research article index

What Is a Journal Index, and Why is Indexation Important?

• Research Process
• Peer Review

A journal index, or a list of journals organized by discipline, subject, region and other factors, can be used by other researchers to search for studies and data on certain topics. As an author, publishing your research in an indexed journal increases the credibility and visibility of your work. Here we help you to understand journal indexing better - as well as benefit from it.

Updated on May 13, 2022

A journal index, also called a ‘bibliographic index' or ‘bibliographic database', is a list of journals organized by discipline, subject, region or other factors.

Journal indexes can be used to search for studies and data on certain topics. Both scholars and the general public can search journal indexes.

Journals in indexes have been reviewed to ensure they meet certain criteria. These criteria may include:

• Ethics and peer review policies
• Assessment criteria for submitted articles
• Editorial board transparency

What is a journal index?

Indexed journals are important, because they are often considered to be of higher scientific quality than non-indexed journals. You should aim for publication in an indexed journal for this reason. AJE's Journal Guide journal selection tool can help you find one.

Journal indexes are created by different organizations, such as:

• Public bodies- For example, PubMed is maintained by the United States National Library of Medicine. PubMed is the largest index for biomedical publications.
• Analytic companies- For example: the Web of Science Core Collection is maintained by Clarivate Analytics. The WOS Core Collection includes journals indexed in the following sub-indexes: (1) Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE); (2) Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI); (3) Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI); (4) Emerging Sources Citation Index.
• Publishers- For example, Scopus is owned by Elsevier and maintained by the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board . Scopus includes journals in all disciplines, but the majority are science and technology journals.

Key types of journal indexes

You can choose from a range of journal indexes. Some are broad and are considered “general indexes”. Others are specific to certain fields and are considered “specialized indexes”.

For example:

• The Science Citation Index Expanded includes mostly science and technology journals
• The Arts & Humanities Citation Index includes mostly arts and humanities journals
• PubMed includes mostly biomedical journals
• The Emerging Sources Citation Index includes journals in all disciplines

Which index you choose will depend on your research subject area.

Some indexes, such as Web of Science , include journals from many countries. Others, such as the Chinese Academy of Science indexing system , are specific to certain countries or regions.

Choosing the type of index may depend on factors such as university or grant requirements.

Some indexes are open to the public, while others require a subscription. Many people searching for research papers will start with free search engines, such as Google Scholar , or free journal indexes, such as the Web of Science Master Journal List . Publishing in a journal in one or more free indexes increases the chance of your article being seen.

Journals in subscription-based indexes are generally considered high-quality journals. If the status of the journal is important, choose a journal in one or more subscription-based indexes.

Most journals belong to more than one index. To improve the visibility and impact of your article, choose a journal featured in multiple indexes.

How does journal indexing work?

All journals are checked for certain criteria before being added to an index. Each index has its own set of rules, but basic publishing standards include the following:

• An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). ISSNs are unique to each journal and indicate that the journal publishes issues on a recurring basis.
• An established publishing schedule.
• Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) . DOIs are unique letter/number codes assigned to digital objects. The benefit of a DOI is that it will never change, unlike a website link.
• Copyright requirements. A copyright policy helps protect your work and outlines the rules for the use or sharing of your work, whether it's copyrighted or has some form of creative commons licensing .
• Other requirements can include conflict of interest statements, ethical approval statements, an editorial board listed on the website, and published peer review policies.

To be included in an index, a journal must submit an application and undergo an audit by the indexation board. Index board members (called auditors) will confirm certain information, such as the full listing of the editorial board on the website, the inclusion of ethics statements in published articles, established appeal and retraction processes, and more.

Why is journal indexing important?

As an author, publishing your research in an indexed journal increases the credibility and visibility of your work. Indexed journals are generally considered to be of higher scientific quality than non-indexed journals.

With the growth of fully open access journals and online-only journals, recognizing “predatory” journals and their publishers has become difficult. Indexing a journal in one or more well-known databases is a good sign the journal is credible.

Moreover, more and more institutions are requiring publication in an indexed journal as a requirement for graduation, promotion, or grant funding.

As an author, it is important to ensure that your research is seen by as many eyes as possible. Index databases are often the first places scholars and the public will search for specific information. Publishing a paper in a non-indexed journal could be harmful in this context.

However, there are some exceptions, such as medical case reports.

Many journals don't accept medical case reports because they don't have high citation rates. However, several primary and secondary journals have been created specifically for case reports. Examples include the primary journal, BMC Medical Case Reports, and the secondary journal, European Heart Journal - Case Reports.

While many of these journals are indexed, they may not be indexed in the major indexes, though they are still highly acceptable journals.

Open access and indexation

With the recent increase in open access publishing, many journals have started offering an open access option. Other journals are completely open access, meaning they do not offer a traditional subscription service.

Open access journals have many benefits, such as:

• High visibility. Anyone can access and read your paper.
• Publication speed. It is generally quicker to post an article online than to publish it in a traditional journal format.

Identifying credible open access journals

Open access has made it easier for predatory journal publishers to attract unsuspecting or new authors. These predatory journal publishers often publish any article for a fee without peer review and with questionable ethical and copyright policies. Here we show you eight ways to spot predatory open access journals .

One way to identify credible open access journals is their index status. However, be aware that some predatory journals will falsely list indexes or display logos on their website. It is good practice to make sure the journal is indexed on the index's website before submitting your article to that journal.

Major journal indexing services

There are several journal indexes out there. Some of the most popular indexes are as follows:

Life Sciences and Hard Sciences

• Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) Master Journal List
• Engineering Index
• Web of Science (now published by Clarivate Analytics, formerly by ISI and Thomson Reuters)
• Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Humanities and Social Sciences

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) Master Journal List
• Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) Master Journal List

Indexation and impact factors

It is easy to assume that indexed journals will have higher impact factors, but indexation and impact factor are unrelated.

Many credible journals don't have impact factors, but they are indexed in several well-known indexes. Therefore, the lack of an impact factor may not accurately represent the credibility of a journal.

Of course, impact factors may be important for other reasons, such as institutional requirements or grant funding. Read this authoritative piece on the uses, importance, and limitations of impact factors .

Final Thoughts

Selecting an indexed journal is an important part of the publication journey. Indexation can tell you a lot about a journal. Publishing in an indexed journal can increase the visibility and credibility of your research. If you're having trouble selecting a journal for publication, consider learning more about AJE's journal recommendation service .

