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NOTE: This is the preprint version of a paper already published in The Journal of Academic
Librarianship, Volume 45, Issue 1, January 2019, Pages 9-14.
See final paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2018.11.001
Challenge of Ukrainian Academic Librarians in an Evolving Scholarly Publishing Landscape
Serhii Nazarovets1, Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva2, Maryna Nazarovets3
1 State Scientific-Technical Library of Ukraine, 180 Antonovich Street, Kyiv, 03680, Ukraine;
serhii.nazarovets@gmail.com
2 Independent researcher, P. O. Box 7, Miki-cho post office, Ikenobe 3011-2, Kagawa-ken, 761-0799, Japan;
jaimetex@yahoo.com
3 Maksymovych Scientific Library, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, 58 Volodymyrska Street,
Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine; marinanazarovets@gmail.com
Abstract
Faced with a prolonged economic crisis, Ukrainian research institutes are under pressure as a direct result of
limited funding. This has also had a negative impact on the functionality of librarians who have seen
limitations in acquisitions. Despite the economic difficulties, Ukrainian academic librarians are trying to
offer their users specialized services that involve active librarian mediation in the process of preparing and
disseminating the results of scientific work of users, in particular in the detection and struggle with pseudo-
scientific journals. In this paper, based on a survey of librarians from leading Ukrainian universities, we
studied for the first time, the main information resources and tools used by Ukrainian experts to test
scientific journals for their further recommendation to library users as reliable channels for disseminating
research results. These are tools and resources such as Scopus, Web of Science, Beall's black lists, the
DOAJ, Think. Check Submit, and The Norwegian Register. We describe the benefits and limitations that
may arise in the work of Ukrainian academic librarians when each of the identified resources is used.
Modern times of reformation in Ukrainian science has opened up new opportunities for Ukrainian academic
librarians. As a result, if they are able to successfully implement such services, they can regain a prominent
place in the scientific life of institutions and on the global academic platform.
Keywords: Ukrainian academic librarians, academic libraries, predatory journals, scholarly publishing,
library services
Editorial note: all three authors are equal contributors and co-corresponding authors.
Introduction and background
1. Economic and personal challenges for libraries in Ukraine
Academic libraries in Ukraine were unprepared for rapid changes which started in scientific
communication at the end of the last century. After Ukraine liberated itself from the ideology of
totalitarianism and gained independence in 1991, Ukrainian librarians gained an opportunity to develop a
national library system. However, in the 1990s, Ukraine's economy entered a long period of hyperinflation,
with the highest inflation rate among countries that are not in a state of war, and with prices in Ukraine rising
more than 10,000% per year in that period (Zholud, 2015). Under this economic crisis, it was extremely
difficult to reform the national system of education and science, and Ukrainian libraries did not receive
adequate funding, equipment or working conditions that would allow them to operate effectively.
The Ukrainian network of libraries has over 39,000 libraries of various types, including libraries of
higher educational institutions, technical, agricultural, medical, academic, public libraries for adults, youth,
and children, and libraries for the visually impaired (Online Computer Library Center, 2018). The main, and
in most cases, only source of funding for all these libraries is the state budget. Throughout the years of
independence, Ukrainian libraries were poorly funded, most of the budget was spent on salaries and utilities,
and very scarce amounts were allocated to fill the collections of libraries, even in the years of relative
stability of the national currency, the hryvnia (Fig. 1). It should be noted that the salary of librarians in
Ukraine has concistently not exceeded the minimum wage, which is about $144 in 2018 (Trading
Economics, 2018). It is clear that the funds allocated by the state were insufficient to provide high-quality
information services, in particular, access to the scientific resources of leading publishing houses, which
even the library systems of developed countries refused to subscribe to due to their high cost (Vogel, 2016).
