Just as an index is a list of items put together for a specific purpose, journal indexing is the process of listing journals, organized by discipline, type of publication, region, etc. Journal indexes are also known as bibliographic or citation indexes. The online discovery of research articles relies heavily on journal indexing. And so, researchers and journals alike must know the types of journal indexing to get the best out of it.
What is journal indexing and how does it work?
Journal indexing in research serves as a guide for relevant scholarly content and seeks to make the information widely available and easy to access. It can function as an information retrieval tool for libraries and archives. Journal indexing allows users to familiarize themselves with an article and decide if they want to read it further.
The process of inclusion in a journal index involves scrutiny and assessment to ensure that a journal meets basic scholarly publishing standards. A journal applies to a relevant journal indexing service, requesting its integration in their database. The journal indexing service will follow a thorough vetting process for industry standards, some of which are as follows:
- Scope of the journal (especially if the index is subject specific)
- Registration of its International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- Commitment to a publishing schedule
- Provision of transparent Editorial Board information
- Provision of information on peer review, copyrights, ethics, etc.
- Digital object identifiers (DOIs)
- Basic article-level metadata (persistent identifiers, copyright licenses, open abstracts, etc.).
Once the evaluation is complete and the journal is indexed by a database, it becomes available to the users of that journal indexing database.
Types of indexing in journals
There are many rich options for researchers to tap into during their literature search. To understand these options better, let’s take a look at the types of indexing in journals and how journal indexing databases can be classified.
Specificity
Broad or general indexes are, as the name indicates, broad in scope and coverage. Examples of such indexing databases in research are Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Scopus, and Web of Science.
Free search engines like Google Scholar also fall in this category. Google Scholar indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across the breadth of disciplines and publishing formats. This is where a researcher typically launches preliminary searches before a deep dive into specialized indexes.
Specialized indexes are indexes specific to certain fields or subject areas. Examples of specialized indexes are Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), which includes mainly science and technology journals; PubMed, which contains mostly biomedical journals; and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, which includes mostly arts and humanities journals.
Geographical coverage
While indexes like Web of Science include journals from many countries, some are specific to a country or region, e.g., Korean Citation Index.
Access
Many journal indexing databases are free and open to the public (e.g., Web of Science Master Journal List), while some are subscription based. Journals in subscription-based indexes are generally considered higher in status, perhaps because of the stronger assessment for inclusion in such journal indexing databases. However, their access would be limited to subscribers only.
What is indexed
Different indexes even provide different levels of “discovery potential.” Some databases index article titles, abstracts, and references, whereas some index the full article. It is obvious that journal indexes offering more article information or full text will have a higher potential for discovery.
Journal indexing and the importance of indexing in research
Now that it is clear that there are so many indexing databases in research to choose from, how can users maximize their benefits?
For researchers: at the literature search stage
Researchers can search a list of journal indexing databases to find studies on specific topics. You can search for specific journals and even browse by subject or database. Journal indexes also help you save time because they simplify the search for relevant information.
For researchers: at the journal selection stage
As an author, publishing in an indexed journal increases the visibility and credibility of your work. Most institutions and funders require publications to appear in indexed journals. Many high-quality and high-impact journals are indexed in multiple databases. If you want to know where all your target journal is indexed, go to the “About the journal” section on a journal’s website. You might find an “Abstracting & Indexing” tab, under which you can view a list of journal indexing databases the journal appears in.
For journals/publishers
Being indexed in several well-known bibliographic databases points to the quality of a journal. Moreover, journal indexing makes a journal accessible to a wide audience. This increases its visibility and translates into better reach and impact of the journal, which boosts its reputation and sets the ball rolling for an even wider readership. Journals can also benefit from being added to general search engines, besides scholarly databases, to make their articles highly discoverable.
Concluding notes
Indexed journals are reliable sources of high-quality research. They can be used for efficient literature searches. Further, when choosing where to publish, authors should prioritize journals that are indexed in several general and specialized indexes to improve the visibility and impact of their work.
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