Catherine Zettel Nalen, MS

Academic Editor, Specialist, and Journal Recommendation Team Lead

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Chapter 2: Locating information

2.8 Articles and databases

Quick Search is the best place to start your research if books or book chapters are what you need. Quick Search can help find some articles; however, if you find you need more results or highly specialized articles, the library has other tools that may be more effective.

When you need to find a comprehensive set of articles on your topic, the most efficient finding tool to use is an article index. In the context of scholarly research, an index is an article finding tool, rather than a list of topics and page numbers in the back of a book. Article indexes (sometimes referred to as databases ) help you identify and find articles on your topic. An article index allows you to search for your topic in hundreds of journals at once, so using an index is a huge time saver when you don’t have one specific journal in mind. Some indexes also cover magazines, newspapers, book chapters, conference presentations, dissertations, or other materials.

Which index should you choose?

The ISU Library subscribes to hundreds of article indexes providing access to articles. Each index is different in terms of:

• subject(s) covered
• types of materials included
• whether materials are peer-reviewed
• whether abstracts (brief summaries of content) or full-text materials are provided
• dates included
• languages included
• overall design and search options

Features of article indexes

Indexes provide a variety of robust advanced search features to help researchers focus their searches. You can typically select, sort, and download articles or article abstracts. For scholarly research, indexes tend to be either general purpose or subject-focused.

Strengths and weaknesses of indexes

• The best finding tool for locating scholarly articles
• Provide many robust search features that give you control over your searches
• Provide a list of what subjects and dates are covered
• Provide a list of which journals and conference publications may be found within
• Connect directly to full-text articles
• Subject-specific indexes cover an extensive set of journal articles and other materials focused on a subject area
• Often too specific for finding general or background information
• Interfaces may be clunky or not compatible with mobile devices
• May not include the full text of articles

Library 160: Introduction to College-Level Research Copyright © 2021 by Iowa State University Library Instruction Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Guide to academic journal indexing: Where, when, and how to get indexed

Researchers overwhelmingly rely on scholarly indexes to find vetted academic content online. So to develop and improve the reputation and discoverability of any journal, getting it added to trusted abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases is essential.

Most journal publishers and editors know this, but how to go about seeking inclusion in indexes isn’t always as clear.

Which indexes should you add your journal articles to? What are the indexing criteria you’ll need to fulfill? When should you apply for target indexes? In what order? And how can you keep improving your content discoverability once admitted to indexes?

In this blog post, we answer these common indexing questions and more, covering everything you need to know to initiate and keep building upon a successful journal indexing strategy. Feel free to use the section links below to skip ahead based on where you are in your indexing journey.

Getting started: Understanding academic journal indexes

Key journal index types to consider and the benefits of each, how to develop an indexing strategy for one or more titles, key journal indexing criteria, navigating the journal indexing application process, tips for optimizing your article indexing outcomes, putting it all together.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of indexing, let’s start with some basics. What are journal indexes? Or, more specifically, how are we defining journal indexes for the purposes of this blog post?

Per this Walden University Library guide :

“An index is a list of items pulled together for a purpose. Journal indexes (also called bibliographic indexes or bibliographic databases) are lists of journals, organized by discipline, subject, or type of publication.”

Of course, mainstream search engines like Google and Bing also index content, but they do not fit the definition of an academic journal index. So we won’t get into them here.

However, with that said, many scholars use mainstream search engines in their research and want to know that their articles will be discoverable from them. So don’t forget to prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) with scholarly indexing. We cover everything you need to know about journal SEO for mainstream and academic search engines in this blog post .

Now, on to the primary types of academic journal indexes to consider (per the definition above).

Before embarking on any journal indexing initiative, we recommend developing a target list of the indexes you’d like your journal or journals to be part of to get a bird’s-eye view of your ultimate goal. The more quality indexes you identify, the better, as inclusion in multiple indexes will help expand your articles’ reach and potential impacts while boosting the reputation of your journal(s).

From there, you can map out an indexing strategy based on your discovery goals and the specific criteria of the indexes you’re interested in ( more on how to do this later ). For example, Scopus requires journals to have a 2+ year publication history. So if you’re working with a new journal, you’ll logistically have to wait for at least two years before applying to that index, whereas; you’ll be able to seek inclusion in other indexes like Google Scholar sooner.

Below we outline the index types to consider and the benefits of each.

Scholarly search engines and aggregators

One of the best starting points for journal indexing is scholarly search engines and aggregators, many of which are freely available to researchers and the general public and often have less stringent inclusion criteria with regard to publication history, citation counts, and so forth.

The top academic search engine to focus on is Google Scholar , Google’s free crawler-based academic index. You can find our complete guide to Google Scholar indexing here . We also cover how to improve your chances of showing up higher in Google Scholar search results in our guide to journal SEO . You may have also heard of the Microsoft Academic search engine, but that was discontinued in December 2021.

Scholarly aggregator options with search functionality include Semantic Scholar , Dimensions , Lens , and CORE . Aggregators like these pull in content from other trusted academic databases, with the Crossref content registration agency being a prime source. So one of the best starting points for getting a new journal indexed is applying for Crossref membership and registering Digital Object Identifiers or DOIs for all the articles you publish. We cover how to apply for DOIs here and how to leverage the discovery benefits of Crossref in this webinar .

Registering DOIs for all articles is among the most common indexing application requirements, as discussed below. So it’s a good idea to apply for DOIs early on for new journals.

General scholarly archiving and indexing databases

In addition to getting indexed in scholarly search engines and aggregators, you’ll obviously want to seek inclusion in dedicated academic indexing databases, also known as abstracting and indexing databases or A&Is. You can apply to add your journal(s) to indexing databases that cover multiple disciplines as well as discipline-specific or “specialized” A&Is.

Many aggregators also ingest content directly from partner A&Is or require journals to be admitted to specific A&Is before being eligible to be included in their search results as a means of quality control, so applying to A&Is can help your articles appear in aggregator search results as well. For example, Semantic Scholar only indexes journals already in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) free scholarly search engine PubMed pulls in all of its content from the NIH’s archiving and indexing databases MEDLINE and PubMed Central (PMC). So to be included in PubMed search, journals must be accepted to one of those databases first. You can learn more about the relationship between the NIH’s databases and how to apply to PMC and/or MEDLINE to be added to PubMed Search in this blog post .

