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Current Scientific Impact of Macedonian Biomedical Journals (2016) in Google Scholar Database Analysed with the Software Publish or Perish
Abstract
AIM: The aims of this paper are: to analyze Macedonian biomedical journals in the Google Scholar database with the software Publish or Perish, to present their current scientific impact, to rank the journals, and to advice the authors about the possibilities where to publish their papers.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Biomedical journals in the Republic of Macedonia included in Macedonian Association of Medical Editors (MAME) are analyzed. The results are obtained with the software Publish or Perish which analyze publicly available scholarly papers in the Google Scholar database (May 11, 2016).
RESULTS: From 38 journals only 25 has indexed one or more papers in the Google Scholar database. The rest of 13 journals are without any paper indexed in this base and are not included in this investigation. The biggest number of citations in the Google Scholar database have the journals Prilozi - MANU, 0351-3254 (1622); Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, 1857-5773 (838) and Macedonian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, 1857-5552 (705).
CONCLUSIONS: Macedonian biomedical journals have limited scientific influence, although the last years several journals are significantly improved and are included in the more important international scientific databases. Further coordinated efforts through MZMU are necessary in order to increase the scientific contribution of Macedonian biomedical journals.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Emerging metrics based on article-level does not exclude traditional metrics based on citations to the journal, but complements them. Article-level metrics (ALMs) provide a wide range of metrics about the uptake of an individual journal article by the scientific community after publication. They include citations, statistics of usage, discussions in online comments and social media, social bookmarking, and recommendations.
In this editorial, the role of article level metrics in publishing scientific papers has been described. Article-Level Metrics (ALMs) are rapidly emerging as important tools to quantify how individual articles are being discussed, shared, and used. Data sources depend on the tool, but they include classic metrics indicators depending on citations, academic social networks (Mendeley, CiteULike, Delicious) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Youtube).
The most popular tools used to apply this new metrics are: Public Library of Science - Article-Level Metrics, Altmetric, Impactstory and Plum Analytics.
Journal Impact Factor (JIF) does not consider impact or influence beyond citations count as this count reflected only through Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science® database. JIF provides indicator related to the journal, but not related to a published paper. Thus, altmetrics now becomes an alternative metrics for performance assessment of individual scientists and their contributed scholarly publications.
Macedonian scholarly publishers have to work on implementing of article level metrics in their e-journals. It is the way to increase their visibility and impact in the world of science.
The Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MASA), held a scientific workshop for journal editors in biomedicine: “Publishing integrity and good practices in editing in biomedicine” on April 25, 2014 in MASA, Skopje. The meeting looked into old problems and new situations in editing and publishing, with emphasis on the situation in developing countries.
This global knowledge-based society is founded on the results obtained from scientific research. The data from basic research in developed countries contribute in a quite substantial manner to the newly added economic value. One of the main reasons for underdevelopment in South Eastern Europe (SEE) is certainly a low or non-existent contribution of scientific research in the newly added economic value. This has largely to do with the perception of the political elites which simply lack the insight on the crucial importance of science in development. In the long term this leads to societies in which there are distortions in the understanding of the most basic values.
Academic publishing has experienced tremendous growth: so far there are at least 50 million scientific articles. Interestingly, publishing in developing countries has experienced a rate of growth higher than in developed countries. However, this is not the case with the Balkan countries.
The meeting looked at some old and some newly emerging problems in editing and publishing.
First, the high cost for universities and researchers to purchase journals adversely affects both publishing and editing. In developing countries the high cost of purchasing scientific literature is an almost insurmountable problem in spite of the fact that some publishing companies offer discounted fees. Open access journals in South Eastern European (SEE) countries are hardly achievable as this also incurs costs that have to be covered in some way or other.
The peer review process has the fundamental difficulty that reviewers are in the situation of a Procrustean bed, tending to accept reports which support the reviewer's concepts of thinking and, like Procrustes, cutting everything else out. Authorship is often a contentious issue, as undeserved authors appear on the list of authors.
Some principles are now a norm in academic publishing. This applies to the declaration of a conflict of interest, the consent of the patient and the approval of the Ethical Board of the institution.
This global informational technological revolution has, unfortunately, led to largely widespread and increasingly sophisticated deviations: plagiarism, data fabrication and data falsification as forms of scientific misconduct. Those events are now more widespread than in the past. Luckily new tools to track them are much better than previously. The race for perfect publishing integrity and for the best good practices in editing in biomedicine is on. New and old challenges will be met. The benevolent and caring society, educated professionals and an enlightened public remain essential preconditions. The wealth of nations depends on R&D and consequently on academic publishing.
Ten years ago the Association of Albanian Physicians in Macedonia undertook the very brave step of publishing a scientific medical journal, Medicus, as a platform for publishing biomedical research papers. Medical journal MEDICUS is an international peer-review journal of biomedical science. The first issue was published in 2004, starting with publishing two issues per year. From 2013, the journal delivered three issues per year, namely in January, May and September. Editor-in-Chief of the journal is Prof. Dr. Aziz Pollozhani. This year marks the tenth anniversary since publication of the first issue of Medicus, a fact that makes us proud and happy.