In addition to economic opportunities, in the early 1990s, Ukrainian libraries also lacked the intellectual
and human resources for wide-scale reform and the introduction of technological innovations. Most of the
leaders of different levels, who at that time worked in Ukrainian libraries, were pupils of the Soviet system
of library education, which was based primarily on the humanities — history, literature and Marxist-Leninist
philosophy (Haigh, 2009). Therefore, whereas information and computer technologies in developed
countries were effectively implemented into the work of libraries, in Ukraine, by contrast, the gap between
the competencies of library staff and the real needs of users increased rapidly: the introduction of automated
library systems, online catalogs, provision of online access to prepaid electronic resources, as well as the
digitization of library collections occurred inconsistently. For example, the absolute majority of Ukrainian
libraries (99.27%) as of 2007 were not represented on the internet at all, despite the fact that at that time, the
number of Internet users in Ukraine was 8 million (Solovianenko, 2007).
In the early 2000s, employees of Ukrainian libraries rethought and appreciated the leading role of
computer technology in meeting the information needs of users, and since then, they have been trying to
correct the mistakes of their predecessors and make significant efforts to implement services that meet the
needs of an information-oriented society (Benz, 2009). However, the limited funding of libraries and, as a
result, the extremely limited subscription of information resources, leaves little chance that Ukrainian
libraries will soon be able to restore their prominent place as a provider of information services. In addition,
today Ukraine is once again in a state of economic and political instability where there is no true free and fair
democracy in the country, where highest ranking Ukrainian government officials are regularly accused of
corruption, and the country itself opposes the large-scale military aggression of Russia that has lasted since
2014. This indicates that the situation with the financial support of libraries will not change significantly for
the better in the near future (Hladchenko, de Boer & Westerheijden, 2016).
2. New services for users of academic libraries
Despite economic and political hardships, librarians are trying to carry out their educational mission, as
envisaged in the Law of Ukraine “On Libraries and Library Affairs”, in a bid to satisfy the information,
research, educational and cultural needs of citizens (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 1995, No 32/95-ВР). In
particular, employees of Ukrainian academic libraries establish specialized services for their users, while
trying to compensate for the lack of adequate funding and access to information resources, by the enthusiasm
and constant development of their professional skills.
In the early 2000s, Ukrainian academic libraries offered a typical set of online services, such as remote
access to library information resources, or online counselling via email. However, very quickly, Ukrainian
academic libraries began to apply a personalized approach to the provision of services that involves intensive
librarian-user collaboration. This service involves the active mediation of a librarian in the process of
preparing and disseminating the research results of users, in particular searching for literature on the topic,
explanation of the basic concepts of bibliometrics and scientometrics, assistance in bibliographic
management, selection of optimal journals for publication, assistance in placing preprints, developing a
policy of storage and distribution data, and advice on using Science 2.0 tools. Around the world, this library
service model is often referred to as “Embedded Librarian” (Wu & Mi, 2013). However, this term is rarely
used in Ukraine, and preference is given to the term “Specialist in Support of Scientific Research”. Ukrainian
librarians work predominantly with postgraduate students and scientists since undergraduate students are
rarely involved in research work during their learning process, and therefore their information needs are
often limited to selecting materials for courses.
The emergence and popularity of this library service was largely due to the state of science in Ukraine,
in particular in social and humanitarian sciences. The long economic crisis in Ukraine has caused serious
damage to Ukrainian science, which has led to a brain drain from the country, ageing and lack of research
equipment, and an increase in the average age of workers of Ukrainian scientific institutions (Directorate-
General for Research and Innovation, European Commission, 2017, p. 29-30). Repeatedly, ambitious goals
were set for the development of a national scientific system, but on-going reforms in this research area
proved for decades to be rather unsystematic and yielded relatively modest results. The Ukrainian scientific
landscape continues to dominate disciplines that were aligned with the needs of the Soviet Union's military
economy: physics, chemistry, and engineering (Yegorov, 2009). Social and human sciences could not
develop normally under the contnued conditions of Soviet ideology. Accordingly, Ukrainian scholars who
work in these fields are deprived of a starting advantage compared to their Ukrainian colleagues in natural
sciences, and it is much more difficult for them to integrate into the global scientific space. For example,
most Ukrainian journals in these disciplines do not have a well-defined subject area, and, accordingly, are
unable to perform their function and to serve as reliable channels of science communication (Kavunenko,
Khorevin & Luzan, 2006). At the same time, it is difficult for Ukrainian authors to fulfil the quality
requirements of leading international scientific journals, as they are accustomed to publishing in Ukrainian
journals. This has increased their isolation and slowed down the development of social and humanitarian
research in Ukraine.