There will be myriad indexing options for every journal, ranging from government and institutional indexes to commercial indexes run by publishers and data analytics companies. We obviously can’t cover every possible index in this blog post. But we’ve done our best to compile a list of some of the most widely-used and reputable general scholarly A&Is below (we cover top discipline-specific A&Is in the next section):

• The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): The DOAJ is a non-profit community-curated online directory of peer-reviewed open-access journals. If you’re jumpstarting indexing for a new OA journal, we recommend beginning with the DOAJ because it’s a trusted OA index that various scholarly aggregators use as a data source. We compiled a complete guide to DOAJ indexing here . The DOAJ is a free-access index.
• Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory : Ulrich’s is a leading library directory and database with information about academic journals and serial publications around the world that is part of Clarivate. Ulrich’s is a subscription-access index.
• Scopus : Scopus is Elsevier’s abstract and citation database. It covers over 36,000 titles, spanning the life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and health sciences. You can read our guide to Scopus indexing here and a case study with the editors of Precision Nanomedicine , a Scholastica customer, about their experience getting indexed in Scopus here . Scopus is a subscription-access index.
• Web of Science : WoS is Clarivate’s abstract and citation database. Its Core Collection encompasses six citation indexes in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities and collectively contains more than a billion searchable citations spanning over 250 disciplines. We compiled a complete guide to WoS indexing here . WoS is a subscription-access index.
• EBSCO Information Services : EBSCO is a commercial index and aggregator that includes titles compiled by the company and journals from other databases, such as MEDLINE . EBSCO is a subscription-access index.
• JSTOR : JSTOR is a digital library database that covers over 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. They are best known for hosting digitized content from journal back files, books, and other resources. They now publish journals willing to host articles solely on the JSTOR platform.
• SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) : SciELO is a bibliographic database, digital library, and cooperative electronic publishing model for OA journals created to support the publication and increase the visibility of OA research in developing countries. SciELO is a free-access index.
• Cabell’s : This last one is a little different. Rather than being an index readers use to find content, Cabell’s is a directory researchers use to determine which journals will be the best fit to publish in. Of course, attracting more high-quality submissions can also help journals expand their impact and reach, so it’s a good idea to pursue Cabell’s indexing. Cabell’s is a subscription-access index.

Discipline-specific or “specialized” indexes and search engines

Of course, the discipline-specific indexes you choose to apply to will depend on the subject area(s) your journals cover. If you’re unsure which indexes are the most widely used in a given journal’s discipline or across interdisciplinary areas, start to ask around. Query your authors, editors, reviewers, and readers to learn which discipline-specific databases they use.

There are many discipline-specific databases out there to look into. And some broader databases contain discipline-specific segments. For example, the Web of Science Core Collection includes the Science Citation Index Expanded , Social Sciences Citation Index , and Arts & Humanities Citation Index .

Other top discipline-specific or “specialized” indexes include the ones listed below.

STEM journals:

• PubMed Central (PMC): PMC is a digital repository that archives OA full-text articles published in biomedical and life sciences journals. PMC is a free-access index with search functionality. PubMed aggregates articles from PMC. So Applying to PMC is the fastest way to be included in PubMed Search, as explained in this guide .
• MEDLINE : This is the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical research. MEDLINE is a free-access index searchable via PubMed.
• PsycInfo : PsycInfo is the American Psychological Association’s abstracting and indexing database, with over three million records of peer-reviewed literature in the behavioral sciences and mental health fields. PsycInfo is a subscription-access index.
• MathSciNet : MathSciNet is the American Mathematical Society’s searchable online bibliographic database containing over three million records of peer-reviewed literature. It is a subscription-access index.

Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) journals:

• Project MUSE : MUSE is an index of humanities and social sciences content, including journals, which only indexes content published by a not-for-profit press or scholarly society.
• MLA Directory of Periodicals : This is a searchable list of publication information about the journals included in the MLA International Bibliography.
• EconLit : The American Economic Association’s A&I focused on literature in the field of economics.

For more journal indexing options, check out Wikipedia’s list here and Nature’s list of indexes that their journals are part of here . The University of Miami Library also has a comprehensive list of indexes here .

Pro Tip: As a rule of thumb, if your journal is an OA publication, it’s a good idea to make getting added to the DOAJ a priority. The DOAJ is one of the top general indexing databases in terms of use and reputability that journals can usually apply for relatively early in their publication life. With over 12,000 journal members, over 1.2 million visitors a month, and a continually updating stream of journal metadata ingested by leading discovery services across disciplines, the DOAJ is a powerful platform for journal awareness.

Once you know the indexes you want to pursue, it’s time to map out your indexing strategy. Indexes will have varying levels of inclusion criteria (e.g., publication and technical standards journals must fulfill), so it’s a good idea to make a gradual indexing plan. Start with low-hanging fruit indexes that you can have your journal(s) added to early on, and then build up to more selective cross-discipline and discipline-specific/“specialized” scholarly databases such as Scopus and MEDLINE.

Of course, the more highly vetted an index is, the more trustworthy it will be to scholars. So journals should keep working to apply to more stringent databases as they mature and become eligible. Don’t just stop at a few!

When weighing your indexing options, consider the level of article discovery benefits different indexes will offer. For example, some databases only index article titles, abstracts, and/or references. Whereas some index entire article files. Generally, indexes that ingest more article details or the full text will be better for expanding content discoverability since they’ll have more information to go off of when deciding if and when to show your articles in search results. They also offer a more direct search experience for researchers.

As seen in the previous section, indexes also offer different levels of accessibility, with some being freely available to anyone interested in searching them, like Google Scholar and PubMed search, and others requiring a subscription, like Scopus and Web of Science. For open access (OA) journals especially, ensuring articles are easy to find via free online indexes, not just subscription databases, is paramount to maximizing content accessibility.

Pro Tip: When developing your indexing strategy, don’t forget to account for application review timelines. While some indexes review journals on a rolling basis, others only review applications at certain times throughout the year. So that will also factor into when you’ll be eligible for different indexes.

As you’re considering possible indexes to apply to, you’ll obviously want to start by visiting their application requirements pages and reading them thoroughly. Doing a quick Google search for “[index name] application criteria” or “how to get indexed in [index name]” will usually get you there. If you’re having trouble finding an index’s application criteria, you can also always visit their help/contact page to find a support email to write to for guidance.

