
An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a
periodical publication
Periodical literature (singularly called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) consists of Publication, published works that appear in new releases on a regular schedule (''issues'' or ''numbers'', often numerically divided into annu ...
in which
scholarship
A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...
relating to a particular
academic discipline
An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part) and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, a ...
is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scrutiny, and discussion of
research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...
. Unlike
professional magazine A professional magazine or professional journal is a periodical published by the governing body of a profession."Professional Magazines or Journals" iProfessional/Trade Journals Piedmont College, Library. The standard of quality of such a periodical ...
s or
trade magazines
A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular tradesman, trade or industry. The collective term ...
, the articles are mostly written by researchers rather than staff writers employed by the journal. They nearly universally require
peer review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
for
research articles or other scrutiny from contemporaries competent and established in their respective fields. Academic journals trace their origins back to the
17th century
The 17th century lasted from January 1, 1601 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCI), to December 31, 1700 (MDCC).
It falls into the early modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized ...
.
, it is estimated that over 28,100 active academic journals are in publication, with scopes ranging from the general sciences, as seen in journals like ''
Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
'' and ''
Nature
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'', to highly specialized fields.
These journals publish a variety of articles including
original research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...
,
review articles, and
perspectives.
Content
Content usually takes the form of articles presenting
original research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...
,
review article
A review article is an article (publishing), article that summarizes the current Status quaestionis, state of understanding on a topic within a certain discipline. A review article is generally considered a secondary source since it may analyze ...
s, or
book reviews
A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit.
A book review may be a primary source, an opinion piece, a summary review, or a scholarly view. B ...
. The purpose of an academic journal, according to
Henry Oldenburg
Henry Oldenburg (also Henry Oldenbourg) (c. 1618 as Heinrich Oldenburg – 5 September 1677) was a German theologian, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of modern scientific peer review. He was one of the foremos ...
(the first editor of ''
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the second journ ...
''), is to give researchers a venue to "impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences."
The term ''academic journal'' applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this includes journals that cover
formal sciences
Formal science is a Branches of science, branch of science studying disciplines concerned with abstract structures described by formal systems, such as logic, mathematics, statistics, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, inform ...
,
natural sciences
Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
,
social sciences
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...
, and
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
, which differ somewhat from each other in form and function.
Although academic journals are superficially similar to professional magazines (or trade journals), they are quite different. Articles in academic journals are written by active researchers such as students, scientists, and professors. Their intended audience is others in the field, meaning their content is highly technical. Academic articles also deal with research, and are peer reviewed. Meanwhile, trade journals are aimed at people in different fields, focusing on how people in those fields can do their jobs better.
The first academic journal was (January 1665), followed soon after by ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' (March 1665), and (1666). The first fully peer-reviewed journal was ''Medical Essays and Observations'' (1733).
History

In the 17th century, scientists wrote letters to each other, and included scientific ideas with them. Then, in the mid-17th century, scientists began to hold meetings and share their scientific ideas. Eventually, they led to starting organizations, such as the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(1660) and the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
(1666).
The idea of a published journal with the purpose of "
ettingpeople know what is happening in the
Republic of Letters
The Republic of Letters (''Res Publica Litterarum'' or ''Res Publica Literaria'') was the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas. It fostered communication among the intellectuals of th ...
" was first conceived by
François Eudes de Mézeray
François Eudes de Mézeray (1610 – 10 July 1683) was a French historian.
Mézeray was born at Ri, Orne, Ri near Argentan, France, Argentan, where his father was a surgeon.
He had two brothers, one of whom, Jean-Eudes de Mézeray, Jean-Eudes ...
in 1663. A publication titled was supposed to be published to fulfill that goal, but never was.
Humanist scholar Denis de Sallo
Denis de Sallo, Sieur de la Coudraye (1626May 14, 1669) was a French writer and lawyer from Paris, known as the founder of the first French, and European Literary magazine, literary and scientific journal – the (later renamed ''Journal des savan ...
(under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
"Sieur de Hédouville") and printer Jean Cusson took Mazerai's idea, and obtained a
royal privilege
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
from King
Louis XIV
LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...
on 8 August 1664 to establish the . The journal's first issue was published on 5 January 1665. It was aimed at
people of letters, and had four main objectives:
# review newly published major European books,
# publish the
obituaries
An obituary (obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Acco ...
of famous people,
# report on discoveries in
arts
The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creativity, creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive ...
and
science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
, and
# report on the
proceedings
In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings are a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the confer ...
and
censure
A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a sp ...
s of both
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...
and
ecclesiastical court
In organized Christianity, an ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain non-adversarial courts conducted by church-approved officials having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. Histo ...
s, as well as those of universities both in France and outside.