The recent reform initiatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine also raised the interest
of library users in the Embedded Librarian service. Applicants for the academic rank of professor or
associate professor in Ukraine should have publications in periodicals included in Scopus or Web of Science
(WoS) databases (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2016, No 13), and applicants for a PhD
degree must have publications “in scientific periodicals of other countries” (Ministry of Education and
Science Youth and Sports of Ukraine, 2012, No 1112). It is clear that such a requirement of publication,
regardless of the quality of foreign journals, is meaningless and incapable of improving the presentation of
Ukrainian scientists (Nazarovets & Nazarovets, 2018). However, despite criticisms and suggestions of and
by the Ukrainian scientific community, officials of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine left the
text of the wording of this law unchanged, once again demonstrating the inconsistency of Ukrainian reforms.
Most Ukrainian scientists, especially in the social sciences and humanities, who have faced this
publishing requirement for articles in journals indexed in Scopus or WoS, are forced to open a world of
modern scientific communication in novel ways. They sought assistance from librarians who, within the
broader service of an Embedded Librarian, help scientists to deal with new issues to them: the use of
specialized tools for scientists, international bibliographic styles, copyright issues, self-archiving of preprints,
and, in particular, the selection of a reliable journal for publication.
In addition to scientists, heads of Ukrainian higher education institutions are also interested in library
services for the selection of high-quality scientific journals for the publication of research results. The level
of funding for higher education institutions in Ukraine depends primarily on the number of students: students
studying at the expense of a government order and whose tuition is paid by the state, and students who study
on a commercial basis and independently pay their tuition. In 2016, 1,369,400 students studying in 287
Ukrainian universities (excluding educational institutions of the temporarily occupied territory of the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol and parts of the territory in the East of Ukraine captured by
pro-Russian militants) (State Statistics Service of Ukraine, 2017), of these, approximately 64,000 are foreign
students (Ukrainian State Center for International Education, 2017). The number of Ukrainians who favour
the acquisition of higher education abroad, especially in neighbouring Poland, increased significantly. The
growth in the number of Ukrainians studying in foreign universities from 2009 to 2015 swelled to 129%
(Slobodian & Stadny, 2016). Accordingly, there is very strong competition between Ukrainian universities
for obtaining entrants.
In order to attract entrants, the leaders of Ukrainian universities are trying to demonstrate that their
institutions are integrated into international science. As a rule, data from international university ratings, such
as The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (in 2018, only 19 universities are from the
Ukraine (Times Higher Education, 2017, February 16), and only 5 of them are in the top 1,000 universities in
the world (Times Higher Education, 2017, August 18)), is used for this purpose. According to the
methodology of calculation (Times Higher Education, 2017, August 29), a high rating, or even the very
ability to enter a ranked university, depends on the publication activity of employees of that institution.
Therefore, heads of Ukrainian universities are interested in publishing papers in quality journals, which will
improve the representation of their university in these ratings and make it more attractive for entrants.
In addition to the reputational advantages, the publication activity of employees can bring a university
significant financial benefits. The number of publications of scientists of an institution in journals indexed
“in the scientometrics bases Scopus, Web of Science, other scientometrics bases recognized by the Ministry
of Education and Science of Ukraine” (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2017, No 912) is evaluated in order
to assign a national status to that institution. The national status significantly increases funding to the
institution from the budget of the country compared to institutions that do not have this status (Verkhovna
Rada of Ukraine, 2014, July 1).
3. Threats of the spread of unscholarly or pseudo-scientific journals
The relative simplicity by which online and/or open access (OA) journals could be created, and the low
costs needed to sustain such publication, led, to some extent, the scientific world facing an unprecedentedly
large number of journals, some of which were pseudo-scientific, i.e., posing as OA journals, but after
receiving a fee (article processing charge, or APC) from authors, quickly publish any material without proper
peer review. The results of research of the motivation of authors from developing countries who published
research in pseudo-scientific journals suggest that some scientists did not suspect the questionable quality of
selected publications. Rather, they simply felt more comfortable in submitting a manuscript to a journal from
a developing country than that publishing in a journal from a developed country, not wishing to repeat such a
mistake in the future. Despite this risk, some authors admitted that they would continue to publish in similar
OA journals if their institution recognized their publications (Kurt, 2018).