Now, onto indexing application criteria journals should fulfill.

As noted, reputable scholarly search engines, aggregators, and A&Is have admittance standards and often require journals to undergo an application process before being eligible for inclusion.

Here, we cover the most common indexing application criteria moving from basics to more stringent requirements. These are all publishing best practices, so you should aim to fulfill them regardless of which indexes you decide to pursue.

Publication standards

Starting with publication standards (e.g., journal details, editorial policies, etc.), in good news, many requirements will essentially be the same across scholarly indexes. Some of the most common publication criteria include that all journals should have:

• An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
• Digital Object Identifiers or DOIs for all articles ( Crossref is the leading DOI registration agency for journals)
• A dedicated editorial board page with the names, titles, and institutional affiliations of all editors
• Clearly stated peer review policies , including an overview of the journal’s peer review process (e.g., type, stages of review) and statements on publication ethics
• An established publishing schedule (e.g., bi-monthly, rolling)
• An established copyright policy (e.g., CC BY for fully OA journals)

From there, indexes may have more specific additional guidelines. For example, some indexes require journals, particularly those that publish online only, to show that their articles are being added to an archive (this is also a general best practice !). Other specific indexing requirements may include guidelines around:

• Publication scope: While many indexes accept journals in all disciplines or within a broad set of disciplinary areas, such as the humanities and social sciences, some only accept journals that publish within a particular subject area.
• Minimum publication history: Some indexes require publishers and/or journals to be around for a minimum amount of time before applying. For example, MEDLINE only accepts applications from organizations that have published scholarly content for two years or more.
• Level of publishing professionalization: Some indexes also look at the readability of published articles (e.g., level of editing) and production quality.
• Geographic diversity: Some indexes look to see that journals have geographically diverse editorial boards and authors.
• Adequate citations: Some indexes will not accept journals until they meet a certain citation-level threshold to demonstrate impact.

Technical requirements

In addition to publication standards like those outlined above, many scholarly search engines, aggregators, and indexes require or encourage journals to meet specific technical criteria for content ingestion.

First, it’s helpful to understand the three main ways scholarly search engines, aggregators, and A&Is ingest content:

• Web crawlers: Some scholarly search engines like Google Scholar index journal articles via web crawlers or bots that systematically scan websites for content. For crawlers to be able to find and index articles, publishers must apply machine-readable metadata to all article pages via HTML meta tags and maintain a website structure that complies with the search engine’s requirements. For example, Google Scholar will only index articles hosted on their own webpage with HTML meta tags. You can learn more about Google Scholar’s technical inclusion criteria here .
• Metadata/content deposits: Many indexes do not have web crawlers and instead require content deposits. In this case, publishers must submit article-level metadata and/or full-text article files to the index. Some indexes have forms for making manual metadata deposits. However, many require journals to directly deposit machine-readable metadata and/or full-text article files into the index via an FTP server or API integration. Making machine-readable metadata/article deposits is also a best practice because machine-readable metadata files are generally richer, more uniform, and less prone to inaccuracies than metadata input manually. JATS XML is the standard machine-readable format for journal metadata/article files. JATS, which was developed by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), stands for Journal Article Tag Suite.
• Cascading metadata: As noted above, some scholarly aggregators automatically ingest content from other trusted academic databases such as the Crossref content registration service and DOAJ index.

At a minimum, journals should aim to produce front-matter JATS XML article-level metadata files that include:

• Journal publisher
• Journal issue details (e.g., publication date and volume/issue number)
• Journal title
• Article title
• Author names
• Copyright license
• Persistent Identifiers or PIDs (e.g., Digital Object Identifier, ORCID iD, ROR ID)

Once journals have the above core metadata fields, they can work to continue enriching their metadata outputs. We cover five elements of “richer” metadata to prioritize in this blog post .

Some databases also require full-text XML article files like PMC, which has specific JATS XML formatting guidelines.

We cover JATS XML 101 in this blog post and the what, why, and how of producing JATS XML in this webinar .

Producing XML in the JATS standard can get quite technical, but thankfully, there are software and services that can help. For example, Scholastica’s digital-first production service generates full-text JATS XML articles with rich metadata, and our fully-OA journal publishing platform features JATS XML metadata on all article pages.

From publication standards to technical requirements, most indexing criteria will be straightforward in nature. But fulfilling them will require a high level of attention to detail. That’s why, in all of your indexing endeavors, it’s so so so important to take your time!

Read indexing applications carefully, then re-read them again — we can’t emphasize this enough. And if you’re already in one index, don’t assume the criteria will be the same for the others. You’ll need to account for variables, big and small.

Also, if you have to update or add information to your journal website to fulfill indexing criteria, be sure to do so in all relevant places and to make required indexing information as specific and explicit as possible. For example, you don’t want your DOAJ application denied because you have missing or inconsistent copyright information on one of your website pages. (Yes, one page can make or break an application!).

Of course, it’s not the end of the world if an index denies your application! All indexes will allow you to reapply. But many require a waiting period for re-application (e.g., the DOAJ has a 6-month wait), so it pays to take some extra time to get your application right on the first round.

If you’re unsure whether one of your journals meets the criteria for a particular database, you can visit their website or contact their support staff to find out what you need to do to be eligible. Another great indexing resource is university libraries. Reach out to scholarly communication or subject-specific librarians to find out what they recommend. Many libraries are well-versed in helping journals get indexed.

A good indexing strategy extends beyond your initial application. Once admitted to indexes, adhering to the highest technical standards is critical to maximizing their discovery benefits.

Start by focusing on producing and enriching machine-readable article-level metadata to have more article details to send to indexes. That means including descriptive HTML meta tags on article website pages for crawler-based search engines and producing rich machine-readable metadata files for deposit-based A&Is. As noted, the machine-readable format standard for academic journals is JATS XML. JATS is preferred or required by many academic indexes, including all National Library of Medicine indexes (i.e., PubMed, PubMed Central, and MEDLINE).

For deposit-based indexes, it’s also important not to lose sight that content won’t be discoverable from those channels until it’s added. So the sooner you can make metadata/article file deposits for new or updated articles, the better. Ideally, you should automate index deposits where possible. Journal publishing platforms can help you here. For example, Scholastica’s OA publishing platform includes integrations with leading discovery services, including Crossref, the DOAJ, and PubMed.

