Anacademic journal (orscholarly journal) is aperiodical publication in whichscholarship relating to a particularacademic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scrutiny, and discussion ofresearch. Unlikeprofessional magazines ortrade magazines, the articles are mostly written by researchers rather than staff writers employed by the journal. They nearly universally requirepeer review forresearch articles or other scrutiny from contemporaries competent and established in their respective fields.[1][2] Academic journals trace their origins back to the17th century, with thePhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society being established in 1665 as the first scientific journal.
As of 2012[update], it is estimated that over 28,100 active academic journals are in publication, with scopes ranging from the general sciences, as seen in journals likeScience andNature, to highly specialized fields.[3][4] These journals publish a variety of articles includingoriginal research,review articles, andperspectives. The advent of electronic publishing has made academic journals more accessible.
Content usually takes the form of articles presentingoriginal research,review articles, orbook reviews. The purpose of an academic journal, according toHenry Oldenburg (the first editor ofPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society), is to give researchers a venue to "impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences."[5]
The termacademic journal applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this includes journals that coverformal sciences,natural sciences,social sciences, andhumanities, which differ somewhat from each other in form and function. Academic journals in the formal and natural sciences are often calledscientific journals. Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals such asScience andNature publish articles andscientific papers across a wide range of scientific fields.[6]
Although academic journals are superficially similar to professional magazines (or trade journals), they are quite different. Articles in academic journals are written by active researchers such as students, scientists, and professors. Their intended audience is others in the field, meaning their content is highly technical.[7] Academic articles also deal with research, and are peer reviewed. Meanwhile, trade journals are aimed at people in different fields, focusing on how people in those fields can do their jobs better.[3]
Active academic researchers are expected to publish their work in academic journals, and public funding bodies often require research results to be published in academic journals. Academic credentials for promotion into academic ranks are established in large part by the number and impact of scientific articles published. This places pressure on researchers to publish articles frequently – an environment known aspublish or perish.[8]
In the 17th century, scientists wrote letters to each other, and included scientific ideas with them. Then, in the mid-17th century, scientists began to hold meetings and share their scientific ideas. Eventually, they led to starting organizations, such as theRoyal Society (1660) and theFrench Academy of Sciences (1666).[4]
The idea of a published journal with the purpose of "[letting] people know what is happening in theRepublic of Letters" was first conceived byFrançois Eudes de Mézeray in 1663. A publication titledJournal littéraire général was supposed to be published to fulfill that goal, but never was.Humanist scholarDenis de Sallo (under thepseudonym "Sieur de Hédouville") and printer Jean Cusson took Mazerai's idea, and obtained aroyal privilege from KingLouis XIV on 8 August 1664 to establish theJournal des sçavans. The journal's first issue was published on 5 January 1665. It was aimed atpeople of letters, and had four main objectives:[9]
Soon after, theRoyal Society establishedPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in March 1665, and theAcadémie des Sciences established theMémoires de l'Académie des Sciences in 1666, which focused on scientific communications.[10] By the end of the 18th century, nearly 500 such periodicals had been published,[11] the vast majority coming fromGermany (304 periodicals),France (53), andEngland (34). Several of those publications, in particular the German journals, tended to be short-lived (under five years). A.J. Meadows has estimated the proliferation of journals to reach 10,000 journals in 1950, and 71,000 in 1987. Michael Mabe wrote that the estimates will vary depending on the definition of what exactly counts as a scholarly publication, but that the growth rate has been "remarkably consistent over time", with an average rate of 3.46% per year from 1800 to 2003.[12]
In 1733,Medical Essays and Observations was established by theMedical Society of Edinburgh as the first fullypeer-reviewed journal.[13] Peer review was introduced as an attempt to increase the quality and pertinence of submissions.[14] Other important events in the history of academic journals include the establishment ofNature (1869) andScience (1880), the establishment ofPostmodern Culture in 1990 as the firstonline-only journal, the foundation ofarXiv in 1991 for the dissemination ofpreprints to be discussed prior to publication in a journal, and the establishment ofPLOS One in 2006 as the firstmegajournal.[13]
Peer review did not begin until the 1970s, and was seen as a way of enabling researchers who were not as well-known to have their papers published in journals that were more prestigious. Though it was originally done by mailing copies of papers to reviewers, it is now done online.[15]
There are two kinds ofarticle or paper submissions inacademia: solicited, where an individual has been invited to submit work either through direct contact or through a general submissions call, and unsolicited, where an individual submits a work for potential publication without directly being asked to do so.[16] Upon receipt of a submitted article, editors at the journal determine whether to reject the submission outright or begin the process ofpeer review. In the latter case, the submission becomes subject to review by outside scholars of the editor's choosing who typically remain anonymous. The number of these peer reviewers (or "referees") varies according to each journal's editorial practice – typically, no fewer than two, though sometimes three or more, experts in the subject matter of the article produce reports upon the content, style, and other factors, which inform the editors' publication decisions.
