Useful Checklist

Appendix: Code of Best Practice Checklist

A comprehensive checklist to assist editors when applying for inclusion on international indices. Based on the criteria from: Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), Norwegian List, Scopus, SciELO SA, Web of Science.

About the Journal

    • Journal title and abbreviation
    • Web presence (incl. web address)
    • Online journal management system (OAI-PMH compliant) for record-keeping
    • Key journal abbreviation registered internationally
    • Discipline/s
    • Title owner and mailing address
    • Publisher
    • Journal description
    • Journal history
    • Focus and scope
    • Print ISSN/Online ISSN
    • Publication frequency/scheduling – no interruptions
    • Journal sections
    • Journal format – online and/or print
    • Open access/subscription access

Journal Articles

    • File format: PDF, XML, EPUB
    • Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)
    • ORCIDs
    • Page numbers
    • Embargoes
    • Date of articles submitted/accepted/reviewed/published
    • Author-Publisher agreement
    • Linked data (e.g. Cited-by-Linking; Google Scholar)
    • Audit trail for individual articles (article history)
    • Statistics on articles (% submitted/accepted/rejected/published)
    • Articles contain title, abstract, keyword/s in English
    • Bibliographical references according to international standards
    • Metadata assigned to articles according to international standards
    • Clear author affiliations
    • Digital preservation (e.g. LOCKSS, Portico)

Journal Articles – Content

    • High quality scholarly content
    • Adequate number of articles per annum
    • Good sample of work done in country/discipline
    • Focus on local/regional issues
    • Additional scholarly features (e.g. front section; editorials; book reviews)
    • Suitable publication of errata / corrigenda / corrections
    • Suitable approach to article retractions
    • Good presentation, layout, style, copyright, interventions
    • Content of journal should serve as ongoing stimulus for further research
    • Comparability with leading articles/journals in the field
    • Submitted articles subjected to blind peer-review process
    • Similarity-check of individual articles, and reports archived
    • Accompanying data sets made available (if applicable)

Journal Financial Sustainability Aspects

    • Article Processing Charges
    • Sponsors
    • Payment procedure and information
    • Advertisements
    • Expenses: Proofreader, Copy-editor, Layout Editor, Printing, Postage
    • Publishing costs: hosting server and back-ups, IT support, article identifiers, digital preservation costs, domain name subscriptions, branding, additional tools, e.g. MailChimp

Journal Visibility and Impact

    • Full text searchable online
    • Crawled by Google and Google Scholar
    • Indexing in international indexes (e.g. DOAJ)
    • Journal Impact Factor or rating if indexed
    • Journal equivalents for benchmarking
    • Metadata level and OAI-PMH compliancy
    • Bibliometrics: usage, downloads, social media sharing, citations and other statistics
    • Open Access policy available on SHERPA/RoMEO
    • Listed in index for software platform e.g. PKP Index (for journals using OJS)

Suggested Journal Guidelines

    • Author Guidelines
    • Reviewer Guidelines
    • Reader Guidelines
    • Library Guidelines
    • Layout Editor Guidelines
    • Copy-Editor Guidelines
    • Proofreader Guidelines

Suggested Journal Policies and Statements

    • Copy-Editor Policy
    • General Editorial Policy
    • Layout Editor Policy
    • Proofreader Policy
    • Section Editor Policy
    • Advertisement Policy
    • Comments Policy
    • Conflict of Interest Policy
    • Copyright Policy (including Publishing Rights)
    • Data Set Policy
    • Digital Preservation Policy
    • Errata / Corrigenda / Corrections Policy
    • Ethics and Malpractice Statement
    • Gender, Racial and Language Policy
    • Licensing Policy
    • Open Access Policy (including crawling allowed by harvesters)
    • Peer Review Policy (including number of weeks)
    • Plagiarism Policy
    • Retractions Policy
    • Waiver Policy

Journal Roles and Responsibilities

    • International representation
    • Affiliations, countries specified
    • Editor/Editor-in-Chief/Associate Editor
    • Editorial Assistant
    • Section Editors
    • Journal Manager
    • Editorial Board/Editorial Advisory Board (more than two-thirds beyond a single institution)
    • Authors, Reviewers, Copy-Editor, Layout Editor, Proofreader
    • Users/Readers