When a journal is wide scope, not associated with a high-end publishing house, based in Southeast Asia, moves in and out with major indexers, it is easy to attract a label of predatory by a cursory observer. It has been previously observed that often small scholarly journals from developing countries are considered predatory. Journals in the developing world face challenges in becoming known and respected in the international research landscape. Concerns are often raised about the perceived quality and transparency of publication processes for Southern journals. This, in turn, limits the perceived credibility of the research published within those journals [Ref]. Similar issues remain for journals originating from Southeast Asia.
Non‐Predatory / Legitimate working of the Journal Detail
- The Lists: JCDR was neither mentioned in the Beall’s Predatory Journal list ( now ceased) nor is apart of the Cabell’s list for predatory journals.
- Communications: The JCDR editorial is easy to approach through mail or telephone. We have always prioritized the concerns of our authors, readers and reviewers. The Chief Editor, Senior Editors, IT staff, Publication section are open to receiving calls and answering mails regarding any article related issue or publication related query or technical difficulty . There is provision to book a tele appointment with the chief editor. All important information related to methodological step for submission, query response timeline, journey of an article from submission to publication etc are detailed in the website. Even so, we do not shy away from clarifying any query from an author.
- Payments: There is no Article Processing Charges or submission fee to be paid. Publication charges which are detailed clearly on the website need to be paid once the manuscript is accepted. There are no hidden charges.
- Behaviour under stress: When the journal was unceremoniously delisted form Pubmed Central it went ahead and refunded full publications charges for authors who wish to withdraw their works. Thus absorbing all the damage onto itself, minimizing the effect to the authors. No journal is bound to refund publication charges once these have been paid post vetting and acceptance of article. JCDR did not had or has such a policy. A conscious decision was made to make an exception. Even in those hard times, complete transparency was kept, proactively informing each of the current authors of the Indexation status, allowing them to retract their work if they wanted to. Many author commended this honest disclosure. There were serious financial consequences for the journal. Will a predatory journals function like this? JCDR did so and undeterred, continued its work.
- Academics: The JCDR team has been involved in academic activities and its proactive participation at the WAME International Conference for Medical Journal Editors, 2015 where it received Dr. Bruce Squires award is one such example. This poster was later written as complete paper and published in European Science Editing Journal titled “Google versus other text similarity tools in detection of plagiarism: a pilot study in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research“.
- In the same conference, JCDR sponsored an Award of 225 USD for best research poster, which was presented to Dr. Parth Gada for an audit of RCTs published in two high impact journals in 2013 to assess compliance with the CONSORT statement 2010 clik here
- JCDR editorial analysed and published reasons for rejected articles, among thousand consecutively submitted articles. “Why We Say No! A Look through the Editor’s Eye“. Predatory journals do not reject articles and are unlikely to invest their resources in non-profitable academic ventures.
- Student-guide authorship conflicts, which were more unique to Indian scenario, based on journal’s own experience, were published as paper - “The Changing Teacher-Disciple (Guru-Shishya) Equation in Modern Times“.
- Citations: In 2015 the coveted Time Magazine cited one of JCDR’s article on Yoga click here . Till date, quite a number of research studies published in JCDR have been cited by medical magazines, weekly newsletters click here
- Advertisement Policy: Despite the monetary reward offered, JCDR declines any advertisement in its print issue. click here
- External Parameters: Using the parameters advocated by SCOPUS RADAR tool, journal does not classify as predatory. The criteria mentioned in Scopus website are :
- An unexplainable surge in number of articles published:
- Unexplainable shift in authorship geography:
- Our proportion of national and international articles has been consistent over the last years. (Click to Check)
- Self-Citation Rate and other Metrics:
- Journal metrics have remained positive and uniform over many years with low self-citation rates.(Click to Check)
- Ranking: In 2017, JCDR ranked high ( 20th) according to Scopus database for citable docs for three years, medicine:(Click to Check).
- Transparency:
- An inquisitive reader may wonder why if the journal was functioning within the desired norms was it delisted from some indexers. We recognize this and are open to such queries. If a formal request is made to the chief editor from an established academician or an institution we shall forward the complete detail of events which preceded such happening. This will allow them to make their own conclusions.
- Similarly, if any academician wants to visit our office and would like to experience the journal office environment and work, is welcome to put in a formal request to the Chief Editor.
- Peer reviewers and others who have been associated with us but do not live in the city if they visit Delhi are welcome to have a cup of coffee with us at our office.