The journal has its own official website (www.imjm.mk), where papers can be submitted and published in electronic form. In addition, the journal also comes out in print form to be distributed mainly in the region.
Taking into account the specific socio-cultural characteristics of the region, the journal attempts to promote research activities in the region, while seeking to serve as an educational tool to promote scientific work in such a setting. As a result, Medicus accepts manuscripts for publication in English, Albanian and Macedonian, with a mandatory abstract in English for all papers.
The journal Medicus represents a solid platform of biomedical sciences that will serve to advance scientific research and promote professional achievements in medicine.
Even in as small a country as R. Macedonia with limited resources allocated for science, there are many journals trying to establish good editorial practices and policies in publishing the scientific work achieved. Among the currently existing medical journals Macedonian Medical Review (MMR), ISSN 0025-1097, deserves to be elaborated as the oldest journal with continuous publication since its first appearance as the journal of the Macedonian Medical Association (MMA). Since its first issue, published in 1946, there has been an opus of some 4500 peer-reviewed published papers in more than 210 issues and some 80 supplements from various congresses and meetings. In this regard, great respect should be paid not only to the editorial boards, but also to the collaborators who have contributed to its successful continuity in all previous years.
In line with the needs for further development of the journal and possibilities for access to world databases, the Editorial Board of MMR has made every effort to improve and modernize its work as well as the technical quality of the journal. Hence, MMA has signed a contract with De Gruyter Open as leading publisher of Open Access academic content for further improvement and promotion of the journal and facilitation of the Medline application, so we do hope for the further success of the journal.
BANTAO Journal is published on behalf of the Balkan Cities Association of Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation and Artificial Organs (BANTAO), ISSN 1312-2517. The first issue was published in 2003, ten years after BANTAO was born. Its appearance was an extremely important event in the existence of BANTAO. The first official editor of the journal was Dimitar Nenov, Varna (2003-2005), followed by Ali Basci (Izmir, Turkey) and Goce Spasovski (Skopje, Macedonia) as editor-in-chief since 2009. Over the years, the Journal has been included in the EBSCO, DOAJ and SCOPUS/SCIMAGO databases.
The journal is published biannually. Until now, 345 papers have been published in the past 11 years, in 21 regular issues and 3 supplements. It may be said that the journal is the “glue” between the nephrologists from the Balkan cities, reflecting the high quality research and scientific potential of Balkan nephrologists. The entire process of submitting and reviewing the manuscripts is electronically done and after their acceptance they are freely available (open access journal) on the website of the association and the journal: www.bantao.org.
In this regard, the current President of BANTAO has already signed a contract with De Gruyter Open as leading publisher of Open Access academic content for further improvement and promotion of the journal and Medline application for the further success of the journal.
The Balkan Journal of Medical Genetics (BJMG) is an international, open access journal that publishes scientific papers covering different aspects of medical genetics. It is published by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts twice a year in both printed and electronic versions. BJMG is covered by many abstracting and indexing databases, including PubMed Central and Thomson Reuters.
Although there are many journals in the field of medical genetics, only a few come from regions outside Western Europe and North America. Being one of these few journals, BJMG aims to promote genetics and research on this topic in the Balkan countries and beyond. BJMG's ultimate goal is to raise the scientific quality and metrics of the journal and provide a better place for BJMG in the community of scientific journals.
Aim: The aim of this study was to analyze current ranking (2013) of institutions, journals and researchers in the Republic of Macedonia.
Material and Methods: Country rankings of R.epublic of Macedonia was analyzed with SCImago Country & Journal Rank (SJR) for subject area medicine, in the years 1996-2013, and ordered by H-index. SCImago Institutions Rankings for 2013 year was used for scientific impact of biomedical institutions in Republic of Macedonia. Journal metrics from Elsevier for the Macedonian scholarly journals for the period of 2009-2013 was performed. Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), the Impact per Publication (IPP), and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) were analyzed. Macedonian scholarly biomedical journals included in Google Scholar metrics (2013, 2012) were analyzed with h5-index and h5-median (June 2014). A semantic analysis of PubMed database was performed with GoPubMed on November 02, 2014 in order to identify published papers from the field of biomedical sciences affiliated with the country Macedonia. Harzing’s Publish or Perish software was used for author impact analysis and calculation of Hirsh-index based on Google Scholar query.
Results: The rank of subject area Medicine of R. Macedonia according the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) is 110th in the world and 17th in the Eastern Europe. Out of 20 Universities in Macedonia, only Ss Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje and University St Clement of Ohrid of Bitola are listed in SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) for 2013. Very small number of Macedonian scholarly journals is included in Web of Sciences (2), PubMed (1), PubMed Central (1), SCOPUS (6), SCImago (6), and Google Scholar metrics (6). The rank of Hirsh index (h-index) was different from the rank of number of abstracts indexed in PubMed for the top 20 authors from R. Macedonia.
Conclusion: Current biomedical scientific impact (2013) of institutions, academic journals and researchers in R. Macedonia is very low. There is urgent need for organized measures for improvement of the quality and output of institutions, scholarly journals, and researchers in R. Macedonia in order to achieve higher international standards.