Soon after, the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
established ''
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the second journ ...
'' in March 1665, and the established the ' in 1666, which focused on scientific communications. By the end of the 18th century, nearly 500 such periodicals had been published, the vast majority coming from
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
(304 periodicals),
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
(53), and
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
(34). Several of those publications, in particular the German journals, tended to be short-lived (under five years). A.J. Meadows has estimated the proliferation of journals to reach 10,000 journals in 1950, and 71,000 in 1987. Michael Mabe wrote that the estimates will vary depending on the definition of what exactly counts as a scholarly publication, but that the growth rate has been "remarkably consistent over time", with an average rate of 3.46% per year from 1800 to 2003.
In 1733, ''Medical Essays and Observations'' was established by the
Medical Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
as the first fully
peer-review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
ed journal.
Peer review was introduced as an attempt to increase the quality and pertinence of submissions. Other important events in the history of academic journals include the establishment of ''
Nature
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'' (1869) and ''
Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
'' (1880), the establishment of ''
Postmodern Culture'' in 1990 as the first
online-only journal, the foundation of
arXiv
arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...
in 1991 for the dissemination of
preprint
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versi ...
s to be discussed prior to publication in a journal, and the establishment of ''
PLOS One'' in 2006 as the first
megajournal
A mega journal (also mega-journal and megajournal) is a peer-reviewed academic journal, academic open access journal designed to be much larger than a traditional journal by exercising low selectivity among accepted articles. It was pioneered by '' ...
.
Peer review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
did not begin until the 1970s, and was seen as a way of enabling researchers who were not as well-known to have their papers published in journals that were more prestigious. Though it was originally done by mailing copies of papers to reviewers, it is now done online.
Scholarly articles
There are two kinds of
article or paper submissions in
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
: solicited, where an individual has been invited to submit work either through direct contact or through a general submissions call, and unsolicited, where an individual submits a work for potential publication without directly being asked to do so. Upon receipt of a submitted article, editors at the journal determine whether to reject the submission outright or begin the process of
peer review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
. In the latter case, the submission becomes subject to review by outside scholars of the editor's choosing who typically remain anonymous. The number of these peer reviewers (or "referees") varies according to each journal's editorial practice – typically, no fewer than two, though sometimes three or more, experts in the subject matter of the article produce reports upon the content, style, and other factors, which inform the editors' publication decisions.
Though these reports are generally confidential, some journals and publishers also practice
public peer review
Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are:
# Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's iden ...
. The editors either choose to reject the article, ask for a revision and resubmission, or accept the article for publication. Even accepted articles are often subjected to further (sometimes considerable) editing by journal editorial staff before they appear in print. The peer review can take from several weeks to several months.
Articles have several sections, often including the following:
* The title;
* Information about the author(s);
* The
abstract, which is a one-paragraph summary of the article;
* The
introduction
Introduction, The Introduction, Intro, or The Intro may refer to:
General use
* Introduction (music), an opening section of a piece of music
* Introduction (writing), a beginning section to a book, article or essay which states its purpose and g ...
, including a background, why the research was done, research on this topic that has been done before, and (possibly) a
hypothesis
A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...
;
* The
methodology
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
or method, which includes the way the
research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...
was done, details concerning the study's
sample,
measures for assessment, and the
procedure;
* Findings or
results, which summarize what the study found;
* Conclusion, comments, or discussion, which both explain how the results answered the questions that were posed, as well as areas that could be researched in the future;
* A
list of works that the article's author
cited.
Types of article
Articles can also be categorized by their purpose. The exact terminology and definitions vary by field and specific journal, but often include:
* Letters (also called ''communications'', and not to be confused with ''letters to the editor'') are short descriptions of important current research findings that are usually fast-tracked for immediate publication because they are considered urgent.
* Research notes are short descriptions of current research findings that are considered less urgent or important than ''Letters''.
* Articles are usually between five and twenty pages and are complete descriptions of current original research findings, but there are considerable variations between scientific fields and journals—80-page articles are not rare in mathematics or
theoretical computer science
Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the Abstraction, abstract and mathematical foundations of computation.
It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Associati ...
.
