Building Early Compliance for Scopus Inclusion

Gaining inclusion in prominent academic databases like the Web of Science Core Collection and the Scopus Abstract and Citation Database is a crucial goal for academic journals aiming to increase their visibility, credibility, and impact within the scholarly community. While achieving indexing is a process that evaluates a journal's sustained performance and quality over time, there are several essential and immediate actions a journal can undertake to establish a robust foundation and meet key initial criteria considered by these evaluators. Based on the principles and practices highlighted in the sources, here are critical steps to prioritise without delay.

Establish a Transparent and Professional Online Presence

The journal's website serves as the primary interface for authors, readers, and, importantly, evaluators from indexing services. A well-supported, secure, and transparent website is a fundamental requirement.

Ensure the journal has a unique name that cannot be easily confused with another journal. The name should not mislead about its origin, scope, or affiliations.
Obtain and clearly display the ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) for both print and electronic versions, if applicable.
Provide valid contact methods through which the publisher can be reached.
Clearly articulate and publish the journal's editorial, ethics, copyright, and fee policies directly on the website. The website must show the journal policies and other required information.
Clearly indicate the journal's plan for electronic backup and long-term digital preservation of its content, such as archiving in recognised databases like PMC or those listed in the Keepers Registry.
Utilise functioning DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) for published papers.
Ensure the website uses https and redirects all traffic through it, paying attention to security aspects.
Include essential information like the journal's aims and scope, target readership, and types of manuscripts considered. Policies against multiple or redundant publication should be stated.
Authorship criteria should be clearly defined.

These immediate steps ensure that the journal meets basic technical and transparency standards assessed during the initial stages of evaluation.

Develop, Publish, and Adhere to Strong Ethical Policies

Commitment to publication ethics is a non-negotiable requirement for reputable indexing services. Implementing and publishing clear policies is an immediate priority.

Adopt and publish clear guidelines regarding ethical conduct of research. These should align with the regulations and norms of the journal's specific discipline.
Ensure processes are in place to review submitted work to ensure it conforms with research ethics guidelines. This includes recommended practices for handling issues like informed consent, institutional oversight, and prior ethics approval.
Develop guidelines for promptly responding to suspected ethical breaches by authors, reviewers, and editors.
Have a clearly described process for handling complaints and appeals against the journal, its staff, editorial board, or publisher.
Refer to and adhere to the COPE Core Practices and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Signing up for COPE membership demonstrates an intention to follow high standards.
Include policies on data availability and encourage the use of reporting guidelines and registration of clinical trials and other study designs where standard practice in the discipline. Processes should be in place for handling issues like data fabrication and falsification in cooperation with institutional oversight bodies.
Develop guidelines for post-publication discussions and corrections.

Making these ethical commitments and processes transparently available on the website is crucial for demonstrating credibility.

Clearly Describe the Peer Review Process

The journal's quality control mechanisms, particularly its peer review process, are fundamental to its credibility. While the effectiveness of the process is evaluated over time, transparently describing it is an immediate action.

Ensure the presence of a peer review policy is clearly indicated.
Describe the processes for handling submissions.
Policies should address issues arising in the editorial process, including conflicts of interest and disputes related to peer review.
Maintain the confidential nature of the review process. Reviewers should also respect this confidentiality.
Reviewers may be asked to address ethical aspects of submissions.

Transparency about the peer review model is a key quality criterion.

Ensure a Credible and Transparent Editorial Board

The composition and transparency of the Editorial Board are evaluated as indicators of the journal's scholarly standing.

List the full names and affiliations of Editorial Board members on the journal website.
Ensure the list is up to date and that members have agreed to serve.
Board members should ideally meet specific scholarly criteria. Including distinguished scholars can help attract quality papers and enhance the journal's reputation.

Focus on Operational Efficiency and Content Quality

Maintaining a consistent publishing schedule and focusing on attracting quality content are immediate actions that contribute to the journal's long-term evaluation.

Clearly describe the journal's publishing frequency and strive to keep to the publishing schedule. Consistent output with high quality is important for new journals. Regularly monitoring publication numbers helps ensure timeliness.
Focus efforts on attracting good quality papers, including "hot papers" and papers from distinguished researchers or research groups. Asking the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and Editorial Board Members (EBMs) to help invite high-quality papers is a practical step.
Focus on hot/highly cited topics and relevant scholars to improve citation metrics, which are important for inclusion in databases like SCIE/SSCI (components of the Web of Science Core Collection evaluated for impact). While Scopus has its own metrics (CiteScore), the principle of attracting citable content is broadly applicable.

By taking these immediate and foundational steps, an academic journal can significantly improve its chances of passing the initial quality checks performed by major indexing databases like Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection, demonstrating its adherence to scholarly publishing best practices.