As you can see from this blog post, journal indexing is a process — and it will take time . But it’s well worth the effort to seek inclusion in various relevant indexes and to work to optimize your indexing outcomes. Adding journals to indexes helps expand their reach, reputation, and, consequently, their impacts.

We hope you’ve found this guide helpful! You can learn more about how Scholastica is helping journal publishers automate indexing steps here and how we’re helping journals produce machine-readable metadata to make articles more discoverable here .

Update note: This blog post was originally published on the 21st of June 2017 and updated on the 13th of April 2023.

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Journal and article indexing

Indexing plays a crucial role in enhancing the discoverability of articles, and inclusion in relevant indexes often acts as a proxy for a journal’s quality. A journal index is a collection of journal titles, categorised by discipline, subject, publication type, or other features. An ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) serves as a distinctive identifier for publications, distinguishing all ongoing resources, regardless of their format (print or electronic).

When journals are started, registering for an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) is one of the first steps. An ISSN is a persistent identifier for each title and can be obtained free of charge from the ISSN International Centre . Using ISSNs offers a reliable way to distinguish one journal from another as well as identifying the publishing organisation.

After covering this basic requirement, journals often consider submitting an application to be listed in a journal index, as this provides credibility and is considered as a sign of the journal’s quality. Indexes have specific requirements for inclusion, and these can vary significantly.

Benefits of indexing

Many authors will only submit their articles to journals that are indexed, due to the above-mentioned perception of quality or because this is a requirement of their funder or institution. Inclusion in a recognised index is very beneficial to the reputation of a journal and will lead to many more readers accessing its content as well as a higher rate of citations compared to non-indexed titles. Being indexed in multiple databases rather than just one increases the visibility and reach of journals even further. There is an underrepresentation of journals from some global regions in international indexes, but there are some region-specific databases such as Latindex that aim to redress the balance.

Examples of funders that require indexing from their grantees include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and cOAlitionS . Funders’ policies vary, however, with significant differences across global regions.

Choosing an index

When choosing an index, journals should focus on those that are most relevant to their scope, aims and focus. Coverage can vary, from the broadest databases such as Scopus and Web of Science to those that focus on regional publishing (e.g. ScieLO and the above-mentioned Latindex) and others that focus on specific publishing models (e.g. Directory of Open Access Journals , naturally focussing on open access journals) or disciplines (e.g. PubMed Central , Medline , PubMed ). Each index will provide access to chosen features, too. For example, some cover citation data and abstracts, while others include article full texts.

There are also free online search engines such as Google Scholar , which provides a dedicated search page but also shows relevant results via Google search. Being indexed here can be very valuable as general-purpose search engines are commonly used to identify academic literature.

The application process

In order to be indexed, a journal usually applies to the selected database, providing relevant documents and evidence. Each index will have different criteria, but they will generally check that the journal meets basic scholarly publishing standards. These may include checking that the journal has a clear scope, provides information on peer review, copyright and ethics, has a clear editorial board page with names and titles, issues Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and publishes article-level metadata . It is free to apply for indexing, but there may be costs associated with complying with the index criteria, such as the generation of XML files .

If the journal meets all the criteria, it will be indexed and become available to the users of that database. If the journal does not meet the criteria required for indexing, changes may need to be introduced to make sure that it becomes eligible. Journals that are rejected can typically reapply for inclusion at different time intervals, depending on the rules of each individual index.

• International serial standard number international centre. (n.d.). ISSN International centre.
• Latindex. (n.d.). Latindex.
• Gates Foundation. (n.d.). Our Policy.
• cOAlition S. (n.d.). Why Plan S.
• Elsevier. (n.d.). Scopus Preview.
• Clarivate. (n.d.). Web of science platform.
• SciELO. (n.d.). SciELO.
• DOAJ. (n.d.). DOAJ.
• PubMed Central. (n.d.). Home. NIH National Library of Medicine.
• NIH National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). MEDLINE Overview.
• PubMed. (n.d.). PubMed. National Library of Medicine.
• Google Scholar. (n.d.). Google Scholar.
• Google Scholar. (n.d). Inclusion Guidelines for Webmasters.
• DOI Foundation. (n.d.). Home page.
• Public Knowledge Project. (n.d.). Issue and Article Metadata.
• PubMed Central. (n.d.). PMC FAQs. NIH National Library of Medicine.
• DOAJ. (n.d.). Why index your journal in DOAJ?
• DOAJ. (n.d.). Transparency & best practice.
• Clarivate. (n.d.). Web of Science core collection: Editorial selection process.
• Elsevier. (n.d.). Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board.
• Kilicoglu, O. (2019). The Rise of Predatory Metrics: Fake Indexes for Scientific Journals. ACTA ORTHOPAEDICA ET TRAUMATOLOGICA TURCICA, 53(3), II-III.
• Kosavic, A., Pritt, A., & Gillis, R. (n.d.). Indexes and databases. Public Knowledge Project.
• NIH National Library of medicine. (2022, May 18). How to include a journal in MEDLINE.
• Padula, D. (2019, August 22). Journal indexing: core standards and why they matter. LSE blog.
• Public Knowledge Project. (n.d.). Index Application Guide.
• SciELO. (2020, May 13). SciELO updates the indexing criteria. New version takes effect from May 2020 indexing criteria.
• Scholastica. (2023, April 13). Guide to academic journal indexing: Where, when, and how to get indexed.
• Sawahel, W. (2023, February 15). Escaping ‘bibliometric coloniality’, ‘epistemic inequality’. University World News, Africa Edition.

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Research Impact

• Author Identification
• Citation Indexes

Citation Indexes Overview

Other citation index numbers.

• Journal Impact
• More Resources

What are index numbers?

Citation index numbers provide a way to measure impact beyond raw citation counts. Index numbers can be calculated for individual articles, a group/list of publications, or even all the articles published in a journal or field (see our Journal Impact page).

What is the "best" index number?

Generally, the "best" measurement depends on what matters to you. The h-index is the most widely known index measurement. Some alternative measurements, like the g-index, address specific issues with the h-index. Other measurements target recent publications and citations, such as the the contemporary h-index. 

