Introduction
On the basis of more than 10 years of experience in the processes of dissemination and parameterisation of science, the Index Copernicus team took the initiative to investigate the actual impact of all currently operating national scientific journals.
The need for this project is justified by the fact that competitive solutions already available on the market set impact indicators for only 15% of Polish periodicals, which means that the rest of entities are deprived of the possibility to participate in the process of scientific development.
Thus, we would like the global brand of Polish science – the ICI World of Journals database to become a source of information on citations of Polish journals – data indispensable for creating a long-term development strategy for the editorial office of each scientific journal. Thanks to the implementation of this objective, it will be possible to carry out systematic evaluation of publication activities and broaden knowledge on the effectiveness of the publishing policy.
The project was positively evaluated by the Experts of the Ministry of Development, who granted funding for the creation of the Index Copernicus Research and Development Centre, whose first project on the research agenda is the CiteIndex project. At the end of 2020, experts from ICI prepared a report on research and development work aimed at determining whether the scientific community has a need for a standardised bibliometric index for determining the impact of all business objects participating in the creation of science and whether the bibliometric indices already functioning on the market sufficiently meet the needs of the scientific community in the context of having reliable and authoritative valuable indicators of the impact of all business objects participating in the creation of science.
Accordingly, by autumn 2021:
- we will determine impact indicators for Polish scientific journals, including the Hirsch Index and the 3-year CiteIndex,
- We will prepare analytical applications and citation reports presenting information on, among others, countries, journals and scientists citing given publications,
and, in the future, we will extend the scope of the project to include scientific journals from other countries.
The results of the project – a list of Polish scientific journals together with citation indices will be presented to the appropriate bodies of the Ministry of Education and Science (Commission for the Evaluation of Science) together with recommendations to supplement the current list of scored journals. Use of the presented project results is at the discretion of the Minister.
Subject of the project
Do jesieni 2021 r. zbadamy siłę oddziaływania polskich czasopism naukowych, a tym samym, wyznaczymy wskaźniki cytowań dla każdego periodyku biorącego udział w projekcie – indeksu Hirscha za rok 2020 oraz 3 letniego Współczynnika Wpływu CiteIndex. Połączenie specyfiki obu wskaźników pozwoli na zmierzenie średniej cytowalności publikowanych w czasopiśmie artykułów (CiteIndex) oraz poziomu dbałości Redakcji o dobór i cytowalność wszystkich publikowanych prac (indeks Hirscha) w oparciu o obiektywne i transparentne mierniki.
Tools
We will achieve the above objectives by:
- gathering in the ICI World of Journals database data on the content of individual editions of Polish scientific journals published in 2017-2020 (article metadata, i.e. titles, abstracts, keywords, authors with affiliations, appendix bibliography),
- Citation counts of 2017-2019 publications in 2020 publications from a closed, defined list of scientific journals.
The used technology for resolving citations (references) between scientific publications was based on a unique mechanism of three-layer citation resolution (machine, process and community). It consists in the unambiguous identification of business objects (publication, journal, author), which are referred to by scientists in their works by citing them in the appendix bibliography. Thanks to the inclusion of social tools, it will be possible to subject resolved citations to (controlled) correction by journal editors, which will translate into a significant increase in data quality and at the same time help build social control over the indicators used in the process of parameterisation of science.
Results
Thanks to the proposed solutions:
- journals not covered by analyses in international databases will receive, for the first time since their inception, reliable citation information for their publications,
- The reports and analytical applications made available will allow collaboration with researchers citing published work,
- the publication output of Polish journals will become available to the international scientific community – the ICI World of Journals database is used monthly by nearly 60,000 users from 188 countries,
- it will be possible to determine the impact of a journal in the Excellence model, i.e. to determine a value judgement by scientific discipline and geographical coverage,
- journal rankings will be created to serve as a basis for creating a strategy for the development of this sector of science,
- will increase the level of development of bibliometric science in the country as well as internationally