The authorship and country spread of Operation Research journals

This paper surveys 56 internationally renowned OR journals published in 1996–2005 with regard to authorship. Our findings show that the USA was the country that contributed the largest amount, approximately one-third, of research results to OR journals. Authors tend to publish papers in their home-country journals. Journal of the Operations Research Society of Japan has the highest author concentration, with more than 85% of the authors from Japan and European Journal of Operational Research, on the contrary, has the widest country spread of its authors. The entropy measure provides a whole picture of the share of all countries, based on which the editorial policy of a journal can be adjusted.     

Dermatological scientific production from European Union authors (1987–2000)

To evaluate the contribution to international dermatological literature made by authors from European Union (EU) countries. Using MedLine, a selection was made of articles by EU authors published between 1987 and 2000 in 32 dermatological journals, classified as such by the Institute for Scientific Information. Overall 19,225 documents were published by European authors in the selected dermatological journals from 1987 to 2000. The leading countries in terms of output were the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France. The leading countries in number of articles after taking into account the gross domestic product and the population were Denmark, Finland and Sweden. The main journals were the British Journal of Dermatology(14.5% of articles from European authors), Contact Dermatitis (13.7%), Journal of Investigative Dermatology (7.3%),Journal of American Academy of Dermatology (6.4%), andActa Dermato-Venereologica (6.1%). The country with the highest output of papers by journal was the United Kingdom (11 journals) followed by Germany (9 journals), Italy (6 journals), France (3 journals), Spain (2 journals) and Sweden (1 journal). In conclusions: the scientific production of European Union research on dermatology is highest in northern countries. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Equal contributions and credit given to authors in anesthesiology journals during a 10-year period

To investigate the prevalence and characteristics of the practice of explicitly giving authors equal credit in publications of major anesthesiology journals. Four major anesthesiology journals (Anesthesia and Analgesia (AA), Anesthesiology, British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA) and Pain) were searched manually to identify original research articles published between January 1st, 2001 and December 31st, 2010 with respect to equally credited authors (ECAs). It was found that all journals explicitly gave authors equal credit, and articles with ECAs accounted for a greater proportion of the total number of articles published in each journal in 2010 versus that in 2000 (AA: 3.3% vs. 0%; Anesthesiology: 7.1% vs. <1%; BJA: 5.7% vs. 0%; Pain: 11.0% vs. <1%). The number of ECAs articles tended to increase significantly yearly in all journals (P < 0.0001 for each journal). The first two authors in the byline received equal credit in most cases. Furthermore, the ECAs articles involved institutions from different countries and regions and were sponsored by various funds. However, no specific guidance concerning this practice was provided in the instructions to authors in the four journals. It is increasingly common to give authors equal credit in original research articles in major anesthesiology journals. Detailed guidelines regarding this practice are warranted in future.     

The relationship between international editorial board composition and citation measures in political science,business, and genetics journals

Three measures of international composition on journal editorial boards - the number of countries represented on the board, the number of international members, and the proportion of international board members - were correlated with impact factor and total citation data in the 1999 Journal Citation Reportsfor 153 business, political science, and genetics journals. With a few exceptions the relationship between international editorial board composition and citation measures was non-linear, leading to the conclusion that international membership on the editorial board can not generally be used as a marker of better journal quality. Yet further investigation is warranted due to positive correlations between some editorial board and citation measures for non-U.S. business and political science journals. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Visibility of Korean science journals: an analysis between citation measures among international composition of editorial board and foreign authorship

This article reports findings from a study of the relationship between citation measures (impact factor and its quartile) among international composition of editorial board and foreign authorship in 17 Korean SCI journals for the three 5-year periods, 1995, 2000, and 2005. With few exceptions, the relationship between international editorial board composition and foreign authorship and citation measures was non-existent, at p > 0.05. However, the international members on editorial boards and foreign authorship of papers in Korean journals have increased greatly over the three 5-year periods, and there has been to a certain degree growth in the visibility and performance of Korean SCI journals in terms of impact factors, but not their quartiles.     

The visibility of Italian journals

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the Italian journals indexed in the 2000 edition of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) (Philadelphia, USA). The performance and the visibility of these journals were evaluated in terms of Impact Factor (IF), mean IF from citing journals and cited journals, and self-citing and self-cited rates. Seventy-three Italian journals were indexed in the JCR, 14 of which achieved an IF equal to or higher than one. Most citing journals were European and American, thus showing a fairly good visibility of the articles published in the 14 journals analyzed. The self-citing and self-cited rates showed a wide variation. The journal that appeared to perform best was theJournal of High Energy Physics, an electronic publication whose success seemingly confirms Internet circulation as an effective means to enhance the visibility and consequently the quality, in term of citations, of a journal. Italy's low overall expenditure on research & development (R&D) and low number of researchers compared to countries with longstanding high publishing standards and traditions are no doubt partly to blame for its poor performance in scientific publishing. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Assessing gender balance among journal authors and editorial board members

