Scholarly Journals’ Publication Frequency and Number of Articles in 2018–2019: A Study of SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI Journals

Xiaotian Chen

doi:10.3390/publications7030058

Abstract

This study used all-journal data and systematic random sampling data to primarily determine the average number of issues per year and the average number of articles per issue among the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) (China), and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) (China) journals. The random sampling data were based on 5% SCI and SSCI samples and 10% CSCD and CSSCI samples. The objectives were to have a 2018–2019 record of the journal publication frequency detailing the number of articles per issue and the number of issues per year for the journals on the lists, as well as to compare Chinese journals’ data with those of international journals, in the perspective of scholarly publishing transformations in the world as well as in China during the past two decades. The study found that the average number of issues per year for SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI journals was 10.95, 5.18, 9.17, and 7.87, respectively, and that CSCD/CSSCI journals publish more articles than SCI/SSCI, with CSSCI journals publishing significantly more articles per year than SSCI journals. The author fees for non-OA journals in China could play a role in the higher number of articles. The “mega journal” phenomenon does not seem to be a common practice among all the journal lists studied.

Highlights

The scholarly journal publishing landscape has seen dramatic developments during the last two decades
Similar to Science Citation Index (SCI) and Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) are selective lists of established journals, and it is easy to tell by their names that they imitate SCI and SSCI
Journal lists were downloaded in January 2019 from the official websites of the owners of SCI, SSCI, CSCD, and CSSCI

Summary

Introduction

The scholarly journal publishing landscape has seen dramatic developments during the last two decades One such development is the transition from print publication to online, in which publishers are progressively halting paper publications. The American Chemical Society stopped publishing paper journals in 2010 [1]. Another is the emergence of Open Access (OA) journals, in which these journals maintain a new business model. Including over 12,000 journals, and Cabell’s Blacklist (a subscription-based blacklist of predatory OA journals at https://www.cabells.com/) including over 10,000 journals. While these prior developments have been global, some developments have been more regional. One such a regional development is in China: China published 21 journals in 1970, 930 journals in 1978 [2], and by February

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Conclusion