Such behaviour of university staff constitutes a serious threat since the publication of pseudo-scientific
research may cause enormous damage, not only to the reputation of the scientist but, also to that of their
institution while potentially wasting resources, financial or other (Moher et al., 2017). In addition,
unscrupulous university staff will be able to report on the successful implementation of scientific research at
their institute without proper review of publications and, consequently, receive certain material awards and
promotions without deserving them. As a result, such incompetent scientists will not be able to solve
complex administrative, educational or scientific tasks, and this will inevitably lead to an eventual decline in
the quality of the university's scientific work (Ifijeh, 2017; Balehegn, 2017). Therefore, the leadership of an
ambitious university, whether in the Ukraine or elsewhere, should be interested in the enlightenment of
scientists and conducting information campaigns aimed at preventing the publication of manuscripts in
questionable journals, as well as in detecting unscrupulous academics who have succeeded in using unethical
manipulations with quantitative indicators to advance their scientific careers.
Problem statement
To date, there is no defined or formalized verification procedure that would allow pseudo-scientific
journals to be quickly or effectively recognized. However, there are several specialized tools that librarians
use to complete this task. The aim of this study was to assess the main information resources used by
specialists of Ukrainian academic libraries to check scientific journals for recommendation to library users as
reliable channels for the distribution of scientific research results. To achieve this goal, we conducted a
survey of specialists of academic libraries of leading Ukrainian universities that are engaged in preparing
recommendations for choosing journals for authors.
Methodology
We interviewed librarians from nine leading Ukrainian universities (based on The Times Higher
Education World University Rankings): Central Scientific Library of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National
University, G.I. Denysenko Scientific Library of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor
Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Library and Information Center of Sumy State University,
Maksymovych Scientific Library of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, National University of
Ostroh Academy Library, Scientific and Technical Library of the National Technical University “Kharkiv
Polytechnic Institute”, Scientific Library of Lviv Polytechnic National University, Scientific Library of
Uzhhorod National University, Scientific Library of Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University.
We proposed library representatives to answer the following questions:
Does your institution provide journal selection services for a publication aimed at countering
“predatory”, unscholarly or low-quality journals?
What online resources and/or tools do your employees use to provide such services?
Based on the responses we received, we compiled a list of the most popular resources used by
Ukrainian academic librarians to identify academically suspicious journals and provide appropriate guidance
to their university researchers and managers.
Results
We identifed fve major resources used by Ukrainian academic librarians to identify suspicious journals
and to offer guidance to their institutes' academics.
Scopus / Web of Science
Two commercial resources are the most popular for searching journals for publication among Ukrainian
librarians, Scopus (Elsevier) and the WoS Core Collection (Clarivate Analytics). This popularity is due to the
use of indicators of these databases by government agencies, as exemplified by the official education
ministerial orders we mentioned above. Journals are indexed in Scopus and WoS for free, but full-featured
user access to Scopus and WoS platforms requires a subscription. In accordance with the Order of the
Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, more than 100 Ukrainian universities received the Scopus
and/or WoS subscription from the state budget in 2018. Most users of these institutions have access to these
products for the first time (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2017, No 1286).
Scopus and WoS Core Collection compilers maintain transparent criteria for selecting scientific content
(Mongeon & Paul-Hus, 2016). All journals that submit an application for inclusion in these databases must
meet minimum publishing criteria, including compliance with publishing ethical standards, conducting a
review of manuscripts, have a registered ISSN, a definite timetable for publication, titles and abstracts of
articles in English, etc. (Appendix A, Supplementary file). In addition, independent experts evaluate the
editorial policy of the journal, the reputation of its editors, the variety of the geographic distribution of
editors and authors, the quality of the web page, the citation of the journal articles and the relevance of
published research (Elsevier, 2018).
Despite careful selection, Scopus and WoS Core Collection experts annually suspend the indexing of
dozens of journals due to the decline in their scientific quality and violation of publishing standards. At the
same time, all articles published in the journal before coverage was discontinued will remain forever in the
database even if the journal was excluded due to the publication of doubtful articles.