The study of journal authorship and editorial board membership from a gender perspective is addressed in this paper following international recommendations about the need to obtain science and technology indicators by gender. Authorship informs us about active scientists who contribute to the production and dissemination of new knowledge through journal articles, while editorial board membership tells us about leading scientists who have obtained scientific recognition within the scientific community. This study analyses by gender the composition of the editorial boards of 131 high-quality Spanish journals in all fields of science, the presence of men and women as authors in a selection of 36 journals, and the evolution of these aspects from 1998 to 2009. Female presence is lower than male presence in authorship, editorial board membership and editorship. The presence of female authors is slightly lower than the presence of women in the Spanish Higher Education sector and doubles female presence in editorial boards, which mirrors female presence in the highest academic rank. The gender gap tends to diminish over the years in most areas, especially in authorship and very slightly in editorial board membership. Large editorial boards and having a female editor-in-chief are positively correlated with women presence in editorial boards. The situation of women in Spanish science is further assessed in an international context analysing a selection of international reference journals. The usefulness of journal-based indicators to monitor the situation of men and women in science and to assess the success of policies oriented to enhance gender equality in science is finally discussed.     

Developing English-language academic journals of China

Many academic journals of China began to be published in English when China opened door to the world more than 20 years ago. Tsinghua University started to publish an academic journal, the Tsinghua Science and Technology since 1996. We made statistical analyses on the regional distribution on the authors and of the references cited by the articles of Tsinghua Science and Technology from 1996 to 2002. The results show that although the authors are mainly from the Tsinghua University, the number of authors from other regions, especially the number of overseas authors, are increasing in recent years; the average number of references cited by every article are increasing from 6.9 in 1996 to 13.4 in 2002. The results suggest that we must learn the successful experiences from well-known journals. Attracting high-level articles and realizing the internationalization of the journal will help us to develop the journal. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Characteristics of papers published in journals: an analysis of open access journals,country of publication,and languages used

This study explores how the citation of open access (OA) journal articles occurs by analyzing the impact of certain journal characteristics, namely, whether the journal is OA and whether its country of publication is the same as the affiliation of a paper’s author. As the language of a paper is an important factor contributing to paper citations, this study uses papers in English. This analysis included publications from 77 countries from 2010 to 2012. This analysis included 19,530 journals and 3,215,742 papers without duplication. The results showed that papers published in OA and international journals were cited in more countries than non-OA and domestic journals, and a higher percentage of these were being cited by foreign countries. From these findings, it was determined that the more widely accessible OA journals were effectively being accessed by researchers from multiple countries. However, of the top 10% most cited papers in international journals, a higher percentage of these came from non-OA compared to OA journals. Among domestic journals, no such difference was found. Papers published in non-OA international journals were most cited in foreign countries with a large number of published papers. Hence, the effect of OA’s expanded accessibility, while having an apparent effect on heightening the interest of foreign readership, has a limited impact in terms of increasing citations.     

Analysis of a number and type of publications that editors publish in their own journals: case study of scholarly journals in Croatia

To assess the publication practices of editors in their own journals, we analysed the number of articles that Croatian editors published in the journals they edit. From 2005 to 2008, 256 decision-making editors of 180 journals published a total of 887 publications in their own journals. Out of these, 332 were relevant for their academic promotion. Only 18 editors published 5 or more articles in their own journals. A single journal had regulations for self-publishing in the instructions for authors. Although the majority of editors did not misuse their own journals for scientific publishing and academic promotion, there is a need for greater transparency of the declaration and management of editorial conflict of interest in academic and scholarly journals.     

The authorship and internationality of Industrial Engineering journals

This paper surveys 32 renowned Industrial Engineering (IE) journals with regard to authorship for the period of 1996–2005. The findings show that the USA was the top contributing country, accounting for approximately one-third of the total number of articles. The 80/20 rule and the entropy measure consistently identify Issues in Science and Technology (IST), Industrial Engineer (IE), and R&D Magazine (RDM) as journals of high country concentration, or journals of low internationality. Conversely, Journal of Materials Processing Technology (JMPT), Production Planning & Control (PPC), and Technovation (TNV) have the highest degree of country diversity, or internationality. The quality of a journal, as expressed by impact factors, its internationality, and its number of articles published, are found to be independent of each other.     

Influence of publication languages on the citation rate of scientific articles: A case study of East German journals

In order to quantify the influence of publication languages on the rate of citation of scientific articles, such East German journals from the Science Citation Index database were selected which publish relevant shares of contributions in several languages, especially in English and German. For a fixed period of time (1988) the selective citation impact of both English- and German-language articles was calculated. The results of our investigation reveal a non-uniform picture: In some cases English-language papers exhibit a significantly higher citations-per-paper average than German-language articles, but in a few cases German-language publications achieve a higher mean citation rate. For the half of selected journals there does not exist a statistically significant difference of citation frequencies of publications in both languages. Possible causes of these phenomena (editorial practice of journals, native countries of authors) are considered.     

