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This paper investigates different uses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) in national journal rankings and discusses the merits of supplementing metrics with expert assessment. Our focus is national journal rankings used as evidence to support decisions about the distribution of institutional funding or career advancement. The seven countries under comparison are China, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Turkey—and the region of Flanders in Belgium. With the exception of Italy, top‐tier journals used in national rankings include those classified at the highest level, or according to tier, or points implemented. A total of 3,565 (75.8%) out of 4,701 unique top‐tier journals were identified as having a JIF, with 55.7% belonging to the first Journal Impact Factor quartile. Journal rankings in China, Flanders, Poland, and Turkey classify journals with a JIF as being top‐tier, but only when they are in the first quartile of the Average Journal Impact Factor Percentile. Journal rankings that result from expert assessment in Denmark, Finland, and Norway regularly classify journals as top‐tier outside the first quartile, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. We conclude that experts, when tasked with metric‐informed journal rankings, take into account quality dimensions that are not covered by JIFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate and detailed data recording is indispensable for documenting archeological projects and for subsequent information exchange. To prevent comprehension and accessibility issues in these cases, data infrastructures can be useful. The establishment of such data infrastructures requires a clear understanding of the business processes and information flows within the archeological domain. This study attempts to provide insights into how information is managed in Flemish archeological processes and how this management process can be enhanced: an exploratory study based on an analysis of the new Flemish Immovable Heritage Decree, informal interviews with Flemish archeological organizations, and the results of an international survey. Three main processes, in which certified archeologists and the Flemish Heritage agency are key actors, were identified. Multiple types of information, the majority of which contain a geographical component, are recorded, acquired, used, and exchanged. Geographical information systems ( GIS) and geodatabases therefore appear to be valuable components of an archeology-specific data infrastructure. This is of interest because GIS are widely adopted in archeology and multiple Flemish archeological organizations are in favor of a government-provided exchange standard or database templates for data recording. Furthermore, free and open source software is preferred to ensure cost efficiency and customizability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes coauthorship patterns in the social sciences and humanities ( SSH) for the period 2000 to 2010. The basis for the analysis is the Flemish Academic Bibliographic Database for the Social Sciences and Humanities ( VABB- SHW), a comprehensive bibliographic database of peer-reviewed publications in the SSH by researchers affiliated with Flemish universities. Combining data on journal articles and book chapters, our findings indicate that collaborative publishing in the SSH is increasing, though considerable differences between disciplines remain. Conversely, we did observe a sharp decline in single-author publishing. We further demonstrate that coauthored SSH articles in journals indexed in the Web of Science ( WoS) generally have a higher (and growing) number of coauthors than do either those in non- WoS journals or book chapters. This illustrates the need to include non- WoS data and book chapters when studying coauthorship in the SSH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]