* Supplemental articles contain a large volume of tabular data that is the result of current research and may be dozens or hundreds of pages with mostly numerical data. Some journals now only publish this data electronically on the Internet. Supplemental information also contains other voluminous material not appropriate for the main body of the article, like descriptions of routine procedures, derivations of equations, source code, non-essential data, spectra or other such miscellaneous information.
* A target article in a journal is one which argues a case, to which other authors submit a commentary or a response. There may be a final response from the author of the target article. See, for example,
Alison Gopnik's article ''How we know our minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality'' in the journal ''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'', Volume 16, Issue 1 (1993), which was one of a pair of "target articles" to which other responses were published in the same volume.
*
Review articles do not cover original research but rather accumulate the results of many different ''articles'' on a particular topic into a coherent narrative about the state of the art in that field. Review articles provide information about the topic and also provide journal references to the original research. Reviews may be entirely narrative, or may provide quantitative summary estimates resulting from the application of
meta-analytical methods.
*
Data papers are articles dedicated to describe datasets. This type of article is becoming popular and journals exclusively dedicated to them have been established, e.g. ''
Scientific Data'' and ''
Earth System Science Data''.
*
Video papers are a recent addition to practice of scientific publications. They most often combine an online video demonstration of a new technique or protocol with a rigorous textual description.
Reviewing
Review articles
Review articles, also called "reviews of progress", are checks on the research published in journals. Some journals are devoted entirely to review articles, some contain a few in each issue, and others do not publish review articles. Such reviews often cover the research from the preceding year, some for longer or shorter terms; some are devoted to specific topics, some to general surveys. Some reviews are
enumerative, listing all significant articles in a given subject; others are selective, including only what they think worthwhile. Yet others are evaluative, judging the state of progress in the subject field. Some journals are published in series, each covering a complete subject field year, or covering specific fields through several years.
Unlike original research articles, review articles tend to be solicited or "peer-invited" submissions, often planned years in advance, which may themselves go through a peer-review process once received.
They are typically relied upon by students beginning a study in a given field, or for current awareness of those already in the field.
[
]
Book reviews
Reviews of scholarly books are checks upon the research books published by scholars; unlike articles, book reviews tend to be solicited. Journals typically have a separate book review editor determining which new books to review and by whom. If an outside scholar accepts the book review editor's request for a book review, he or she generally receives a free copy of the book from the journal in exchange for a timely review. Publishers send books to book review editors in the hope that their books will be reviewed. The length and depth of research book reviews varies much from journal to journal, as does the extent of textbook and trade book review.
Prestige and ranking
An
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
journal's prestige is established over time, and can reflect many factors, some but not all of which are expressible quantitatively. In many fields, a formal or informal hierarchy of scientific journals exists; the most prestigious journal in a field tends to be the most selective in terms of the articles it will select for publication, and usually will also have the highest
impact factor
The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field.
The Impact Factor of a journa ...
. In some countries, journal rankings can be utilized for funding decisions and even evaluation of individual researchers, although they are poorly suited for that purpose.
In each
academic discipline
An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part) and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, a ...
, some journals receive a high number of submissions and opt to restrict how many they publish, keeping the
acceptance rate
Acceptance in psychology is a person's recognition and assent to the finality of a situation without attempting to change or protest it. This plays out at both the individual and societal level as people experience change.
Types of acceptanc ...
low.
[
] Size or prestige are not a guarantee of reliability.
In the
natural sciences
Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
and in the
social sciences
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...
, the
impact factor
The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field.
The Impact Factor of a journa ...
is an established proxy, measuring the number of later articles citing articles already published in the journal. There are other quantitative measures of prestige, such as the overall number of citations, how quickly articles are cited, and the average "
half-life Half-life is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay.
Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to:
Film
* Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang
* ''Half Life: ...
" of articles.
Clarivate Analytics
Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business and market intelligence, and competitive profiling ...
' ''
Journal Citation Reports
''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publication by Clarivate. It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science Core Collection. It provides information about academic journals in the natur ...
'', which among other features, computes an
impact factor
The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field.
The Impact Factor of a journa ...
for academic journals, draws data for computation from the
Science Citation Index Expanded
The Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) is a citation index owned by Clarivate and previously by Thomson Reuters.
It was created by the Eugene Garfield at the Institute for Scientific Information, launched in 1964 as Science Citation Index ( ...
(for natural science journals), and from the
Social Sciences Citation Index
The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is a commercial citation index product of Clarivate Analytics. It was originally developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index. The Social Sciences Citation Index is ...
