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SciELO Cuba
This document describes the evaluation standards adopted by the Project SciELO (http://www.scielo.org) for the admission and permanency of the scientific journals in the electronic collection SciELO Cuba (http://scielo.sld.cu). These standards, as well as the policy and procedures that will govern their implementation have been discussed in a editors workshop with the participation of the persons responsible for the technical aspects of the process and they have been adapted from those adopted by SciELO Brazil, and which were discussed in the Seminar on Evaluation and Selection Standards of Scientific Journals, held in April 1999 in FAPESP, in Sao Paulo, and approved later on by FAPESP (http://www.fapesp.br) and BIREME (http://www.bireme.org). 2. STANDARDS AIMED BY SciELO CUBA The standards for SciELO Cuba are defined in the context of the Project SciELO, and in Cuba they are coordinated by the National Center of Information of Medical Sciences, while in the regional area they are coordinated by the Central Unit of SciELO in Brazil. The general objective of Project SciELO is to contribute to the development of the national scientific investigation by means of the improvement and outreach of the dissemination, publication and evaluation means, through the intensive use of electronic publishing. In short term, Project SciELO wants to radically increase the national and international visibility of the scientific publications of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as their accessibility and credibility, through the integrated Internet publication of the national and regional collections of scientific publications. In long term, the project foretells an increase in the impact of the national scientific publications. To fulfill the objectives of Project SciELO, it is indispensable to improve all the aspects of scientific communication in the country, by means of the identification, stimulation and development of a collection of scientific journals that serves as nucleus, with high quality standards similar to those of the internationally best journals. Therefore, the evaluation standards for journals, as well as the policies and procedures for their implementation, are fundamental aspects for the performance of Project SciELO.
a. to offer the standards for the evaluation of the national scientific journals in order to determine their admission into the SciELO Cuba collection; b. to monitor the performance of the scientific journals admitted into the SciELO Cuba collection with the purpose of determining their permanency in the collection; c. to create performance indicators for the SciELO Cuba collection jointly and for each individual journal; The standards of Project
SciELO Cuba and their implementation will follow the dynamics of the
regional Project SciELO, especially the creation and development process
of the SciELO Cuba collection. On the base of the standards of SciELO Cuba, the Advisory Committee has the purpose of proposing: a. the inclusion of new scientific journals into the SciELO Cuba collection; b. the exclusion of scientific journals out of the SciELO Cuba collection; c. changes in the standards of evaluation of scientific journals for their admission and permanency in the SciELO Cuba collection; d. performance indicators for the journals included in the SciELO Cuba collection that will be periodically published; e. the definition and expansion of the operations of the Committee, with a view to cooperating with the efficient achievement of the previous objectives. The Committee will be constituted by members of the national community dedicated to scientific communication, according to the following permanent structure: a. The technical coordinator of Project SciELO, who will be in charge of the Committee as its Chair; b. A member of the Publications Commission of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba; c. A member of the National Direction of Periodic Publications, of the Ministry of Culture; d. A member of INFOMED e. A scientific editor of each of the following areas: 1. Natural sciences The scientific editors will be chosen annually from among the editors of the scientific journals included in the SciELO Cuba collection. No institution will be able to have more than one member in the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee
will be able to have advisors and specialists that participate in
its meetings and activities whenever necessary. The SciELO Cuba collection
includes scientific journals that mainly publish outcomes of original
scientific research and other original papers that significantly contribute
to the knowledge in the area of performance of that journal. The journals
should carry out peer-reviews for the analysis and approval of the
manuscripts received. To participate in
the SciELO Cuba collection, it is not necessary for the journals to
have a printed issue. 5.1. Standards for the admission of journals into the SciELO Cuba collection 5.1.1. Journals included in international databases and indexes. The Cuban journals qualify directly for their initial admission into the SciELO Cuba collection if they are indexed in one or both of the following international databases or indexes: - Web of Science (WoS) - SCOPUS 5.1.2. Journals that fulfill the following conditions: 1 - Certified by the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment of the Republic of Cuba, according to Resolution 59/2003. 2 - Included in: - the Catalog of the Regional System of on-line Information for Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal (http://www.latindex.org) - Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org) The Cuban journals that fulfill all the standards expressed in section 5.1.2 may be eligible to be evaluated for their inclusion into the SciELO Cuba collection. The candidates shall also download and fill out a form that shall accompany the application and will contribute to verify that all the parameters are completed. (Form) The permanency in the SciELO Cuba collection of the accepted journals according to this standard will be determined by the performance indicators described in section 6. Besides fulfilling the standards of admission into the collection, the publications shall strictly fulfill the following requirements, which are also the evaluation standards for their permanency in the library: a. Scientific content The journals should publish mainly original outcomes of scientific investigations, as well as other original papers that significantly contribute to the knowledge in the area of performance or action of that journal. The Advisory Committee of SciELO Cuba will request the criteria from related specialists to evaluate the importance of the original articles published. b. Peer-review The evaluation and approval of the manuscripts received should be carried out on the base of an adequate peer-review process. The editors of each journal shall offer details about the peer-review process carried out for the approval of the manuscripts. Once a journal is accepted into the SciELO Cuba collection, the peer-review process should be documented and it shall compulsorily offer the most important indicative figures of this process, such as the number of received and accepted manuscripts. c. Editorial Committee The structuring of the editorial committees must me of public knowledge. Their members should be national and foreign renowned specialists. Journals will not be accepted if their editorial committees are made up by specialists of a single institution, or most of whose articles belong to the same institution. d. Frequency Frequency is an indicator that depends on the thematic area of each journal. The frequency indicates the flow of scientific literature of a specific area covered by a journal. It also is an indicator of the opportunity and speed of the communication of the scientific results. The following chart establishes the minimum and desirable frequencies, according to broad thematic areas, as well as the minimum and desirable number of articles a journal should publish annually.
