2 - Visibility, Credibility, Prestige: Evaluating the Implications of Indexing African Journals
Corresponding Author(s) : Elizabeth Le Roux
Africa Media Review,
Vol. 14 No. 1-2 (2006): Africa Media Review, Volume 14, n° 1 & 2, 2006
Abstract
Start-up problems for a journal include attracting authors and building initial readership, but challenges further down the line include building visibility and maintaining credibility. One of the key strategies in this regard is indexing. According to the literature, the main reasons for having a journal indexed or listed in an abstracting service relate to visibility, and to quality, in terms of credibility and prestige. In this paper, I will look at each of these in more detail. For concrete examples, I will draw upon my experience with indexing an interdisciplinary journal in the social sciences, Africa Insight, of which I am currently the editor. Our experience, in a nutshell, has been that getting the journal indexed does create more visibility, and that it certainly confers some credibility – but it has had little effect on the bottom-line of subscriptions and
sales.
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- Adomi, E. E. and Mordi, C., 2003, ‘Publication in Foreign Journals and Promotion of Academics in Nigeria’, Learned Publishing 16: 259–263.
- Garfield, E., 1997, ‘A Statistically Valid Definition of Bias is Needed to Determine Whether the Science Citation Index® Discriminates Against Third World Jour- nals’, Current Science 73(8).
- Ha, L., 2003, ‘The Economics of Scholarly Journals: A case study on a society- published journal’, Learned Publishing 16: 193–199.
- Index Medicus, n.d., ‘Fact Sheet Journal selection for Index Medicus/MEDLINE’, www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/jsel.html
- Kling, R. & McKim, G., 1999, ‘Scholarly Communication and the Continuum of electronic publishing’.
- Journal of the American Society for Information Sci- ence, 50(10): 890–960.
- Lee, Kirby P., Schotland, M., Bacchetti, P. and Bero, A.L., 2002, ‘Association of Journal Quality Indicators With Methodological Quality of Clinical Research Articles’, Journal of the American Medical Association 287:2805–2808.
- Nyamnjoh, F., 2004, ‘From Publish or Perish to Publish and Perish: What the “Africa’s 100 Best Books” tells us about publishing Africa’, Paper presented at the African Studies Association of the UK biennial conference, ‘Debating Africa?’, London, 13–15 September.
- Testa, J., 2002, ‘The ISI Database: The Journal Selection Process’, www.isinet.com.
References
Adomi, E. E. and Mordi, C., 2003, ‘Publication in Foreign Journals and Promotion of Academics in Nigeria’, Learned Publishing 16: 259–263.
Garfield, E., 1997, ‘A Statistically Valid Definition of Bias is Needed to Determine Whether the Science Citation Index® Discriminates Against Third World Jour- nals’, Current Science 73(8).
Ha, L., 2003, ‘The Economics of Scholarly Journals: A case study on a society- published journal’, Learned Publishing 16: 193–199.
Index Medicus, n.d., ‘Fact Sheet Journal selection for Index Medicus/MEDLINE’, www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/jsel.html
Kling, R. & McKim, G., 1999, ‘Scholarly Communication and the Continuum of electronic publishing’.
Journal of the American Society for Information Sci- ence, 50(10): 890–960.
Lee, Kirby P., Schotland, M., Bacchetti, P. and Bero, A.L., 2002, ‘Association of Journal Quality Indicators With Methodological Quality of Clinical Research Articles’, Journal of the American Medical Association 287:2805–2808.
Nyamnjoh, F., 2004, ‘From Publish or Perish to Publish and Perish: What the “Africa’s 100 Best Books” tells us about publishing Africa’, Paper presented at the African Studies Association of the UK biennial conference, ‘Debating Africa?’, London, 13–15 September.
Testa, J., 2002, ‘The ISI Database: The Journal Selection Process’, www.isinet.com.