(Full text is available at http://www.manu.edu.mk/prilozi). An attempt was made to retrospectively examine the medical journals published in the Republic of Macedonia since the Second World War. An analysis was made of the basic data concerning the journals, most of which are deposited in the Central Library of the Medical Faculty at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, and a few deposited in the National and the St. Clement of Ohrid University Library in Skopje. Some journal-related data were obtained by searching the electronic databases (mainly Medline/PubMed, Hinari, Ebsco) and the Internet as a global system of network of networks. After the Second World War several attempts at publishing biomedical journals have been made in the Republic of Macedonia. The number of journals has increased especially in the last ten years. Only a few of them have a long-term publishing tradition. In fact, the only journal to maintain continuity in publishing until today is the Macedonian Medical Review, that has been published regularly since 1946 until today. It is an official publication of the Macedonian Medical Society. The Annual of the Medical Faculty in Skopje was published from 1954 to 1997 under this name, and in 1997 it was renamed the Macedonian Journal of Medicine. There was an interruption in its publishing in 1999 and 2000 and it was regularly published until 2007, after which its publication ceased once more. In addition to these two journals, other medicine-related journals that have been published in the Republic of Macedonia (some of them, however, irregularly or they have ceased publication) are Acta Morphologica (since 2004); Physioacta (since 2007); Paediatrics Annual Review (since 1996); Epilepsy (since 1997); Acta Ortopedica et Traumatologica Macedonia (since 1999); MJMS - Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences (since 2008); Prilozi Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1969); Macedonian Dental Review (since 1977); Dental Review (since 2007); Macedonian Pharmaceutical Bulletin (since 1964); Macedonian Veterinary Review (since 1972); Archives of Public Health (since 2009); Medicus (since 2004); Vox Medici (since 1992); Social Medicine - Professional Journal for Public Health (since 2009); Journal of Special Education and Rehabilitation (since 1997); Balkan Journal of Medical Genetics (since 1998); BANTAO Journal (since 2003); Public Health - Journal for Health Education (1952-1986); Acta Chirurgica Iugoslavica (since 1954); Acta Chirurgica Macedonica (2001-2004); We You and Healthcare (since 2006); Newsletter-Health, Kavadartsi (1999); Medical Review - Professional Journal of the Medical Workers in Shtip (2001); Medicus - Information Newsletter of Public Health, General Hospital Shtip (2006); Medical Bulletin of the Health Service of the Skopje Army Region (1957-1987); Medical Spectrum - Professional Journal of Alkaloid - Skopje (1972-1981); Healthcare Newsletter, Kumanovo (1990-1996); Healthcare, Shtip (1979-1994); Healthcare Platform, Bitola (1975-1984); Journal with papers of the Society of Science and Art, Prilep; Healthcare Newsletter of the Medical Center Prilep (1975-1986); Healthcare Newsletter, Strumica (1978-1988); Contributions, a Journal of the Society of Science and Arts from Bitola; Doctors' Newspaper - Informative and educational newspaper of the Macedonian Medical Association (2010). A number of medical journals appear and after a short period of time disappear. The papers are mainly written in the Macedonian language, and none of the journals are currently indexed in Pub/Med, except for the Prilozi/Contributions of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In our opinion, to improve the quality of the published papers in the Macedonian journals, several goals have to be accomplished: better equipment and facilities in the hospitals, institutes and research centres that would yield better basic research and clinical trials; better basic education on how to write and publish scholarly/scientific papers, which has to be conducted at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, along with lifelong learning; better peer-review processes; better editorial policy of the journals; compliance with international standards/uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals; fostering the goals of the World Association of Medical Editors and European Association of Science Editors, etc. If these tasks and goals are realized, then we can build a solid ground to better present our medical results to the world. Key words: Medical Journals, Republic of Macedonia.
Aim. The aim of this report was to evaluate the Macedonian medical journals for their scientific influence according to the internationally recognized citation metrics indexes.Material and methods. Macedonian medical journals were analyzed, and eight of them fulfilled criteria for more detailed study of their scientific influence. Citation metrics indexes h-index, g-index, hc-index, hl-index, and hl, norm were performed using Publish or Perish, a software that retrieves and analyses academic citations. Macedonian medical journals were then compared to the Croat Med J.Results. Only three Macedonian medical journals were indexed in Medline/PubMed (Maked Med Pregl, God zb Med fak Skopje, and Prilozi) and only one is indexed in Index Copernicus (Maced J Med Sci). Most of Macedonian medical journals are not members of the international organizations and do not follow international standards for scientific publications. All Macedonian medical journals have 5 to 10 times smaller citation metrics indexes (h-index, g-index, hc-index, hI-index, and hI, norm) if compared with Croat Med J. There are not big differences in citation metrics indexes between Macedonian medical journals. Conclusion. Macedonian medical journals have very limited scientific influence and their Editorial Boards are obliged to improve quality of their published manuscripts, and to adhere to international standards for scientific journals, which will result in their greater visibility and scientific influence.
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