Therefore, librarians should pay attention to the actual information on the indexation of the journal in
the databases and its indicators that may raise suspicion since the mere fact of having a journal in one of
these databases, unfortunately, can not yet testify to its scientific quality. On the other hand, since Scopus
and WoS Core Collection contain a limited number of scientific journals, the absence of a journal on these
databases also does not necessarily reflect its lac of scientific value.
Beall's black lists
An American librarian, Jeffrey Beall, created two black lists on his personal blog that he referred to as
“potential, possible or probable” predatory OA journals and publishers. He suspected, as one of the criteria
for inclusion of these journals and publishers, based primarily on personal accounts and inconclusive
evidence, that some of these journals or publishers did not properly vet or peer review manuscripts, but
simply served as paper mills to extract APCs from authors and their institutes. Beall (2016) used his own
criteria to establish his black lists, whose fairness was sometimes criticized, while their accuracy and
legitimacy is now being rigorously scrutinized in a post-publication peer review to evaluate the possible
effects Beall and his black lists may have had on the “predatory” publishing literature and on policy
(Teixeira da Silva, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b). In January 2017, Beall deleted all the information on his
site, but copies of his lists and criteria are now available on some other web resources and are still used by
Ukrainian librarians to identify questionable OA publishers and journals (Beall, 2015). Ukrainian academics
are not punished or penalized in any way if they publish in journals or publishers that appeared on Beall’s
black lists.
Apart from Actual Problems of Economics, there do not appear to have been any other OA publishers or
individual journals that were active only in post-Soviet countries under Beall’s radar, therefore his black lists
were not useful to Ukrainian librarians, although the presence of a journal or publisher on those lists gives
them a certain additional marker that they require a more thorough check.
DOAJ
The Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) (https://doaj.org) was designed to ease the work of users
with scientific and scholarly OA journals, and uses a quality control system in order to guarantee users
access to quality content only (Bi, 2017). Before adding a journal to its directory, the DOAJ editors pay
attention to compliance with publishing standards by journal editors, including the completeness of the
information about the journal, the quality of its website content, the transparency of the publishing and
review process, publication fees, copyright notices (Appendix B, Supplementary file). If any violations of
minimum requirements are found, the journal will not be included in the DOAJ until they are resolved.
Therefore, the presence of a journal in the directory signals to Ukrainian academic librarians about the
compliance with certain publishing standards.
Since the DOAJ only includes OA journals that immediately give users unlimited access to all content,
the directory is not suitable for checking journals that do not support OA or that apply embargo policies. In
addition, the proposed minimum criteria by which DOAJ editors analyze only the information presented on
the journal website are not enough to identify pseudo-scientific journals. It is relatively easy for “predatory”
OA journal owners to demonstrate the formal fulfilment of requirements and to detail the necessary
information on the website simply to get into the DOAJ directory, but not to adhere to the declared
principles. It is possible that this is one reason why journals and publishers are being continually deliested
from the DOAJ
1
.
Think. Check. Submit
The initiative of publishers, scholars and librarians “Think. Check. Submit”
(http://thinkchecksubmit.org) does not contain a list of names of suspicious journals. Rather, it offers authors
a checklist of questionable criteria that will help them decide whether to send your manuscript safely to this
journal or publisher (Dobson, 2016). The online tool and proposed criteria are used by Ukrainian librarians
mainly for group training and individual counselling for young scientists in search of reliable journals to
present their research results (Appendix C, Supplementary file).
The Norwegian Register
The Norwegian system of financing higher education allocates funding to institutions according to the
indicators of their publication activity. The Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) provides an
updated list of The Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers
(https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/Forside), publications that bring financial reward to Norwegian
institutions (Appendix D, Supplementary file). The register is available free of charge and is also used in
other countries worldwide for the purpose of evaluating the scientific activities of institutions.
1
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/183mRBRqs2jOyP0qZWXN8dUd02D4vL0Mov_kgYF8HORM/edit#gid=0
The recently launched Dimensions Scientific Platform (https://www.dimensions.ai) offers users the
ability to filter the search results of journals for inclusion in PubMed, DOAJ, Excellence in Research for
Australia (ERA), and The Norwegian Register, which can increase the popularity of using the registry
around the world. Thus far, there was no information that Ukrainian officials plan to use it at the state level.
