researchers use these resources more easily.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Article information Continued

Fig. 1.

Journal Citation Ranking (JCR) ranking screen.

Fig. 2.

Journal information on the detailed journal information screen.

Fig. 3.

Example of indices on the detailed journal information screen.

Fig. 4.

Journal selection service.