Journal indexing strategies for JORP

Dear Editor,

Congratulations on assuming the office of this overtly prestigious project of the Ophthalmological Society of Assam. I do believe that the new members on board, under your leadership, will cruise Journal of Ophthalmic Research and Practice (JORP) in the right direction. After uninterrupted publication for 3 years, the logical next step would be to apply for the indexing of our journal. This has been the concern of many of our prospective authors, especially those serving in medical colleges. Once that is done, submissions will cease to be a concern. Rather, the content of the journal will be the highlight then. In this write-up, I will briefly take the reader through the various indexing agencies and how to apply for the same.

The “Minimum Qualifications for Teachers in Medical Institutions Regulations, 1998” was amended by the Medical Council of India (MCI) through Gazette Notification No. MCI-12(2)/2019-Med.Misc./189334 on February 12, 2020.^[1] The indexing agencies that are recognized by MCI for faculty promotions are Directory of Open Access Journals (DoAJ), PubMed Central, Science Citation Index Expanded, Embase, Medline, and Scopus.^[2] Selection criteria for PubMed Central are overtly stringent, so the most achievable target for JORP would be DoAJ.^[3]

The application for DoAJ is done online at https://doaj.org/apply. DoAJ accepts only fully open-access journals. They have a questionnaire which needs to be filled up by the Editor, with help from the publisher. The criteria laid down by DoAJ are met by JORP.^[4]

Pre-application requirements in PubMed Central include a registered ISSN, access to journal content to the National Library of Medicine, and a minimum of 25 peer-reviewed articles. These articles could be original research, review articles, or clinical case reports. The publisher is required to submit 25 recently published articles as part of the technical evaluation. This is where JORP fails to qualify, as though in the past 3 years, we have published 64 articles, original articles and review articles combined are only 15. This will require the whole-hearted efforts and overwhelming submission of original research by the newbies in ophthalmology.^[5]

The Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) implements a single set of 28 criteria to evaluate journals before indexing. These include 24 quality criteria and 4 impact criteria. The quality criteria for initial triage are met by JORP. However, the criteria for editorial triage and editorial evaluation are lacking. The quality criteria lucidly state “the journal must have published enough content” to allow evaluation. JORP will falter at this stage due to the lack of sufficient content. The impact criteria are quite far-fetched, requiring the journal content, authors, and editorial board members to have discernible citation history in the Web of Science. JORP is significantly trailing when it comes to citations, with only one to two of its articles having one to two citations.^[6]

Embase and Scopus are both owned by Elsevier, but the journal indexing criteria are not the same. Embase is a specialized biomedical database with a particular focus on pharmacology and drug research. All articles should have deep biomedical terms found in Emtree. Emtree is a controlled vocabulary for biomedicine and related life sciences. Consistent publication schedule and English language abstracts are also desired for getting indexed in Embase.^[7]

Scopus evaluation is done by the Content Selection and Advisory Board. Reviewing the “h-index” of the editorial board and the citation counts of published articles is essential before submission. An h-index of 10 means that the researcher has published at least 10 papers, which have been cited at least 10 times. Scopus also looks into the geographical diversity of authors and the editorial board.^[8]

Medline is the gold standard for medical indexing. Its pre-application requirements include that the journal must have published a minimum of 40 peer-reviewed articles (e.g., original research or review articles, clinical case reports) in final form. It also requires the submission of citation data during the stage of scientific quality review.^[9]

The transition from a new journal to an indexed one is indeed a challenging endeavor. It will require a shift from quantity to quality to ensure measurable impact. I hope this roadmap will encourage our contributors to adhere to the highest standards of scientific writing, enabling the global visibility of our journal.

Best Wishes