Commercial scientific journals and their editors in Edinburgh, 1819–1832

This paper explores the editorial policies and practices of three scientific journal published in Edinburgh in the first half of the 19th century. The first of these was the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal (1819–1826), and its continuation as the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1826–1854). It was edited until 1824 by Robert Jameson, Edinburgh's professor of natural history, and David Brewster, who was a natural philosopher, scientific writer, and editor. Brewster left in 1824 to found his own journal, the Edinburgh Journal of Science (1824–1832). The third journal published in Edinburgh in this period was the Edinburgh Journal of Natural and Geographical Science (1829–1831), edited by Henry H. Cheek and William Ainsworth, two medical students at the University of Edinburgh. All three journals were direct competitors, being strikingly similar in form and content. As well as competing with Jameson's journal for readers and authors, Cheek and Ainsworth also used their journal to directly attack him in print. This paper sheds new light on the ways the editorship of these journals was used not only to consolidate and extend circles of patronage in early 19th-century science, but also to challenge existing centres of authority.     

Interlocking editorship. A network analysis of the links between economic journals

The exploratory analysis developed in this paper relies on the hypothesis that each editor possesses some power in the definition of the editorial policy of her journal. Consequently if the same scholar sits on the board of editors of two journals, those journals could have some common elements in their editorial policies. The proximity of the editorial policies of two scientific journals can be assessed by the number of common editors sitting on their boards. A database of all editors of ECONLIT journals is used. The structure of the network generated by interlocking editorship is explored by applying the instruments of network analysis. Evidence has been found of a compact network containing different components. This is interpreted as the result of a plurality of perspectives about the appropriate methods for the investigation of problems and the construction of theories within the domain of economics.     

The representation of nationalities on the editorial boards of international journals and the promotion of the scientific output of the same countries

This paper analyses the nationalities of the editorial board members of the top 20 journals (according to their impact factor in the ISI Journal Citation Report, Science Edition 2005) serving 15 scientific disciplines. A total of 281 journals were analysed (some journals crossed disciplinary boundaries) and 10,055 of their editorial board members were identified. Some 53% of board members were from the United States. Europe provided 32%, with the United Kingdom making the greatest contribution (9.8%). The analysis of scientific output by nationality in these journals showed a significant correlation, in all disciplines, with the representation of the corresponding nations on the editorial boards. The composition of editorial boards may therefore provide a useful indicator for measuring a country’s international scientific visibility. The present results should be taken into account in the design of national policies with the aim of enhancing the presence of a country’s most prestigious scientists on the editorial boards of the main international journals.     

Publishing in international journals

This paper examines patterns of Chinese authorship, focusing particularly on international co-authorship, in a sample of 37,526 articles from Elsevier journals published in 2004. Trends relating to potential influences such as subject, journal impact factor and article type are explored. A slightly higher proportion of articles with at least one Chinese author was observed as compared to previous studies. Articles that are a product of Chinese international collaboration account for almost 20% of the Chinese sample as a whole, a similar proportion to levels of international collaboration within the sample overall. Chinese international co-authorship is most common in the Earth & Environmental Sciences. Where China is involved in international collaboration, it is often a proactive participant: 49% of articles that are a result of Chinese international collaboration have a Chinese corresponding author. With some minor variations in subject categories, countries favoured in international co-authorship reflect world shares in publishing and factors such as geographical proximity and political links. In the context of this project, the term ‘Chinese authors’ is used to refer to authors, regardless of nationality, who are based at Chinese institutions. The term does not include Chinese nationality authors who are based in institutions outwith China.     

Editors of medical journals: Who and from where

The representation of scientists from different countries in the editorial boards of the most influential journals from 48 fields of biomedical and clinical research was studied. Scientists from the USA were best represented, followed by scientists from the UK, FRG, Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Canada, The Netherlands and Italy. The scientifically most productive countries provided most of the editors. For Dutch editors a strong correlation was found between the number of editorships held and the number of papers authored or measures of scientific eminence. Conceivably, scientific productivity and eminence may be important reasons for being asked as an editor. However, national biases play a role too in the composition of editorial boards.     

A modified method for calculating the Impact Factors of journals in ISI Journal Citation Reports: Polymer Science Category in 1997–2001

This article introduces a new modified method for calculating the impact factor of journals based on the current ISI practice in generating journal impact factor values. The impact factor value for a journal calculated by the proposed method, the so-called Cited Half-Life Impact Factor (CHAL) method, which is based on the ratio of the number of current year citations of articles from the previous X years to that of articles published in the previous X years, the X value being equal to the value of the cited half-life of the journal in the current year. Thirty-four journals in the Polymer Science Category from the ISI Subject Heading Categories were selected and examined. Total citations, impact factors and cited half-life of the 34 journals during the last five years (1997-2001) were retrieved from the ISI Journal Citation Reports and were used as the data source for the calculations in this work, the impact factor values from ISI and CHAL methods then being compared. The positions of the journals ranked by impact factors obtained from the ISI method were different from those from the CHAL method. It was concluded that the CHAL method was more suitable for calculating the impact factor of the journals than the existing ISI method. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.