(for social science journals).
Several other metrics are also used, including the
SCImago Journal Rank
The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator is a measure of the prestige of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the prestige of the journals where the citations come from.
Etymology
SCImago ...
,
CiteScore
CiteScore (CS) of an academic journal is a measure reflecting the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. It is produced by Elsevier, based on the citations recorded in the Scopus database. Absolute ranki ...
,
Eigenfactor
The Eigenfactor score, developed by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom at the University of Washington, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal. Journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from ...
, and
Altmetrics
In scholarly and scientific publishing, altmetrics (stands for "alternative metrics") are non-traditional bibliometrics proposed as an alternative or complement to more traditional citation impact metrics, such as impact factor and H-index, ''h ...
.
In the
Anglo-American humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
, there is no tradition (as there is in the sciences) of giving impact-factors that could be used in establishing a journal's prestige. Recent moves have been made by the European Science Foundation (ESF) to change the situation, resulting in the publication of preliminary lists for the
ranking
A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than", or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak ...
of academic journals in the humanities.
These rankings have been severely criticized, notably by history and sociology of science British journals that have published a common editorial entitled "Journals under Threat". Though it did not prevent ESF and some national organizations from proposing
journal rankings, it largely prevented their use as evaluation tools.
In some disciplines such as
knowledge management
Knowledge management (KM) is the set of procedures for producing, disseminating, utilizing, and overseeing an organization's knowledge and data. It alludes to a multidisciplinary strategy that maximizes knowledge utilization to accomplish organ ...
/
intellectual capital Intellectual capital is the result of mental processes that form a set of intangible objects that can be used in economic activity and bring income to its owner (organization), covering the competencies of its people (human capital), the value relat ...
, the lack of a well-established journal ranking system is perceived by academics as "a major obstacle on the way to tenure, promotion and achievement recognition".
[
] Conversely, a significant number of scientists and organizations consider the pursuit of
impact factor
The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field.
The Impact Factor of a journa ...
calculations as inimical to the goals of science, and have signed the
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is a statement that denounces the practice of correlating the journal impact factor to the merits of a specific scientist's contributions. Also according to this statement, this practice ...
to limit its use.
[
]
Three categories of techniques have developed to assess journal quality and create journal rankings:
* stated preference;
* revealed preference; and
* publication power approaches
Costs
Many academic journals are
subsidized by universities or professional organizations, and do not exist to make a profit. They often accept advertising, page and image charges from authors to pay for production costs. On the other hand, some journals are produced by commercial publishers who do make a profit by charging subscriptions to individuals and libraries. They may also sell all of their journals in discipline-specific collections or a variety of other packages.
Many scientists and librarians have long protested these costs, especially as they see these payments going to large for-profit publishing houses.
To allow their researchers online access to journals, many universities purchase ''site licenses'', permitting access from anywhere in the university, and, with appropriate authorization, by university-affiliated users at home or elsewhere. These may be much more expensive than the cost for a print subscription. Despite the transition to electronic publishing, the costs of site licenses continue to rise relative to universities' budgets. This is known as the ''
serials crisis
The term serials crisis describes the problem of rising subscription costs of serial publications, especially scholarly journals, outpacing academic institutions' library budgets and limiting their ability to meet researchers' needs. The prices ...
''.
Journal editors tend to have other professional responsibilities, most often as teaching professors. In the case of the largest journals, there are paid staff assisting in the editing. The production of the journals is almost always done by publisher-paid staff. Humanities and social science academic journals are usually subsidized by universities or professional organization.
Traditional scientific journals require a paid subscription to access published articles.
The cost and value proposition of subscription to academic journals is being continuously re-assessed by institutions worldwide. In the context of the
big deal cancellations by several library systems in the world, data analysis tools like
Unpaywall Journals
OurResearch, formerly known as ImpactStory, is a nonprofit organization that creates and distributes tools and services for libraries, institutions and researchers. The organization follows open practices with their data (to the extent allowed b ...
are used by libraries to estimate the specific cost and value of the various options: libraries can avoid subscriptions for materials already served by instant
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
via
open archive
An open repository or open-access repository is a digital platform that holds research output and provides free, immediate and permanent access to research results for anyone to use, download and distribute. To facilitate open access such reposito ...
s like PubMed Central.
Concerns about cost and open access have led to the creation of free-access journals such as the
Public Library of Science
PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and launched its ...
