Laying the Foundation for Future Indexing

Launching a new academic journal with the goal of future inclusion in relevant indexing databases requires establishing a solid foundation built on transparency, ethical practices, and operational efficiency.

Establish a Clear and Professional Online Presence

Give the journal a unique name that cannot be easily confused with others and doesn't mislead potential authors or readers about its origin, scope, or affiliations.
Develop a properly supported and maintained website with particular attention to security (using HTTPS).
Clearly state the journal's aims and scope and its target readership. These may need input from indexing experts during updates to ensure alignment with standards.
Display both print and/or online ISSNs on the website.
Provide full contact details for the editorial office, including a mailing address.
Clearly indicate information about the journal's ownership and management.
Clearly describe the publishing frequency/schedule and commit to adhering to it. Consistent output with high quality is important for new journals.

Develop Comprehensive and Transparent Policies

Have clear policies on publication ethics, visible on the website, referring to guidance like COPE's Core Practices. These should cover:
- Authorship and contributorship, including encouraging appropriate attribution and discouraging guest/ghost authorship. Instructions to authors should include a clear definition of authorship, responsibilities, how contributions are declared, acknowledgment of non-authors, and how authorship disputes are managed. Authorship criteria should be stated.
- Handling complaints and appeals.
- Handling allegations of research misconduct, including having mechanisms for receiving and responding to allegations. This involves defining types of misconduct and outlining policies/procedures.
- Conflicts of interest.
- Data sharing and reproducibility, including policies on data availability and encouraging the use of reporting guidelines and study registration.
- Ethical oversight, including recommended practices for issues like informed consent, institutional oversight, prior ethics approval, and compliance with guidelines. Journals must review submitted work to ensure it conforms with research ethics guidelines.
- Intellectual property, including clear policies on copyright and licensing (like Creative Commons for open access).
- Post-publication discussions, corrections, and retractions.

Implement a Robust and Transparent Peer Review Process

Adopt a peer review process appropriate for the journal/field and resources, and describe it transparently. The website should show the peer review model.
Provide training for editors and reviewers.
Have policies on various aspects of peer review, especially concerning conflicts of interest, appeals, and disputes.
Ensure the confidentiality of submitted material during review.
Ensure peer review is undertaken in a timely fashion to avoid undue delays.
Ask reviewers to address ethical aspects of submissions, such as prior publication, plagiarism, research ethics/approvals, data integrity, and competing interests.

Build a Credible Editorial Board and Management Team:
Have editorial boards or advisory bodies composed of recognised experts in the subject areas covered by the journal's aims and scope.
List the full names and affiliations of board members on the website, ensuring the list is up to date and members have agreed to serve.
Vet new Editorial Board Members before onboarding, screening affiliations using criteria like those inspired by Think.Check.Submit.. This checklist includes checking if the journal is indexed in the ISSN portal, if the publisher is a member of associations like COPE, OASPA, or STM, if the publisher's journals are listed in DOAJ, and if papers are archived in recognized databases.
Ensure the editorial team/office contact information is provided.
For journals not yet indexed by major databases, let the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and Editorial Board Members (EBMs) know the goals for indexing. Ask for their help to invite high-quality papers and recommend other suitable EBMs, Guest Editors, and authors. Attracting distinguished scholars on the board or as Guest Editors helps build trust and can attract quality research.

Plan for Content Archiving and Preservation

Clearly indicate the journal's plan for electronic backup and long-term digital preservation of content in case the journal or publisher stops operating. Examples include PMC and those listed in the Keepers Registry. Checking if papers are archived in recognised databases is part of assessing journal affiliations.

Ensure Operational Efficiency and Quality Control:
A well-described and implemented infrastructure, including systems for handling submissions, is essential.
Require authors to provide all necessary information upfront (e.g., authorship declarations, funding information).
Implement processes to check that submitted manuscripts fit the journal's scope, run plagiarism checks, confirm copyright permissions, and ensure figures and tables are properly referenced and of sufficient resolution. Funding information should be listed if required.
Ensure timely processing of manuscripts. Regularly estimate and monitor publication numbers and processing stages.
Do not link editorial decisions to internal targets or ask editors to expedite decisions for metric purposes. Editorial decisions should be based only on a paper's importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal's remit.

By focusing on these aspects of transparency, quality, ethics, and operational infrastructure from the outset, a new journal lays the crucial groundwork needed to meet the criteria often assessed by indexing databases like Web of Science (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI), Scopus, DOAJ, and others, thereby increasing its visibility and credibility in the scholarly landscape. Citation metrics are also considered by some major indexes like SCIE/SSCI, so attracting high-quality, impactful content is important for future evaluation.