f. Punctuality of the publication The journals should be published in time according to their declared issuing periods. g. Formal aspects of the articles The journals should offer the translation into English of the titles of the articles, the abstracts, and the key words when the articles are published in Spanish or another language. h. Standardization Each journal should specify the norms or standards to follow for the editorial presentation of its sections and articles, as well as for the presentation of documents, including mainly the bibliographical references. This section is of vital importance for the processing of the articles when working with computer systems. 5.2 Applying for evaluation The direction of the editorial committee of the journal, if you comply by the afore-mentioned requirements, can formulate your applying for evaluation to SciELO Cuba Coordinator Center of the National Center of Information of Medical Sciences, independently of the area of science it belongs to: Coordinador General Grupo SciELO CUBA The application should include the publication data, as well as the URL of the journal, if it is available in electronic format or instead 2 copies of the last 4 issues published in printed format. It is important for the properly completed FORM to be attached. 5.3 Procedure Applications will be admitted exclusively in the months of March and October. The advisory committee of SciELO Cuba will evaluate the new applications until the admission deadline and it will issue an evaluation report in the following 60 days. 5.4. Report of the admission process The admission of a journal into the SciELO Cuba collection should be valid only after a favorable report of the Advisory Committee of SciELO Cuba. If necessary, the Committee will ask for the criteria of experts in order to take decisions. The report of the Committee may include recommendations for the improvement of the journal and changes that will be implemented in a term defined in the report itself. INFOMED, as focal
site of Project SciELO in Cuba, will support the work of the Committee
offering the whole necessary information and documentation. All the indicators applied for the admission of a journal into the SciELO Cuba collection will also be applied to evaluate its permanency in the collection. Additionally, the satisfactory fulfillment will be considered for the recommendations made during the evaluation by the Committee of admission of the journals for their improvement. The following indicators are linked to the performance of the journals of the SciELO collection and they will be used to justify their permanency in the collection: 6.1. Punctuality of the electronic materials sent to the Unit SciELO Cuba The punctuality of the electronic files sent with the articles and other materials will be recorded in an in-box control in the Unit SciELO Cuba. The sending of the electronic files should rigorously follow the established schedule of the journal. The Unit SciELO Cuba will inform to the Committee about any delay. The journals that present delays repeatedly will be evaluated by the Advisory Committee of SciELO Cuba with a view to their exclusion out of the collection. 6.2. Use of the journals The use of the journals will be measured monthly according to the number of times that they are visited or consulted online. When the use of a journal is persistently under or its tendency is to a decrease in comparison with other journals of the same discipline, its permanency in the collection will be analyzed by the Advisory Committee of SciELO Cuba. The Committee can suggest an investigation to determine the reasons and the possible solutions to that low-level in use, or to recommend the exclusion of that journal out of the SciELO Cuba collection. 6.3. Impact factor The impact factor is the frequency a journal is mentioned in a given year, according to the analyses of citations. The factor of impact of a given journal will be considered, in comparison with those of other journals of related disciplines. The increase of the
impact factor or their permanency within the average levels of journals
of related disciplines will be considered as an indicator of productive
performance that would assure the permanency of a journal in the SciELO
Cuba collection. The exclusion of a
journal out of the SciELO Cuba collection will only be realized after
a decision is made in written form by the Advisory Committee of SciELO
Cuba. The editors of any journal have the right to appeal the verdicts of the Advisory Committee of SciELO Cuba, either in relation to the admission or to the exclusion of their journal. The appeals will be sent to the Committee itself, which will proceed to evaluate the journal once again. The report of the Committee will be communicated to the editors. 9. READMISSION PROCESS The journals excluded out of the SciELO Cuba collection may be readmitted when they have completed all the admission and permanency standards of the library. The readmissions will be considered by the Advisory Committee of SciELO Cuba. The readmission of a journal may not be carried out immediately after such exclusion is made out of the SciELO Cuba collection. A journal may be readmitted only when it has fulfilled all the admission standards at least during four numbers or issues in a row or for one year. The admitted journals, according to the standards described in section 5.1, shall permanently fulfill such standards; otherwise, they will be excluded out of the SciELO Cuba collection. |
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