Alternatives to the h-index include:

• g-index :  Gives more weight to highly cited publications. The original h-index is insensitive to high "outliers" -- a few papers that have very high citation counts will not sway the h-index score (much). The g-index allows highly cited papers to play a larger role in the index, and tends to emphasize visibility and "lifetime achievement."
• hc-index (contemporary h-index) :  Gives more weight to recent publications. The original h-index favors senior researchers with extensive publication records, even if they have ceased publishing. The hc-index attempts to correct this and favors researchers currently publishing.
• i10-index: Measures the number of papers that have at least 10 citations. Introduced (and used) by Google Scholar.
• m-quotient: Divides the h-index by the number of years since the researcher's first published paper. m-quotient was proposed as a way to help younger researchers who may not have long publication lists.

For more index measurements, we suggest " Reflections on the  h- index ," by Prof. Anne-Wil Harzing, University of Melbourne.

What is the h-index?

The h-index attempts to correlate a researcher's total publications and total citations. It was proposed by Jorge E. Hirsch in 2005 (" An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output ," PNAS November 15, 2005 vol. 102 no. 46 16569-16572). For more information, see the Wikipedia article .

Graph of the h-index, from Wikipedia.

How do I calculate my h-index?

• Web of Science or Google Scholar will automatically calculate the h-index for the list of publications in your profile. 
• Publish or Perish will calculate h-index (and many other index numbers) for an author's publications. 
• If you want to calculate an h-index manually, Hirsch defines the h-index as follows: "A scientist has index  h  if  h  of his or her  Np  papers have at least  h  citations each and the other ( Np – h ) papers have ≤h  citations each."
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Educational resources and simple solutions for your research journey

What is Journal Indexing and the Types of Journal Indexing in Research

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.  

Table of Contents

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 index ing 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.  

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.  

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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Journal indexation: why does it matter?

December 17, 2020 | 5 min read

By Geraldine Lovell

How being alert to indexing guidelines can drive authors to your journal

As editor, you will be keen to ensure that your journal is as visible as possible to attract authors and ensure sufficient article submissions. At the same time, having the journal indexed in a variety of well known, reputable A&I services is a good sign of the quality of the journal. Many authors will ask for this information (some of them might well be limited to publishing only in titles which are covered by certain indexes; being included in these lists then becomes a “must have” rather than merely a “nice to have”).

At Elsevier, we have a dedicated indexation team which works closely with Publishers and editors to ensure that your journal reaches maximum visibility in the fastest possible time. The team manages this by auditing the journal online at a very early stage, looking for any areas that might need fixing before an application can be submitted to the indexation services. One of the most typical problem areas that we see are incomplete editorial board listings on the journal home page. Indexation services expect to see full names (given and surname) plus academic credentials/degrees. Next to that, affiliation details and city/country should be listed. Top indexation services such as Medline and PubMed Central also like to see areas of expertise outlined. This helps the reviewer to build a good picture of the editorial board when evaluating your journal.

The main focus of the Indexation Team is on the indexes MEDLINE, PubMed Central, Web of Science, Scopus and DOAJ. The majority of the team’s work is about ensuring that certain basic publishing standards are met, such as:

Fully completed registration of ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) at ISSN.org

Publishing schedule available online and adhered to

Conflict of interest statements published for all articles online

Transparent Editorial Board information provided: full editorial details given, plus latest affiliation

Information published in the guide for authors on peer review, copyrights, ethical statements and other areas of interest

If all basic requirements are met, the Indexation Team will look into the specific requirements of the indexation service and ensure that these are also met. For young journals, this may typically involve checking all articles published to date include conflict of interest and ethical statements, whether an appeal process for rejected articles is published online and whether  the articles have structured abstracts.

These journal audits typically involve direct communication with the Publisher, but editor involvement might also be needed to gather Board member details, discuss which ethical statements are required in the guide for authors as well as assisting to resolve cases where indexation services alert us to articles that may have been published without the correct ethical statements. Publishers rely on the expertise of the editors to decide on the correct course of action in these cases.

The main indexation services

DOAJ opens in new tab/window  – Directory of Open Access Journals – is an independent organization that publishes a freely available, community-curated online directory, indexing high quality, peer-reviewed gold open access (OA) journals. Article-level metadata is published with a link to the full-text on the publisher’s website. Acceptance on DOAJ gives early visibility to journals online.

Web of Science

Web of Science opens in new tab/window  is an index that provides subscription-based access to multiple databases which provide citation data for many different academic disciplines and is the home of the Impact Factor (IF). Journals will typically start their journey on Web of Science in ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index). If the citation level is high enough, the journal may be evaluated for inclusion in an IF index. Elsevier can apply for inclusion on Web of Science once 20 research/review articles have been published.

Scopus opens in new tab/window  is Elsevier’s abstract and citation database and home to CiteScore. Publications in the four years up to and including the calculation year are now included in CiteScore meaning that the metric  can be calculated for journals with just a single year of publication, giving new journals – including many open access and China-focused journals – a first indication of their citation impact at an early stage. We apply for inclusion in Scopus after a journal has been publishing for one year and can demonstrate that the journal is receiving citations.

PubMed Central

PubMed Central opens in new tab/window  (PMC) is a full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journals, hosted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM). NIH carry out a stringent review process and journals are accepted or rejected based on their internal quality criteria. It pays to ensure that a journal is free of any quality problems (e.g. typos, poor quality English, insufficient detail in the materials/methods section ) before applying as, if rejected, a two-year embargo follows.

MEDLINE opens in new tab/window  is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical articles, hosted by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). MEDLINE is the hardest index to get included in and only 12% of journals industry-wide are accepted on a yearly basis. Their quality standards are extremely high. Journal applications are reviewed three times per year and if a journal is rejected, a two-year embargo follows.

Ensuring that journal articles are included in the top indexes greatly improves their discoverability and status, provides journals with the opportunity to gain higher impact in the community and is of great benefit to the researchers that publish in them. The indexation process takes time but is well worth the effort it takes to apply and be accepted for the relevant indexes. The indexation team is happy to answer any queries or suggestions you may have. Please feel free to contact us at   [email protected] opens in new tab/window  – we look forward to hearing from you!

Contributor

Geraldine Lovell

Articles & Databases

Explore our collection of hundreds of online resources and databases. Use our free online content to help with your research, whether it's finding a single article, tracing a family tree, learning a new language, or anything in between.

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A database of millions of citiations for articles in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, across more than 300 years. Over 6,000 journals are included. Journals indexed span 37 key subject subject areas and multiple languages.

