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Knowledge pertaining to scholarly publishing is not limited to information held within academic papers, and within a complex publishing environment that is in constant flux due to challenges and threats, there is interest in knowing how journals are adjusting to these parameters. The Internet Archive is a free and easy way to archive information that is found on websites. We recently argued for its use in the archival of website-based citations, and expand those arguments herein to focus on the importance to archive journal editorial boards, for three reasons: first, journals might not have any formal mechanisms to register changes in the editorial constitution of the board; second, there is historical importance in appreciating changes to editorial board constituency, including changes to gender representation; and third, changes might be made opaquely to hide or masquerade information that is intricately linked to the historical aspect of that journal. Our interest is thus not only within a historical prism, but also from a bibliometric point of view, given that the editorial board defines—to some extent—the journal's content by serving as its gatekeepers of quality. We attempted to archive the editorial board pages of 46 journal editorial board URLs, achieving 100% mementos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable efforts and resources are invested by scholarly publishers to advance and promote their journals. These efforts take the form of strategic planning and employed content and publisher editors who provide preprint and post-print assistance to editorial boards, to enhance discoverability and viewership of their journals. However, the effects of these investments are not evaluated, as most assess journals as standalone entities often based on citation metrics. This work aims to quantify the competence of scholarly publishers using a novel metric. The proposed metric, coined as scholarly engagement, is based on a citation-to-view ratio (CVR) garnered by the journals' articles. The selection of journals takes into consideration broad spectra of journal position across different categories, ranks and timeline. The evaluation uses more than 298,000 articles published in the past ten years. Our quantitative study demonstrates robustness of the proposed metric and its ability to distinguish scholarly publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publishing papers in good journals is important for researchers' reputation and career. This paper aims to investigate the perceptions of early-career researchers (ECRs) and mid-career researchers (MCRs) on the factors and attributes that make a good scholarly journal. Data were obtained from 488 Vietnamese researchers using survey method. Descriptive analysis of the survey data demonstrates that the majority of the researchers believe that a good scholarly journal is from well-known publishers and indexed in Web of Science or Scopus. Also, such a journal has good impact factor, high rank, outstanding editors and editorial board members as well as publishes articles written by famous researchers. Comparative analysis reveals that ECRs have stronger beliefs that a good journal has simple submission procedure and is responsive to authors' queries, whilst MCRs show greater beliefs that a quality journal has good indices measuring its impact and high rank. These findings have several implications for key stakeholders including publishers and editors in the development and marketing of their journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editors have very complex tasks and high responsibilities. In general, they are chosen leaders and experts in a field of study. Thus, they are expected to lead a sector of that scientific community, and their function is to serve as gate-keepers of the quality of submissions to journals whose editorial boards they serve because of their ethical and professional image, and positive and open engagement with their peers. Publishing a scientific paper can be an arduous task and in some cases a lengthy one. However, any delay in this process not only serves as a form of stress for authors, it may also disadvantage them by giving their competition an unfair advantage with a head start in the publishing rat race. Consequently, editors who oversee a process that takes an excessive or unreasonable amount of time should be held accountable. In this paper, we propose some suggested time limits for each stage of the publishing process. These should be carefully monitored by the editors, in close collaboration with the publisher, to ensure a fair and timely process that is realistic and reasonable. With clearer guidelines, authors can thus reduce their stress levels by knowing when to expect decisions, and can thus make their journal selection by keeping such factors in mind, and thus hedge their risks and better manage their time. Authors who wait almost indefinitely, or for excessively long periods of time, are victims of a lack of professionalism. Furthermore, editors who fail to communicate delays, effectively or at all, or who fail to offer any sufficient or heartfelt apology should be characterized as acting with professional negligence, if not misconduct. Only when the rules of engagement are fair, strict, clear and well defined can authors expect the publishing system to progress smoothly and professionally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having found a business opportunity in exploiting the open access publishing model, predatory journals and publishers have been spamming authors with emails, inviting them to submit articles for publication. Authors may be misled by the names of prestigious authors and editors that predatory journals and publishers use to advertise their publishing services, either by claims that those scientists serve on the editorial boards or by sending invitations in their names. Given the fact that detailed knowledge of a journal is required to make an informed decision of whether the inviting journal is predatory or not, junior scientists are not likely to possess the knowledge or skill to make such decisions. In addition, analysis of the details of new suspicious journals and publishers can be a lengthy process or even a waste of time. Therefore, in this paper, we provide an analysis of a likely scenario that many authors are facing nowadays when they take on the difficult task of studying the details of suspicious journals as possible venues for the publication of their research findings. The analysis takes the form of an analysis of the Kenkyu Publishing Group, which is listed on Jeffrey Beall's list of 'predatory' open access publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Print academic journals are dead. As we watch large metropolitan newspapers fail (as are many small town newspapers), the same economic forces are driving online scholarly publishing. This phenomenon is more than print journals going online. The options available with new low-cost online publishing software and the rise in the ability to use ratings from user generated content suggest more near-term changes are likely. Many of the outcomes are unsettled: the economics of online publishing; the standards for peer review, rank, and tenure; and the very nature of scholarly publishing itself. What is certain, however, is that the economics of online academic publishing—modeled via Anderson’s Long Tail Theory—will make it possible to provide greater access, more collaboration, and, ultimately, improved research and researchers. Universities acting as publishing centers with their e-reserves will be expected to change their faculty evaluations, providing greater academic rewards for those who act as editors, reviewers, and proofreaders within this new born-online and only-online world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]