Though these reports are generally confidential, some journals and publishers also practicepublic peer review. The editors either choose to reject the article, ask for a revision and resubmission, or accept the article for publication. Even accepted articles are often subjected to further (sometimes considerable) editing by journal editorial staff before they appear in print. The peer review can take from several weeks to several months.[17]
Many journal articles are broadly structured according to theIMRAD scheme. Each article has several sections, often including the following:[18]
Reading an article in an academic journal usually entails first reading the title, to see if it is related to the desired topic. If it is, the next step is to read the abstract (or summary or conclusion, if the abstract is missing), to determine if the article is worth reading.[19]
Publishing research results is an essential part of helping science to advance.[20] If scientists are describing experiments or calculations, they should also explain how they did them so that an independent researcher could repeat the experiment or calculation to verify the results, or so that they could evaluate whatever the research article's findings were.[21] Each journal article becomes part of the permanent scientific record.[22]
Articles can also be categorized by their purpose. The exact terminology and definitions vary by field and specific journal, but often include:
Review articles, also called "reviews of progress", are checks on the research published in journals. Some journals are devoted entirely to review articles, some contain a few in each issue, and others do not publish review articles. Such reviews often cover the research from the preceding year, some for longer or shorter terms; some are devoted to specific topics, some to general surveys. Some reviews areenumerative, listing all significant articles in a given subject; others are selective, including only what they think worthwhile. Yet others are evaluative, judging the state of progress in the subject field. Some journals are published in series, each covering a complete subject field year, or covering specific fields through several years.
Unlike original research articles, review articles tend to be solicited or "peer-invited" submissions, often planned years in advance, which may themselves go through a peer-review process once received.[28][29] They are typically relied upon by students beginning a study in a given field, or for current awareness of those already in the field.[28]
Reviews of scholarly books are checks upon the research books published by scholars; unlike articles, book reviews tend to be solicited. Journals typically have a separate book review editor determining which new books to review and by whom. If an outside scholar accepts the book review editor's request for a book review, he or she generally receives a free copy of the book from the journal in exchange for a timely review. Publishers send books to book review editors in the hope that their books will be reviewed. The length and depth of research book reviews varies much from journal to journal, as does the extent of textbook and trade book review.[30]
Anacademic journal's prestige is established over time, and can reflect many factors, some but not all of which are expressible quantitatively. In many fields, a formal or informal hierarchy of academic journals exists; the most prestigious journal in a field tends to be the most selective in terms of the articles it will select for publication, and usually will also have the highestimpact factor. In some countries, journal rankings can be utilized for funding decisions[31] and even evaluation of individual researchers, although they are poorly suited for that purpose.[32]
In eachacademic discipline, some journals receive a high number of submissions and opt to restrict how many they publish, keeping theacceptance rate low.[33] Size or prestige are not a guarantee of reliability.[34]
In thenatural sciences and in thesocial sciences, theimpact factor is an established proxy, measuring the number of later articles citing articles already published in the journal. There are other quantitative measures of prestige, such as the overall number of citations, how quickly articles are cited, and the average "half-life" of articles.Clarivate Analytics'Journal Citation Reports, which among other features, computes animpact factor for academic journals, draws data for computation from theScience Citation Index Expanded (for natural science journals), and from theSocial Sciences Citation Index (for social science journals).[33] Several other metrics are also used, including theSCImago Journal Rank,CiteScore,Eigenfactor, andAltmetrics.