(PLoS) family and partly open or reduced-cost journals such as the ''
Journal of High Energy Physics''. However, professional editors still have to be paid, and PLoS still relies heavily on donations from foundations to cover the majority of its operating costs; smaller journals do not often have access to such resources. Open access journals may charge authors a fee for review or publication, rather than charging a readers a fee for access.
Reproducibility and replicability
For scientific journals,
reproducibility and replicability of the scientific results are core concepts that allow other scientists to check and reproduce the results under the same conditions described in the paper or at least similar conditions and produce similar results with similar measurements of the same subject or carried out under changed conditions of measurement. While the ability to reproduce the results based only on details included in the article is expected, verification of reproducibility by a third party is not generally required for publication.
The reproducibility of results presented in an article is therefore judged implicitly by the quality of the procedures reported and agreement with the data provided. However, some journals in the field of chemistry such as ''
Inorganic Syntheses
''Inorganic Syntheses'' is a book series which aims to publish "detailed and foolproof" procedures for the synthesis of inorganic compounds.Organic Syntheses
''Organic Syntheses'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1921. It publishes detailed and checked procedures for the synthesis of organic compounds. A unique feature of the review process is that all of the data and expe ...
'' require independent reproduction of the results presented as part of the review process. The inability for independent researches to reproduce published results is widespread, with 70% of researchers reporting failure to reproduce another scientist's results, including more than half who report failing to reproduce their own experiments. Sources of irreproducibility vary, including publication of
falsified or misrepresented data and
poor detailing of procedures.
Copyright
Traditionally, the author of an article was required to transfer the
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
to the journal publisher. Publishers claimed this was necessary in order to protect authors' rights, and to coordinate permissions for reprints or other use. However, many authors, especially those active in the
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
movement, found this unsatisfactory,
and have used their influence to effect a gradual move towards a license to publish instead. Under such a system, the publisher has permission to edit, print, and distribute the article commercially, but the authors retain the other rights themselves.
Even if they retain the copyright to an article, most journals allow certain rights to their authors. These rights usually include the ability to reuse parts of the paper in the author's future work, and allow the author to distribute a limited number of copies. In the print format, such copies are called reprints; in the electronic format, they are called
postprints
A postprint is a digital draft of a research journal article ''after'' it has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication, but ''before'' it has been typeset and formatted by the journal.
Related terminology
A digital draft before peer re ...
. Some publishers, for example the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
, also grant the author the right to post and update the article on the author's or employer's website and on free e-print servers, to grant permission to others to use or reuse figures, and even to reprint the article as long as no fee is charged. The rise of open access journals, in which the author retains the copyright but must pay a publication charge, such as the
Public Library of Science
PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and launched its ...
family of journals, is another recent response to copyright concerns.
New developments

The
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
has revolutionized the production of, and access to, academic journals, with their contents available online via services subscribed to by
academic libraries
An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution, which supports the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are an es ...
. Individual articles are subject-indexed in databases such as
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...
. Some of the smallest, most specialized journals are prepared in-house, by an academic department, and published only online – this has sometimes been in the blog format, though some, like the
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
journal ''
Internet Archaeology'', use the medium to embed searchable datasets, 3D models, and interactive mapping.
Currently, there is a movement in higher education encouraging open access, either via
self archiving, whereby the author deposits a paper in a
disciplinary or
institutional repository
An institutional repository (IR) is an archive for collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital copies of the intellectual output of an institution, particularly a research institution. Academics also utilize their IRs for archiving published ...
where it can be searched for and read, or via publishing it in a free
open access journal
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
, which does not charge for
subscriptions, being either subsidized or financed by a
publication fee. Given the goal of sharing scientific research to speed advances, open access has affected science journals more than humanities journals. Commercial publishers are experimenting with open access models, but are trying to protect their subscription revenues.
Predatory and junk journals
The much lower entry cost of on-line publishing has also raised concerns of an increase in
publication of "junk" journals with lower publishing standards. These journals, often with names chosen as similar to well-established publications, solicit articles via e-mail and then charge the author to publish an article, often with
no sign of actual review.
Jeffrey Beall
Jeffrey Beall is an American librarian and library scientist who drew attention to "predatory open access publishing", a term he coined, and
created Beall's list, a list of potentially predatory open-access publishers. He is a critic of the o ...
, a research librarian at the
University of Colorado
The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...
