Journal`s International Compliance Index (JIC Index) project
About the metrics
The essence of JIC Index
Principles of assessment
Sources of information for evaluation
Assessment criteria for scientific journal

Journal`s International Compliance Index (JIC Index) project

Project owner

This project (Journal`s International Compliance Index (JIC Index))  belongs to, is subsidized and implemented by LLC "Consulting and Publishing Company "Business Perspectives" (Ukraine). Publishing specialists, scholars, librarians, who act as experts, are involved in the assessment of journals according to the developed criteria.

Author of the idea and project manager: Doctor of Economics, Professor Serhiy Kozmenko.

Technical support of the project is provided by the JIC Index Working Group. Head of the Group – Ph.D. Liudmyla Ostapenko (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). 

Mission of the Project

The mission of the project is to determine the guidelines for the promotion of academic journals into the international scientific environment on the basis of compliance with the international standards of publishing and the principles of publication ethics.

Financing

LLC "Business Perspectives" expects to be partially compensated for the costs of developing and maintaining the website by introducing fees for providing access to the Journal assessment report (payment is made through the website or by contacting This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and providing services of developing Recommendations for development of the journal (can be ordered through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

No fee is charged from the journals for their assessment or exclusion from the JICI list. There is also no fee for accelerated assessment of the journal.

Warning

The methodology of JIC Index assessment and the obtained results (primarily the JICI-list) are the property of LLC Consulting and Publishing Company “Business Perspectives” and cannot be used for commercial purposes.

About the metrics

In the recent years one can observe an avalanche-like creation of tools for assessing scholars, academic journals and publishers. Some of them present information in the form of lists, some use quantitative indicators (both absolute and relative) and, most often, the number of citations of scientific works. Some of them really use a serious methodological basis and their authors are guided by the principles of scientific and publication ethics. But there is a plenty of those that produce "products" of dubious nature or frankly fraudulent ones. That`s why the basis of some assessment tools is the idea of identifying bad journals while the results of such evaluations are presented in the form of lists of “predatory” journals, “suspicious ...” journals and publishers (potential, possible, or probable predatory) or "black" lists (for example, Cabell's Blacklist, which also includes deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory journals).

Unfortunately, one can give examples of inclusion into authoritative metrics of low-quality journals with outright primitive content and articles of very poor quality. On the contrary, there are many cases when a fairly competitive journal with qualitative articles cannot get into scientometric databases for years (it cannot be avoided during the processing of tens of thousands of journals from different countries, which are also printed in different languages).

Why 80% of journals in the metrics represent 20% of the countries of world?

As of 2016, out of 22856 journals presented in Scopus: 26% of the journals are from the United States, 22,5% from the United Kingdom, 8,7% from the Netherlands, 6,8% from Germany etc. (http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php)

The reasons for the low representation of scholars, journals and publishers from the developing countries in the leading scientometric bases are following:

• scientific research in these countries has a very low funding and, consequently, there are no results that would be of interest to the scientific community in case of their publication;
• universities are not financially capable of subscribing to popular scientific journals, which makes it impossible for scholars to get acquainted with the results of contemporary research in preparing their own articles;
• universities do not compensate their academic staff for the article processing charge, while the scholars themselves are not able to pay it;
• authors are not professionally prepared to submit articles in English in accordance with international requirements;
• journals that are established and issued in such countries do not fully meet the international publishing standards;
• low level of scholars integration into the international scientific environment and the absence of serious scholarly collaborative networks ...

The need of developing countries in their own metrics 

In the developing countries attempts are made to identify such domestic journals that meet certain requirements. For example, in Ukraine, these journals are called professional and their list is formed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. In the Russian Federation there is a list of journals that are reviewed and in which the research results should be printed before the defense of dissertations (approved by the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation). Similar lists exist in other post-Soviet countries. In fact, these lists include those journals that have filed the relevant applications. The quality of these journals is extremely low and the listing procedure is a simple formality that does not require a thorough analysis and verification of compliance with the standards of international journals.

As of 26.07.2017, in the list of the Russian Federation there were 2173 journals. At the same time, in 2016 there were only 257 journals with Russian affiliation presented in Scopus. At the beginning of 2017, in Ukraine there were 1636 "professional" journals with only 44 of them in Scopus http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php  

That is why one needs such methods of journal’s assessment, which would demonstrate the degree to which a specific journal meets the international requirements and provide editors with some guidelines regarding the journal’s promotion. It is also necessary to take into account the specific features of such countries.

For example, in Ukraine, organizations involved in publishing activities receive a special permission for such activities and are included in the State Register of Publishers. In Russia, this procedure does not apply. In Ukraine, printed journals are subject to obligatory registration in the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, in Poland – in Court, in Russia – in the Federal Authority for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media.

The essence of JIC Index

The main goal of the JIC Index is to demonstrate the degree of correspondence of a particular academic journal to the international publishing standards. On the one hand, there is a set of established rules and requirements in the world (the COPE principles, a fierce fight against plagiarism, a clear policy for peer-reviewing etc.) and the level of compliance with them gives some extra points to a positive image of the journal and brings it closer to the leading scientific publishers.