In theAnglo-Americanhumanities, there is no tradition (as there is in the sciences) of giving impact-factors that could be used in establishing a journal's prestige. Recent moves have been made by the European Science Foundation (ESF) to change the situation, resulting in the publication of preliminary lists for theranking of academic journals in the humanities.[33] These rankings have been severely criticized, notably by history and sociology of science British journals that have published a common editorial entitled "Journals under Threat".[35] Though it did not prevent ESF and some national organizations from proposingjournal rankings, it largely prevented their use as evaluation tools.[36]
In some disciplines such asknowledge management/intellectual capital, the lack of a well-established journal ranking system is perceived by academics as "a major obstacle on the way to tenure, promotion and achievement recognition".[37] Conversely, a significant number of scientists and organizations consider the pursuit ofimpact factor calculations as inimical to the goals of science, and have signed theSan Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment to limit its use.[38]
Three categories of techniques have developed to assess journal quality and create journal rankings:[39]
Many academic journals aresubsidized by universities or professional organizations, and do not exist to make a profit. They often accept advertising, page and image charges from authors to pay for production costs. On the other hand, some journals are produced by commercial publishers who do make a profit by charging subscriptions to individuals and libraries. They may also sell all of their journals in discipline-specific collections or a variety of other packages.[41] Many scientists and librarians have long protested these costs, especially as they see these payments going to large for-profit publishing houses.[42] To allow their researchers online access to journals, many universities purchasesite licenses, permitting access from anywhere in the university, and, with appropriate authorization, by university-affiliated users at home or elsewhere. These may be much more expensive than the cost for a print subscription. Despite the transition to electronic publishing, the costs of site licenses continue to rise relative to universities' budgets. This is known as theserials crisis.[43]
Journal editors tend to have other professional responsibilities, most often as teaching professors. In the case of the largest journals, there are paid staff assisting in the editing. The production of the journals is almost always done by publisher-paid staff. Humanities and social science academic journals are usually subsidized by universities or professional organization.[44]
Traditional scientific journals require a paid subscription to access published articles.[45]
The cost and value proposition of subscription to academic journals is being continuously re-assessed by institutions worldwide. In the context of thebig deal cancellations by several library systems in the world,[46] data analysis tools likeUnpaywall Journals are used by libraries to estimate the specific cost and value of the various options: libraries can avoid subscriptions for materials already served by instantopen access viaopen archives like PubMed Central.[47]
Concerns about cost and open access have led to the creation of free-access journals such as thePublic Library of Science (PLoS) family and partly open or reduced-cost journals such as theJournal of High Energy Physics. However, professional editors still have to be paid, and PLoS still relies heavily on donations from foundations to cover the majority of its operating costs; smaller journals do not often have access to such resources.[citation needed] Open access journals may charge authors a fee for review or publication, rather than charging a readers a fee for access.[42]
For scientific journals,reproducibility and replicability of the scientific results are core concepts that allow other scientists to check and reproduce the results under the same conditions described in the paper or at least similar conditions and produce similar results with similar measurements of the same subject or carried out under changed conditions of measurement. While the ability to reproduce the results based only on details included in the article is expected, verification of reproducibility by a third party is not generally required for publication.[48] The reproducibility of results presented in an article is therefore judged implicitly by the quality of the procedures reported and agreement with the data provided. However, some journals in the field of chemistry such asInorganic Syntheses andOrganic Syntheses require independent reproduction of the results presented as part of the review process.
The inability for independent researches to reproduce published results is widespread, with 70% of researchers reporting failure to reproduce another scientist's results, including more than half who report failing to reproduce their own experiments.[49] Sources of irreproducibility vary, including publication offalsified or misrepresented data andpoor detailing of procedures.[50]
Traditionally, the author of an article was required to transfer thecopyright to the journal publisher. Publishers claimed this was necessary in order to protect authors' rights, and to coordinate permissions for reprints or other use. However, many authors, especially those active in theopen access movement, found this unsatisfactory,[51] and have used their influence to effect a gradual move towards a license to publish instead. Under such a system, the publisher has permission to edit, print, and distribute the article commercially, but the authors retain the other rights themselves.