Therefore, Ukrainian librarians very rarely turn to this resource.
Other solutions
In addition, librarians from Ukrainian universities indicated that they are sporadically using other
information resources, including The Scimago Journal & Country Rank (http://www.scimagojr.com), which
is available free of charge and based on Scopus data.
Academic librarians are not the only ones who are working today in Ukraine to develop an official
procedure for checking the validity of scientific journals. For example, criteria for evaluating Ukrainian
scientific periodicals were proposed by members of the Scientific Committee of the National Council for
Science and Technology Development, which was created under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. On the
basis of these proposals, the “Order of Formation of the List of Scientific Professional Editions of Ukraine”
(Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2018, No 32) was created (Appendix E, Supplementary file).
Since it only entered into force at the time of writing this article, we cannot yet explore and evaluate its
practical ability to deal with unscrupulous Ukrainian scientific journals
Discussion
Thus, we managed to describe for the first time the most popular information resources used by
specialists of Ukrainian academic libraries to check the quality and/or validity of scientific journals or
publishers for recommendation to scientists and Ukrainian academics, in their role as Embedded Librarians,
potentially reliable sources for obtaining and disseminating scientific information. Unfortunately, each of
these resources has its own disadvantages and/or weaknesses, which do not guarantee protect of the user
from cooperation with unscrupulous, “predatory” or unscholarly publishers, OA or not. Therefore, this
challenge requires further work, not only by librarians but, of course, also from the academic community,
policy makers and government officials.
Times of reform open up new opportunities for Ukrainian academic librarians who can try to regain
prominence in the scientific life of their institutions, since ambitious leaders and university scientists who
seek to develop their institutions and grow their competitiveness must be fully committed to creating and
maintaining quality specialized library services, including those aimed at the evaluation of scientific
publications and the fight against pseudo-scientific journals. It is necessary that such initiatives be supported
by responsible Ukrainian officials. However, the lack of clear requirements for the quality of scientific
publications in the official documents of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, on the contrary,
potentially encourages university staff to exaggerate the number and impact of their publication activity. It
may distort the actual publication situation of Ukrainian science and does not allow for the creation of an
effective plan for its development.
If the efforts of academic activists, including academic librarians, do not find state support, and no
logical requirements for the quality of scientific publications will soon be introduced, this will de facto mean
legitimization of the publications of university employees in “predatory” or pseudo-scientific journals, and
the academic crisis in Ukrainian science will only intensify. Quantitative indicators of publication activity,
obtained at the expense of articles in potentially fake academic journals, conceal the real information needs
of university employees, first of all, in access to leading scientific content and tools, and training and support
of high-quality library specialists. It will lead to “freezing” library budgets. Such “depressed” libraries have
hardly any place in the scientific life of an academic university.
Conclusion
The introduction of state requirements for the quality of scientific publications in Ukraine can
significantly improve the demand for quality academic library services, draw attention to library acquisition
issues and generally contribute to a rethinking of the role of the library in the system of university science.
Of course, this is not the only direction that needs to be taken in the work of academic libraries in Ukraine.
However, personnel policy, as well as the content and direction of Ukrainian library services will depend on
the effectiveness of the fight against pseudo-science and unscholarly behaviour in the next few years.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Andriy Andrukhiv (Scientific Library of Lviv Polytechnic National University),
Yuliia Glavcheva (Scientific and technical Library of the National Technical University “Kharkiv
Polytechnic Institute”), Iryna Kaplenko (Library and Information Centre of Sumy State University), Yuriy
Kotsyuk (National University of Ostroh Academy Library), Yevgeniya Kulyk (G.I. Denysenko Scientific
Library of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”), Maria
Medved (Scientific Library of Uzhhorod National University), Oleg Serbin (Maksymovych Scientific
Library of National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv), Oleg Shylyuk (Scientific Library of Yuriy
Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University), Irina Zhuravlyova (Central Scientific Library of V.N. Karazin
Kharkiv National University) and all in Ukraine, for their kind feedback to our request for information
regarding the resources currently being used officially by libraries throughout.
