New RSCI List Includes 944 Journals
The Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) quality assessment and journal selection working group has updated its list of journals based on the results of expert review and monitoring of the quality of publications. The expert review examined such criteria as the scientific level of the journal, its relevance, its consistency, the level of the scientists on its editorial board, the journal’s adherence to publishing and scientific ethics, and the quality of its formatting.
The process included an examination of journals that submitted initiative applications for inclusion in the RSCI (a total of 137 journals), as well as journals presented for examination by the RSCI Monitoring Group for possible violations of the regulations (irregular provision of metadata) or of scientific and publishing ethics.
The subject-specific expert review of the journals analysed the following factors: formal indicators, bibliometric indicators, assessment of the public expertise of journals by leading Russian scientists, assessments of the journals by experts in the main subject areas, information on dishonest practices in the activities of journals linked to violations of scientific and publishing ethics.
RSCI is a bibliographical multidisciplinary database of publications in Russian academic journals or academic journals in Russian. HSE University is a partner of the project alongside the Russian Academy of Sciences, the National Electronic Library (elibrary.ru), Moscow State University, and the State Research Centres Association. The expert review and assessment of the quality of research publications in the database is organised and conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences with the involvement of HSE University and the State Research Centres Association.
The expert review of the journals was conducted by subject-specific councils in accordance with the following criteria:
scientific level—an assessment of the average scientific level of articles based on in-depth analysis
relevance—assessment of the relevance of the topics in the journal and its demand in the scientific community
consistency—assessment of the consistency and uniformity of the quality of articles in the journals
editorial board—assessment of the level of the scientists on the journal’s editorial board
ethics—assessment of the journal’s adherence to publishing and scientific ethics (violations include self-citation, false indicators, plagiarism, a low level or total absence of peer review, etc.)
formatting—a comprehensive assessment of the quality of the journal’s formatting (the inclusion of a full set of metadata in the RCSI—including English metadata—as well as abstracts and key words; the inclusion of DOI codes (from May 2022: DOI/EDN codes), consistency in the formatting of citations, etc.)
The assessment of the journals by the subject-specific councils also considered the significance of journals’ bibliometric metrics, the results of public expert review, and information about dishonest practices in the journals’ activities.
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The New RSCI List Now Includes 887 Journals
The Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) quality assessment and journal selection working group based on Web of Science has completed its updates to the RSCI list. The group particularly considered journals that submitted 219 initiative applications last year. The updated list includes 87 new journals, with 2 journals having been excluded.