Even if they retain the copyright to an article, most journals allow certain rights to their authors. These rights usually include the ability to reuse parts of the paper in the author's future work, and allow the author to distribute a limited number of copies. In the print format, such copies are called reprints; in the electronic format, they are calledpostprints. Some publishers, for example theAmerican Physical Society, also grant the author the right to post and update the article on the author's or employer's website and on free e-print servers, to grant permission to others to use or reuse figures, and even to reprint the article as long as no fee is charged.[52] The rise of open access journals, in which the author retains the copyright but must pay a publication charge, such as thePublic Library of Science family of journals, is another recent response to copyright concerns.[53]
TheInternet has revolutionized the production of, and access to, academic journals, with their contents available online via services subscribed to byacademic libraries. Individual articles are subject-indexed in databases such asGoogle Scholar. Some of the smallest, most specialized journals are prepared in-house, by an academic department, and published only online – this has sometimes been in the blog format, though some, like theopen access journalInternet Archaeology, use the medium to embed searchable datasets, 3D models, and interactive mapping.[54]
Currently, there is a movement in higher education encouraging open access, either viaself archiving, whereby the author deposits a paper in adisciplinary orinstitutional repository where it can be searched for and read, or via publishing it in a freeopen access journal, which does not charge forsubscriptions, being either subsidized or financed by apublication fee. Given the goal of sharing scientific research to speed advances, open access has affected science journals more than humanities journals.[55] Commercial publishers are experimenting with open access models, but are trying to protect their subscription revenues.[56]
The much lower entry cost of on-line publishing has also raised concerns of an increase inpublication of "junk" journals with lower publishing standards. These journals, often with names chosen as similar to well-established publications, solicit articles via e-mail and then charge the author to publish an article, often withno sign of actual review.Jeffrey Beall, a research librarian at theUniversity of Colorado, has compiled a list of what he considers to be "potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers"; the list numbered over 300 journals as of April 2013, but he estimates that there may be thousands.[57] TheOMICS Publishing Group, which publishes a number of the journals on this list,threatened to sue Beall in 2013 and Beall stopped publishing in 2017, citing pressure from his university.[58] A US judge fined OMICS $50 million in 2019 stemming from anFTC lawsuit.[59]
Some academic journals use theregistered report format, which aims to counteract issues such asdata dredging and hypothesizing after the results are known. For example,Nature Human Behaviour has adopted the registered report format, as it "shift[s] the emphasis from the results of research to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them".[60] TheEuropean Journal of Personality defines this format: "In a registered report, authors create a study proposal that includes theoretical and empirical background, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (if available). Upon submission, this proposal will then be reviewed prior to data collection, and if accepted, the paper resulting from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study outcomes."[61]
Some journals areborn digital in that they are solely published on the web and in a digital format. Though most electronic journals originated as print journals, which subsequently evolved to have an electronic version, while still maintaining a print component, others eventually became electronic-only.[62]
Ane-journal closely resembles a print journal in structure: there is a table of contents which lists the articles, and many electronic journals still use a volume/issue model, although some titles now publish on a continuous basis.[63] Online journal articles are a specialized form ofelectronic document: they have the purpose of providing material for academicresearch and study, and they are formatted approximately like journal articles in traditional printed journals. Often, a journal article will be available for download in two formats: PDF and HTML, although other electronic file types are often supported for supplementary material.[64] New tools such asJATS andUtopia Documents provide a 'bridge' to the 'web-versions' in that they connect the content in PDF versions directly to theWorld Wide Web via hyperlinks that are created 'on-the-fly'. The PDF version of an article is usually seen as theversion of record, but the matter is subject to some debate.[65] Articles are indexed inbibliographic databases as well as by search engines.[66] E-journals allow new types of content to be included in journals, for example, video material, or the data sets on which research has been based.
With the growth and development of the Internet, there has been a growth in the number of new digital-only journals. A subset of these journals exist as Open Access titles, meaning that they are free to access for all, and haveCreative Commons licences which permit the reproduction of content in different ways.[67] High qualityopen access journals are listed inDirectory of Open Access Journals. Most, however, continue to exist as subscription journals, for which libraries, organisations and individuals purchase access.
Benefits of electronically publishing include easy availability of supplementary materials (data, graphics and video), lower cost, and availability to more people, especially scientists from non-developed countries. Hence, research results from more developed nations are becoming more accessible to scientists from non-developed countries.[68]
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