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Fig. 1. Use of annual funds (USD) by libraries in the sphere of management and influence of the Ministry of
Culture of Ukraine in 1999-2016*. Data was obtained from the statistical digest “Library Ukraine in
numbers” (https://goo.gl/VomH2j). The conversion hryvnia into USD was based on the official exchange
rate at the end of each year.
0,00 $
50 000 000,00 $
100 000 000,00 $
150 000 000,00 $
200 000 000,00 $
250 000 000,00 $
Total
Salaries
Library collections
Appendix A. Journal selection criteria Scopus & WoS
Scopus*
Web of Science Core Collection**
Journal Policy:
● Convincing editorial policy
● Type of peer review
● Diversity in geographical distribution of
editors
● Diversity in geographical distribution of
authors
Content:
● Academic contribution to the field
● Clarity of abstracts
● Quality of and conformity to the stated aims
and scope of the journal
● Readability of articles
Journal Standing:
● Citedness of journal articles in Scopus
● Editor standing
Publishing Regularity:
● No delays or interruptions in the publication
schedule
Online Availability:
● Full journal content available online
● English language journal home page
available
● Quality of journal home page
Basic publishing standards:
● Peer Review
● Acknowledgements
● Ethical Publishing Practices
● Publishing Format
● Timeliness
● International Editorial Conventions
● Full Text English
Editorial content:
● The content of a journal under evaluation
will enrich the database
International focus:
● International diversity among the journal’s
contributing authors, editors, and editorial
advisory board members
Citation Analysis
● Total Citation counts to determine the
integration of the journal into the
surrounding literature over its entire
publishing history
● Impact Factor to determine the recent effect
of the journal on the literature of its subject
* https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/content/content-policy-and-selection
** https://clarivate.com/essays/journal-selection-process/
Appendix B. Basic requirements for inclusion in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)*
● The full text of ALL content must be available for free and be Open Access without delay without
embargo period;
● The journal has its own dedicated website. No other service or product should be present under that
URL. All the journal content that the publisher is including in the application must be in one place
and not spread over various locations;
● All the necessary journal business information pages must be hosted on this same site and not be
held centrally on another web site, or must be prominently linked to from the journal's homepage;
● Every article of journal must have a unique URL;
● A journal must have at least one ISSN registered at issn.org;
● A journal's homepage must contain clear navigation with links to a Current Issue, the Archive or Past
Issues, Search, Browse, the About page, the Editorial Board and Contact Us;
● A link to the Editorial Board must be displayed prominently on the journal's home page. The
following information must be made available on the Editorial Board page: the name and affiliation
of the editorial board members. The page must be up-to-date;
● All articles must go through a quality control system (editorial or peer review) before publication
and the exact type of review must be stated clearly on the web site;
● A link to detailed and comprehensive guidelines for authors (Instructions for Authors) must be
clearly presented on the journal's homepage;
● Every journal must display clearly on its web site information about any charges for an author to
process or publish a paper;
● The journal's Open Access policy must be clearly stated on the journal's web;
● In all instances the journal web site must state clearly and precisely the terms of use and reuse that
readers and authors have when they submit an article or use the published content.
* https://doaj.org/publishers#advice (last accessed: April 10, 2018)
Appendix C. «Think. Check. Submit» check list to assess the journal*
● Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
– Have you read any articles in the journal before?
– Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the journal?
● Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
– Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website?
– Can you contact the publisher by telephone, email, and post?
● Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?
● Are articles indexed in services that you use?
● Is it clear what fees will be charged?
– Does the journal site explain what these fees are for and when they will be charged?
● Do you recognise the editorial board?
– Have you heard of the editorial board members?
– Do the editorial board mention the journal on their own websites?
● Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative?
– Do they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)?
– If the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?
– If the journal is open access, does the publisher belong to the Open Access Scholarly
Publishers’ Association (OASPA)?
– Is the journal hosted on one of INASP’s Journals Online platforms (for journals published in
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Central America and Mongolia) or on African Journals
Online (AJOL, for African journals)?
– Is the publisher a member of another trade association?
* https://thinkchecksubmit.org/check/ (last accessed: April 10, 2018)
Appendix D. Criteria for inclusion of new scientific publication channels in the Norwegian Register for
Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers*
1. Established procedures for external peer review. The concept of external peer review refers to various
forms of editorial procedures that differ between academic fields and publication channels, and which
indicate that the manuscript has been evaluated by one or more independent experts on the subject matter.
