DataSalon provide bespoke services to a number of publishers to meet specific data handling and analytical needs, and we were delighted when open-access publisher Hindawi chose us to help develop their new journal reports, which showcase a range of journal metrics about the different publishing services they provide for their journals. See an example report here.
Hindawi are taking bold steps to increase transparency in journal publishing by sharing more detailed metrics than ever before. By exposing more detailed data on their workflows – from submission through peer review to publication and beyond – they are giving researchers, partners, and funders a clearer view of what’s under the ‘journal hood’. They are also raising greater awareness of less talked-about services, such as how they are helping to make the publication process more equitable and published articles more accessible and discoverable.
The first phase of the new journal reports gives greater insight into acceptance rates and decision times, including the median peer review time and the median number of reviews per article. Alongside traditional metrics, such as citations and article views, the reports also display maps of the geographic distribution of authors, editors, and reviewers.
The final section demonstrates how Hindawi make articles more accessible and discoverable. It takes advantage of data from Crossref’s participation reports and includes the percentage of articles in the journal that are open access (i.e. 100%) and the proportion of corresponding authors with an ORCID ID. It also shows the extent to which abstracts and citations are open.
By sharing this information, Hindawi want to help researchers make better-informed decisions about where to publish, instead of them relying on limited and often problematic indicators, such as the Journal Impact Factor or the presence of a journal in a particular (and disproportionately western) database. They want to expose services that are becoming increasingly important for researchers practising Open Science, but which aren’t yet as valued as traditional indicators, such as machine readability, the openness of references and abstracts, and the use of persistent identifiers to ensure that different research outputs can be digitally connected.
The reports are publicly available through Hindawi.com from each journal’s main page by following the ‘see full report’ link underneath the journal metrics.
This blog post was based on Hindawi’s recent blog post about the launch of the new journal reports.
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