, has compiled a list of what he considers to be "potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers"; the list numbered over 300 journals as of April 2013, but he estimates that there may be thousands. The
OMICS Publishing Group
OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals. It started publishing its first journal in 2008. By 2015, it claimed over 700 journals, although about half of them were defunct. Its subsidiaries and brands in ...
, which publishes a number of the journals on this list,
threatened to sue Beall in 2013 and Beall stopped publishing in 2017, citing pressure from his university. A US judge fined OMICS $50 million in 2019 stemming from an
FTC lawsuit.
Some academic journals use the
registered report
Preregistration is the practice of registering the hypotheses, methods, or analyses of a scientific study before it is conducted. Clinical trial registration is similar, although it may not require the registration of a study's analysis protocol. F ...
format, which aims to counteract issues such as
data dredging
Data dredging, also known as data snooping or ''p''-hacking is the misuse of data analysis to find patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, thus dramatically increasing and understating the risk of false positives. Th ...
and hypothesizing after the results are known. For example, ''
Nature Human Behaviour
''Nature Human Behaviour'' is a monthly multidisciplinary online-only peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of human behaviour. It was established in January 2017 and is published by Nature Portfolio. The editor-in-chief is Stav ...
'' has adopted the registered report format, as it "shift
the emphasis from the results of research to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them". The ''
European Journal of Personality
The ''European Journal of Personality'' (EJP) is the official bimonthly academic journal of the European Association of Personality Psychology covering research on personality, published by SAGE Publishing. According to citation reports based on ...
'' defines this format: "In a registered report, authors create a study proposal that includes theoretical and empirical background, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (if available). Upon submission, this proposal will then be reviewed prior to data collection, and if accepted, the paper resulting from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study outcomes."
Electronic journals
Some journals are ''
born digital'' in that they are solely published on the web and in a digital format. Though most electronic journals originated as print journals, which subsequently evolved to have an electronic version, while still maintaining a print component, others eventually became electronic-only.
An e-journal closely resembles a print journal in structure: there is a table of contents which lists the articles, and many electronic journals still use a volume/issue model, although some titles now publish on a continuous basis. Online journal articles are a specialized form of
electronic document
An electronic document is a document that can be sent in non-physical means, such as telex, email, and the internet. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal—the final data output was always on paper. However, the ...
: they have the purpose of providing material for academic
research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...
and study, and they are formatted approximately like journal articles in traditional printed journals. Often, a journal article will be available for download in two formats: PDF and HTML, although other electronic file types are often supported for supplementary material. Articles are indexed in
bibliographic databases
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records. This is an organised online collection of references to published written works like journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publicati ...
as well as by search engines. E-journals allow new types of content to be included in journals, for example, video material, or the data sets on which research has been based.
With the growth and development of the Internet, there has been a growth in the number of new digital-only journals. A subset of these journals exist as Open Access titles, meaning that they are free to access for all, and have
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
licences which permit the reproduction of content in different ways.
High quality
open access journals
Pulsus Group is a health informatics and digital marketing company and publisher of scientific, technical, and medical literature. It was formed in 1984, primarily to publish peer-reviewed medical journals. Pulsus published 98 hybrid and fu ...
are listed in
Directory of Open Access Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a website that hosts a community-curated list of open access journals, maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA). It was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals.
The miss ...
. Most, however, continue to exist as subscription journals, for which libraries, organisations and individuals purchase access.
Benefits of electronically publishing include easy availability of supplementary materials (data, graphics and video), lower cost, and availability to more people, especially scientists from non-developed countries. Hence, research results from more developed nations are becoming more accessible to scientists from non-developed countries.
Lists
* Databases providing detailed information about journals:
**
Ulrich's Global Serials Directory - the largest database of serials
** Directory of Periodicals by
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "str ...
**
JournalSeek by Genamics
**
Web of Science
The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...
**
Scopus
Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...
**
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
* Journal hosting sites that also provide lists. Some sites evaluate journals, providing information such as how long a journal takes to review articles and what types of articles it publishes:
**
Project MUSE
**
JSTOR
JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...
**
ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect is a searchable web-based bibliographic database, which provides access to full texts of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier as well of several small academic publishers. It hosts over 18 million ...
**
Informaworld
Informa plc is a British publishing, business intelligence, and Trade fair, exhibitions group based in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
It has offices in 30 countries and ar ...
See also
Explanatory notes
References
Further reading
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External links
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{{Authority control
Academic publishing
Peer review
Scholarly communication