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• v.29(2); Apr-Jun 2012

Indexed journal: What does it mean?

Yatan pal singh balhara.

Department of Psychiatry and De-addiction, Lady Hardinge Medical College and Smt Sucheta Kriplani Hospital, New Delhi, India E-mail: moc.liamg@arahlabspy

Indexation of a journal is considered a reflection of its quality. Indexed journals are considered to be of higher scientific quality as compared to non-indexed journals. Indexation of medical journals has become a debatable issue. For a long-time Index Medicus has been the most comprehensive index of medical scientific journal articles. It is being publication since 1879. Over the years, many other popular indexation services have developed. These include MedLine, PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS, EBSCO Publishing's Electronic Databases, SCIRUS among others. There are various regional and national versions of Index Medicus such as African Index Medicus.

A related and equally controversial issue is that of impact factor (IF).[ 1 ] IF is used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field. IF is awarded to the journals indexed in Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports. IF has been criticised for manipulation and incorrect application.[ 2 ] There are multiple factors that could bias the calculation of the IF.[ 3 ] These include coverage and language preference of the database, procedures used to collect citations, algorithm used to calculate the IF, citation distribution of journals, online availability of publications, negative citations, preference of journal publishers for articles of a certain type, publication lag, citing behaviour across subjects, and possibility of exertion of influence from journal editors.[ 4 ] Interestingly, IF is not available for all indexed journals. In fact, not all journals indexed even in Index Medicus/MedLine/PubMed are indexed in the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports. Similarly, not all journals indexed in Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports and consequently have an IF are listed in Index Medicus/PubMed/MedLine.

This brings us to the question which indexation is best and most valid? How to compare the quality of articles published in journals indexed with different indexation services? These questions are of particular relevance for two main reasons. First, importance of publications is being increasingly recognised by the academic institutions. MCI guidelines also recommend indexed publications for teaching faculty in medical colleges. Consequently many more authors would be publishing than ever before.[ 4 ] Selection of high quality journal becomes a difficult decision for the authors as there is no clarity on the issue. Should one aim at only the journals indexed in Index Medicus/MedLine/PubMed? Is it appropriate to make submissions to journals having a high impact factor although they are not indexed with Index Medicus/MedLine/PubMed?

Second, recently many more indexation services have come up. These include Caspur, DOAJ, Expanded Academic ASAP, Genamics Journal Seek, Hinari, Index Copernicus, Open J Gate, Primo Central, Pro Quest, SCOLOAR, SIIC databases, Summon by Serial Solutions, Ulrich's International Periodical Directory. Are these indexations services equally relevant? Would a journal indexed with any of these databases be considered “indexed”?

These are some questions that warrant discussion. Associations of editors of medical journals such as International Committee of Medical Journal Editors could play a pivotal role in such discussion.

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Journal articles are the academic's stock in trade, t he basic means of communicating research findings to an audience of one’s peers. That holds true across the disciplinary spectrum, so no matter where you land as a concentrator, you can expect to rely on them heavily. 

Regardless of the discipline, moreover,  journal articles perform an important knowledge-updating function .

Textbooks and handbooks and manuals will have a secondary function for chemists and physicists and biologists, of course. But in the sciences, articles are the standard and  preferred publication form. 

In the social sciences and humanities , where knowledge develops a little less rapidly or is driven less by issues of time-sensitivity , journal articles and books are more often used together.

Not all important and influential ideas warrant book-length studies, and some inquiry is just better suited to the size and scope and concentrated discussion that the article format offers.

Journal articles sometimes just present the most  appropriate  solution for communicating findings or making a convincing argument.  A 20-page article may perfectly fit a researcher's needs.  Sustaining that argument for 200 pages might be unnecessary -- or impossible.

The quality of a research article and the legitimacy of its findings are verified by other scholars, prior to publication, through a rigorous evaluation method called peer-review . This seal of approval by other scholars doesn't mean that an article is the best, or truest, or last word on a topic. If that were the case, research on lots of things would cease. Peer review simply means other experts believe the methods, the evidence, the conclusions of an article have met important standards of legitimacy, reliability, and intellectual honesty.

Searching the journal literature is part of being a responsible researcher at any level: professor, grad student, concentrator, first-year. Knowing why academic articles matter will help you make good decisions about what you find -- and what you choose to rely on in your work.

Think of journal articles as the way you tap into the ongoing scholarly conversation , as a way of testing the currency of  a finding, analysis, or argumentative position, and a way of bolstering the authority (or plausibility) of explanations you'll offer in the papers and projects you'll complete at Harvard. 

• Next: Subject Databases: Organizing Research Conversations >>

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NSF-backed SECURE Center will support research security, international collaboration

Today, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced a five-year $67 million investment establishing the Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE) ($50 million to University of Washington and $17 million to Texas A&M University). Research security is a concern because some foreign entities attempt to unethically — or even unlawfully — access and use U.S. research. As mandated in the "CHIPS and Science Act of 2022," the NSF SECURE Center, led by the University of Washington with support from nine institutions of higher education, will serve as a clearinghouse for information to empower the research community to identify and mitigate foreign interference that poses risks to the U.S. research enterprise. The SECURE Center will share information and reports on research security risks, provide training on research security to the science and engineering community and serve as a bridge between the research community and government funding agencies to strengthen cooperation on addressing security concerns.

“NSF is committed to principled international collaboration. At the same time, we must address threats to the research enterprise,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The SECURE Center is how we bring the research community together to identify risks, share information and leverage national expertise on research security to develop solutions that protect essential research being done at institutions across the nation. This is a community-focused platform, and the research community will be the drivers of how SECURE Center tools and services are designed, used and improved upon.”

To ensure that this approach to research security is community designed, community used and community improved," the SECURE Center will also serve as the nexus for five regional centers managed by six institutes of higher education:

• SECURE Northeast - Northeastern University.
• SECURE Southeast - Emory University.
• SECURE Midwest - University of Missouri.
• SECURE Southwest - The University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas A&M University.
• SECURE West - University of Washington.

Mississippi State University, the University of Michigan and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution will provide expertise on sensitive research, threat types, geopolitical analysis and international collaboration. Participation by the College of Charleston and Mississippi State University, located in NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research jurisdictions, ensures that emerging research and minority-serving institutions are included in SECURE Center activities.

