Purpose This study aimed to investigate the changes that occurred in journal and article publishing during the noncontact period that started in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Methods The integrated journal list in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2017–2021 and the search results of Web of Science were analyzed using pivot tables in Microsoft Excel. The articles, citations, impact factor (IF), publishers, open access (OA) status, and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) were investigated using the data.
Results The CAGRs of articles, citations, and IFs in JCR journals increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the increase in OA articles was accompanied by a decreasing share of subscription articles. The top 20 journals in JCR-SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded), based on the number of articles, accepted OA policies and showed a strong influence, accounting for 7% to 9% of all articles. MDPI and Frontiers were OA publishers included among the top 10 publishers. Large publishers maintained their competitiveness through mergers and acquisitions with OA publishers. Due to the rapid distribution of OA and early access articles as part of the international response to overcome COVID-19, the CAGRs of citations and IFs increased more than that of articles, and the publication and use of journal articles have become more active.
Conclusion The publication and use trends in JCR journals analyzed herein will provide useful information for researchers’ selection of journals for article submission, analyses of research performance, and libraries’ journal subscription contracts.
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Purpose This study aimed to examine how the bibliographic information of 558 journals that applied for the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies funding in 2011 changed from 2011 to 2019, with the goal of informing the development of Korean scientific journals.
Methods Between May and October 2012, bibliographic information from 558 journals was obtained from PDF files for the print versions of one issue of 2011 and the journal homepages. In August 2019, the bibliographic information of the same journals was traced based only on the journal websites. We compared bibliographic information.
Results Excluding 14 journals that were discontinued or integrated with other journals prior to the follow-up in 2019, 544 journals were compared. Over the 8-year period, 121 journals underwent title changes. The number of journals with eISSNs (electronic International Standard Serial Number) increased from 214 (39.3%) in 2011 to 488 (89.7%) in 2019. “Aims and scope” descriptions were found for 291 journals (53.5%) in 2011 and 482 (88.6%) in 2019. The number of English-only journals increased from 163 (30.0%) to 227 (41.7%), and the number of journals with an open access policy rose from 92 (16.9%) to 315 (57.9%). Journals with DOI (digital object identifier) prefixes increased from 256 (47.1%) to 536 (98.5%).
Conclusion The increased frequency of the above bibliographic information is evidence of the globalization of local journals. However, even in 2019, some journals still lacked the necessary bibliographic information. For better dissemination and promotion of Korean scientific journals, editors and publishers should more critically consider the proper inclusion of information on journal websites.
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Korean academic journals are registered in Korea Citation Index, a government-operated journal indexing system. There has been a constant increase in registry, but whether this change accompanies an increase in quality of the journals has not been determined. In this study, by using the index data of Korea Citation Index, status of journal citation in eight different research fields during the years 2008 to 2013 was analyzed. Impact factors of top 50% journals and the number of the journals with high impact factor increased in all the fields, while the number of journals with low impact factor decreased. The change varied in degree among the different fields, and that in social science and medicine was most positive. These changes appear not to be caused by an increase in self citation, although self citation itself is quite high. International citation of the journals also substantially increased in the fields of science, technology, and medicine. These results indicate a genuine increase in the quality of papers and an improvement in citability of the journals published in Korea. This positive change could be attributed to several factors that include the quality of the information in the papers and the environments that encourage the citation of domestic journals.