CiteScore: 2.6 (2024)

Based on an update from Clarivate on 18.07.2024, the journal was de-listed in May 2024 because they did not identify our new URL (which we had communicated in January 2024 and notified as our new URL). Clarivate categorized this as a “production de-listing,” rather than based on “editorial selection criteria.” While we believe this failure to process our communication appears to be the root cause, Clarivate has not formally acknowledged this operational issue.

This incident raises significant questions about the consistency and transparency of Clarivate’s processes, particularly for smaller publishers who may be more vulnerable to apparent operational inconsistencies. It suggests that outcomes may be subject to interpretation rather than being consistently governed by clearly documented professional protocols that ensure equitable treatment for all.

This pattern of potential inconsistency is not limited to technical oversights. Just as one example, the integrity of any citation index depends on the consistent and impartial application of its own rules. While Clarivate publicly refers to a self-citation threshold of around 5%, we have observed examples of journals listed in JCR 2024 whose self-citation rates are publicly reported as exceeding 50%. In our assessment, this warrants rigorous academic scrutiny in light of the stated policy threshold. Such discrepancies in the application of policies may undermine the credibility of the index. It raises the question of whether a journal may be removed for a technical issue like a URL update, while others remain listed despite what we interpret as metrics that appear to contradict the spirit of the stated policy , if a 1% overage can artificially inflate a journal’s Impact Factor and alter its quartile ranking, then self-citation rates of 30%, 40% or 50+% may represent a serious risk of distortion of the index’s integrity, allowing for possible elevation of quartile ranking (for example from Q4 to Q3, or Q3 to Q2).

Believing these issues require rigorous academic scrutiny, our journal will soon support a 'new scholarly forum' designed to facilitate critical, evidence-based dialogue on indexing practices and their impact on the global research community (mainly focusing on Web of Science).

Abstracted and indexed in:

ADL (Asian Digital Library)
AGRICOLA
CAB Abstracts
DOAJ
EBSCO Academic Search
EBSCO Discovery Service
EMBiology
Google Scholar
IFIS Publishing
INIS Atomindex
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China
Naver
OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service
ProQuest Agricultural & Environmental Science Database
ProQuest Aqualine
ProQuest Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA)
ProQuest Biological Science Database
ProQuest Central
ProQuest Earth, Atmospheric & Aquatic Science Database
ProQuest Environmental Science
ProQuest Industrial and Applied Microbiology Abstracts (Microbiology A)
ProQuest Natural Science Collection
ProQuest Oceanic Abstracts
ProQuest SciTech Premium Collection
ProQuest Toxicology Abstracts
ProQuest Water Resources Abstracts
ProQuest-ExLibris Primo
ProQuest-ExLibris Summon
SCImago
SCOPUS
Semantic Scholar