On the other hand, some founders, publishers or editorial boards in their desire to attract a significant number of articles (and thus earn some extra profits) and advertise their journals, use false information or hide some facts. Sometimes such actions are the results of activities of unprofessional editorial boards or their insufficient attention to the publishing process. In both cases, this is incompatible with academic values and should be reflected during the assessment of the journal.

JIC Index is a complex indicator, which includes: 1) the achievements of the journal (a set of factors that ensure its development and which are given a score in points ranging from 0 to max for each factor, which is ≤ 10) – factor stimulants; 2) non-compliance with the norms and established requirements (a set of factors that hamper the development of the journal and which are given a score in points ranging from 0 to min for each factor, which is ≥ -10) – factor de-stimulants. A set of factors and their maximal (minimum) values ​​are unchanged and apply to all journals.

JIC Index demonstrates how a journal compares with the “ideal” journal, which would correspond 100% to a set of factor stimulants in the complete absence of factor de-stimulants. JIC Index can range from 0 to 1,0. Theoretically, there may be cases of negative values of the indicator, but such a "journal" can hardly be called a journal and such “journals” are not considered by us.

Categories of journals according to the results of assessment

Depending on the value of JIC Index a journal can be applied to one of 5 categories:

• А – 0,500 and higher;
• B – from 0,400 to 0,499;
• C – from 0,300 to 0,399;
• D – from 0,200 to 0,299;
• E – to 0,199.

Factor stimulants and de-stimulants

Factors that are evaluated when calculating JIC Index are clustered into several groups and describe the status of: registration of journal, publisher, founder; the relevance of content of the website of the journal’s publisher; investments into modern services; ensuring transparency of the publishing process; editorial board; publication and editorial ethics; requirements for manuscripts; possible payments; dynamics of development; language policy, etc. 

Examples of factor stimulants, which form the basis of assessment:

• A journal provides direct links that confirm its presence in scientific citation databases and indexing services;
• Full-text articles archived;
• A journal provides clear peer-review policy and complies with it;
• A journal employs Creative Commons licences;
• Relevance of published articles to journal's aims and scope;
• A journal clearly states any fees and embargo periods associated with publication, as well as subscription information…

Examples of factor de-stimulants, which form the basis of assessment:

• A journal is not registered in accordance with national legal requirements;
• A journal or a publisher provides false information regarding founders, owner, sponsors, or commercial activities, or does not provide it at all;
• A journal establishes article submission deadlines and offers rapid publication;
• Significant fluctuations in the number of published articles in different years;
• A significant number of articles published in the journals are authored by scholars from journal's founding university…

Principles of assessment

During the evaluation of the factors experts should be guided by the following basic principle: if there is any doubt as to how to assess one or another factor and it is difficult to make a decision, then the decision is made in favor of the journal. This principle should apply to all journals without exception.

Experts should distance themselves from any long-held views of the scientific community about the level of the journal and make decisions based exclusively on the information from the website of the journal and official sources.

Experts, who are members of journal’s editorial board, worked in this journal as reviewers and published their articles in it, cannot take part in the evaluation process. This also applies to other cases of the possible conflicts of interest.

In the calculation of the index there are some factors that cannot be determined (they are missing), for example, for open-access journals or, conversely, for traditional journals. In order to maintain equal opportunities in the process of summing up of points for different journal models the following rule was determined: the maximum number of points that open-access journals can receive is equal to the maximum number of points that can be obtained by traditional journals.

Priority for journal assessment

The priority for the evaluation of journals is determined by the project owner. Applications for evaluation of the journal are accepted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The assessment of each journal is scheduled to be conducted approximately once every two years. The unscheduled reassessment of a journal is possible in case of an application by the editorial board (founder, publisher) after making significant changes regarding several factors at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The unplanned reassessment can also be carried out in case of previously unknown facts about the unethical behavior of the journal (publisher).

Sources of information for evaluation

All information is collected by experts based on the analysis of the journal’s website and the publisher's website. An expert may (in some cases – is obliged) to apply for additional information to official websites of state authorities. There is also a possibility of obtaining information about the activities of certain journals from authors, reviewers, journal editors, etc. (at one’s own initiative or upon request) at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This is especially true in cases of unethical behavior of founders and publishers of journals or editorial boards. The anonymous letters will not be considered and all information will be thoroughly checked. 

Assessment criteria for scientific journal

Assessment criteria for scientific journal are grouped as follows:

• Availability (absence) of required attributes;
• Manipulation with Journal`s title, founder or publisher;
• Manipulation with journal`s or publisher`s website;
• Innovations and sustainable publishing trends;
• Compliance with the publication ethics principles;
• Formal attributes, indicating the quality of articles;
• General information about the articles processing;
• Editorial staff;
• General description of the journal and its website.