The SECURE Center will link members of the U.S. research community from institutes of higher learning, nonprofits and businesses in a safe, trustworthy platform to share ideas, needs and information on research security. 

Additionally, SECURE Analytics, led by Texas A&M University with support from the Hoover Institution and Parallax, a nonprofit research institute, will provide enhanced expertise in the form of landscape analyses, risk modeling and data reporting through the SECURE Center. SECURE Analytics will support the analytics needs of the SECURE Center and the broader research community while working to protect the privacy of the center’s users. 

Possessing a suite of solutions like shared tools, best practices, training, analyses and other information, all delivered through a shared virtual environment, SECURE will assist the research community in making decisions regarding their research activities in the context of malign foreign threats.

• For more information, visit Research Security at the National Science Foundation.

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A Disease That Makes Children Age Rapidly Gets Closer to a Cure

Progress in the quest to help progeria patients suggests that gene editing techniques may help treat other ultrarare conditions.

By Gina Kolata

A cure for an ultrarare disease, progeria, could be on the horizon. The disease speeds up aging in children and dramatically shortens their lives. But, until recently, there was no path toward a highly effective treatment.

Now, a small group of academics and government scientists, including Dr. Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, is working with no expectation of financial gain to halt progeria in its tracks with an innovative gene editing technique.

If gene editing is effective in slowing or halting progeria, researchers say, the method may also help to treat other rare genetic diseases that have no treatments or cures and, like progeria, have aroused little interest from drug companies.

After a quarter-century of research, the group is approaching manufacturers and planning to seek approval from regulators for a clinical trial on progeria gene editing.

The project “has merit, but also risk,” said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a gene editing researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, who also advises a gene editing company. He cautioned that although the editing worked well in mice, there is no guarantee that it will work in human patients.

Dr. Collins first became interested in progeria while he was training in medical genetics at Yale University in 1982, almost three decades before he was appointed to lead the N.I.H. One day, he saw a new patient, Meg Casey . She was less than four feet tall, hairless under her wig and wrinkled like an older woman. She was only in her 20s.

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Collaborative Concept Mapping: Investigating the Nature of Discourse Patterns and Features of a Concept Map

• Hlologelo Climant Khoza University of Pretoria
• Bob Maseko University of Malawi

Research in science education has established the significance of collaborative concept mapping as a powerful strategy in fostering conceptual learning. During such collaboration, students talk about concept map features (i.e., concepts to include, linking words, and cross-links) in constructing a joint map. The quality of the concept map produced depends on the nature of discourses that happen in these collaborative interactions. We explored the nature of discourses between pairs of biology students collaborating on concept mapping and how these discourses contribute to the enhancement of different features of the concept maps. Six students individually constructed weekly individual maps on different topics and then came together in pairs to construct a joint concept map. Their discussions during collaboration were audio-recorded. Both the individual and joint concept maps were analyzed for knowledge of breadth, knowledge of depth, and knowledge of connectedness. To analyze the discussions and understand the nature of the discourses, both deductive and inductive coding approaches were used. The coded episodes were then categorised into the nine discourse patterns identified by Fu et al. (2016). We then matched the episodes with the concept map features that were discussed. Findings indicate that the biology students’ collaboration exhibited mostly knowledge-sharing discourses when deliberating on the three features of a concept map. In turn, the number of valid concepts and propositions improved from individual to joint maps. Although the students’ discussions of cross-links were characterized by knowledge-sharing discourses, most of the joint maps did not show improvement in terms of the number cross-links. We discuss these findings and provide implications regarding the value of understanding the intricacies of discourse patterns in collaborative concept mapping.

La recherche dans le domaine de l'enseignement des sciences a établi l'importance de la cartographie conceptuelle collaborative en tant que stratégie puissante pour favoriser l'apprentissage conceptuel. Au cours de cette collaboration, les élèves discutent des caractéristiques de la carte conceptuelle (c'est-à-dire des concepts à inclure, des mots de liaison et des liens croisés) pour construire une carte commune. La qualité de la carte conceptuelle produite dépend de la nature des discours tenus lors de ces interactions collaboratives. Nous avons exploré la nature des discours entre des paires d'étudiants en biologie collaborant sur la cartographie conceptuelle et la façon dont ces discours contribuent à l'amélioration des différentes caractéristiques des cartes conceptuelles. Six étudiants ont construit individuellement des cartes hebdomadaires sur différents sujets et se sont ensuite réunis par paires pour construire une carte conceptuelle commune. Leurs discussions pendant la collaboration ont été enregistrées. Les cartes conceptuelles individuelles et communes ont été analysées du point de vue de la connaissance de l'étendue, de la connaissance de la profondeur et de la connaissance de la connexité. Pour analyser les discussions et comprendre la nature des discours, des approches de codage à la fois déductives et inductives ont été utilisées. Les épisodes codés ont ensuite été classés dans les neuf modèles de discours identifiés par Fu et al. (2016). Nous avons ensuite mis en correspondance les épisodes avec les caractéristiques de la carte conceptuelle qui ont été discutées. Les résultats indiquent que la collaboration des étudiants en biologie présentait principalement des discours de partage des connaissances lorsqu'ils délibéraient sur les trois caractéristiques d'une carte conceptuelle. Par ailleurs, le nombre de concepts et de propositions valides s'est amélioré entre les cartes individuelles et les cartes communes. Bien que les discussions des étudiants sur les liens croisés aient été caractérisées par des discours de partage des connaissances, la plupart des cartes conjointes n'ont pas montré d'amélioration en termes de nombre de liens croisés. Nous discutons de ces résultats et fournissons des implications concernant la valeur de la compréhension des subtilités des modèles de discours dans la cartographie conceptuelle collaborative.

Author Biographies

Hlologelo climant khoza, university of pretoria.

Dr. Climant Khoza is a Lecturer in Science Education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He holds a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand. His research interests include science classroom talk and discourses. He is also interested in the development of science pre-service teachers’ knowledge base for teaching as well as using self-reflexive methodologies to study his own practice.

Bob Maseko, University of Malawi

Dr. Bob Maseko is Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the University of Malawi Chancellor College. He holds a PhD from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. He received his BEd and MEd in science education from the University of Malawi and University of Leeds, respectively. His research interests include the development and enactment of PCK in different classroom contexts, the use and deployment and affordances of various technologies as well as teachers’ interaction with curricular documents in the teaching and learning process.

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