2. An academic editorial board (or an equivalent) primarily consisting of researchers from universities,
research institutes etc.
3. International or national authorship.
Authorship of a publication channel is defined in accordance with the following operational criteria:
● Authorship is international when less than two-thirds of the authors published in the publication
channel are from the same country;
● Authorship is national when more than two-thirds of the authors published in the publication channel
are from the same country;
● Authorship is local when more than two-thirds of the authors published in the publication channel
are from the same institution.
* https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/OmKriterier.action (last accessed: April 10, 2018)
Appendix E. Categories of Ukrainian journals in "Order of Formation of the List of Scientific
Professional Editions of Ukraine"*
Category A
(Категорія “А”)
Scientific periodicals of Ukraine, which are indexed by Scopus and/or Web of
Science Core Collection.
Category B
(Категорія “Б”)
Journals that meet the requirements of items 1-8:
1) a certificate of state registration of mass media with the national and/or
foreign sphere of distribution (for periodical printed scientific
publications);
2) ISSN which is used to identify the printed and/or electronic periodicals
and compliance with the stated periodicity;
3) assigning to each published paper of the international digital identifier DOI
(Digital Object Identifier);
4) a web-site of the journal with Ukrainian and English interfaces (an
interface may have other foreign languages related to the area of
distribution of the journal) or web-pages of the journal on the website of
the founder (co-founder) with such information:
a) policy (purpose and objectives) of the scientific publication;
b) the structure of the editorial board, indicating the degree, rank and
main place of work;
c) peer review procedure and adherence to ethical standards in
publishing;
d) the procedure for preparing and submitting the manuscript for
publication;
e) information on the conditions of access and annotation to each
article in accordance with the content of the issues published on
the web-page of the journal;
f) if the journal is not completely English-speaking, each non-
English article is accompanied by an annotation in English of at
least 1800 characters, including keywords; if the journal is not
completely Ukrainian-speaking, each non-Ukrainian article is
accompanied by an annotation in Ukrainian of at least 1800
characters, including keywords;
5) placing of electronic copies of the journal on the platform "Scientific
periodicals of Ukraine" in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and
in the National Repository of Academic Texts in the case of open access;
placing a complete bibliographic description and annotation to articles for
the formation of the Register of Academic Texts, if the journal is
distributed by subscription;
6) providing a qualitative independent peer review of materials submitted for
publication by scientists conducting research on a specialty and having in
the past three years at least one publication in the journals included in the
List, or foreign publications included in the Web of Science Core
Collection and/or Scopus, or have monographs or sections of monographs
issued by international publishing houses classified as "A", "B" or "C"
according to the classification of the Research School for Socio-Economic
and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE); reviews signed by the
reviewers with a regular or digital electronic signature must be kept in the
editorial office for at least three years;
7) the presence in the composition of the editorial board of at least seven
scientists who have a degree in one of the specialties that correspond to the
scientific profile of the journal; each of these specialists, including the
editor-in-chief, must have at least three publications in the last five years
or at least seven publications (articles, monographs, sections of
monographs corresponding to the scientific profile of the journal) for the
last fifteen years (in that including at least one in the past three years),
published in at least two different journals included in the Web of Science
Core Collection and/or Scopus, or have monographs or sections of
monographs issued by international publishers belonging to the categories
"A", "B" or "C" according to SENSE classification; the editorial board
should include at least three scientists working in Ukrainian academic
institutions or institutions of higher education, and at least one scientist
working in a foreign academic institution or institution of higher
education; a scientist may be a member of not more than three editorial
boards of journals included in the List;
8) inclusion in the "profile international scientometrics databases
recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science".
Category C
(Категорія “В”)
Journals that meet the requirements of items 1-5 of the Category B (Категорія
“Б”). Category C is assigned to all scientific professional journals included in the
List on the day of the approval of the Order by the Ministry of Education and
Science, and journals that were excluded from Category A or B are added to the
Category C for two years. Category C journal, which did not get the Category A or
B for two years, is excluded from the List without the right to renew.
* http://zakon3.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/z0148-18?info=1 (last accessed: April 10, 2018)
