ProQuest
Guide to applying:
ProQuest Editorial and Title Selection Policy – Scholarly Journals
Introduction
This policy outlines the overall editorial guidelines on scholarly journal selection which apply to all of ProQuest’s bibliographic and full text aggregation databases. Many databases will also include other content types including trade journals, magazines, newspapers, blogs, preprints, working papers and conference proceedings which do not claim a peer-reviewed status and are not covered by these criteria but will be reviewed and selected as appropriate.
Baseline Criteria
Journals should have an ISSN and a website which provides basic information about the publisher, editors, review process, and scope of the journal. Where there is any doubt over the scholarly legitimacy of titles (typically those not from established scholarly publishers or societies, universities or similar research-focused organizations), then a basic credibility check will be performed to review the publication’s website and editorial policy. Publishers or titles which have incomplete, inaccurate or disingenuous descriptions of themselves or their policies, or which fail to maintain a consistent publishing schedule are likely to be rejected. Journals which also impose a fee to authors to publish non-open access articles are assumed to be vanity or predatory publishers and will not normally be considered.
Additional Criteria for Open Access Journals
For open access journals charging authors to submit or publish articles, they should be accepted by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Where an existing publisher with multiple journals included in DOAJ is adding further titles, we will consider these without requiring that the specific titles first complete the full DOAJ application process but will not consider new open access titles from a commercial publisher not represented in DOAJ. While this policy is not being applied retrospectively to all content currently included in ProQuest databases, titles from open access publishers where concerns have been raised about their legitimacy will be removed unless they are in DOAJ.Open access journals which do not charge authors to submit or publish articles (typically associated with universities, societies, research institutes and similar organizations) will be considered, even if not included in DOAJ, provided they pass a basic review ensuring that they are regularly publishing scholarly content.
Further Selection and Prioritization
Meeting the baseline eligibility criteria does not mean that a title will be selected for inclusion in one or more ProQuest databases, merely that it is broadly appropriate for consideration. There is a limited capacity to add new publishers and journals to ProQuest each year and a large pool of broadly appropriate content, which includes other content types as well as scholarly journals. Further selection and prioritization is done by editors and product managers based on relevance and significance. Each database covers one or more areas of academic research and has a scope defined for its subject coverage. Publications with high recognition and reputation within their discipline are given top priority for inclusion.
The following criteria are used in evaluations of scholarly journals:
• External evaluations or inclusion in external indices relevant to a particular discipline. For example, The Association of Business Schools Journal list is used to identify, evaluate, and prioritize publications for ABI/INFORM; inclusion in ERIC or EconLit is considered when selecting education or economics titles.
• Bibliometric Indices: Impact Factor, CiteScore, SJR and SNIP rankings are the quality metrics for serial publications used to help determine a publication’s importance to the research community.
• Provenance: Titles from established scholarly publishers, universities, or similar researchfocused organizations are favored.
• Editorial policies: Descriptions of the peer review process, an editorial board with relevant expertise, ethical guidelines, communication of errata, publication of retractions where necessary, and other information about the publisher’s editorial policies are taken into account to gauge credibility and quality.
• Contributors: Contributions from leading scholars in their field are a strong indicator of a journal’s quality and importance to the discipline.
• Production Quality: Optimal indexing requires that the overall appearance of text, illustrations, and graphics, be of sufficient quality. Author information must be complete and unambiguous, and key citation metadata that enables researchers to acquire the full text (if not available within the product) is mandatory.
• Timeliness of Publication: For serial publications, consistency and timeliness of new article availability should match researchers’ expectations. A sporadic publication frequency is not ideal.
• Stability: Journals should be in publication for at least three years to ensure that the publication is well established and will continue to publish.
• Article Availability: For publications represented only as citations in the database, it is important that researchers are provided with adequate information to access the full article quickly, efficiently, and at reasonable cost. Publishers facilitating access to the articles are highly valued.
• Regionality: To attain comprehensive coverage, significant effort is given to promoting international coverage. For most databases, this includes both English-language titles and those in other languages. Titles, and where possible, abstracts, are provided in English.