Assistance with publication in Scopus journals

Scopus is a global scientometrics that indexes over 29,000 high-quality peer-reviewed scientific publications. The list of Scopus journals is compiled based on publishers' compliance with a clear set of requirements regarding the quality of scientific content, methods of its selection, scientometrics indicators, and adherence to publication ethics.

In addition to journals, this scientometrics database indexes conference materials, books, editorial notes, and much more. Scopus publication is necessary for researchers to achieve many scientific goals, including:

• Obtaining academic degree and academic title
• Participating as a reviewer or editor of a scientific journal
• Obtaining funding, grant support, participation in influential research competitions
• Increasing the authority and rating of scientific institutions and the personal image of the scientist

How does Scopus work?

Specialists at Elsevier, the company that owns Scopus, carry out comprehensive work to maintain the organisation's rating and raise the overall level of scientific research. The work of the scientometrics database is mainly focused on cooperation with publications, but the verification of scientific journals automatically means the verification of the scientific content indexed there. With this in mind, it is necessary to consider several important aspects when working with Scopus scientific journals.

To do this, the publisher must complete the following steps:

• Submit the journal to Scopus. Representatives of the scientific publication (editor-in-chief, member of the editorial board, etc.) initiate the process of including the journal in the database, compile the necessary package of documents, and send a request for review to the independent Content Selection Advisory Board (CSAB).
• Verification of the publication. Scopus database specialists verify that the journal meets the minimum criteria for inclusion.
• Clarification. At this stage, additions and corrections are made.
• Review and decision. Successful completion of this stage depends on the outcome of the CSAB review.
• Communication. The publisher is notified of the decision to accept the scientific journal into Scopus.

In theory, this process does not seem particularly complicated, but in practice, it is quite different.

Every year, thousands of new publications apply for inclusion in Scopus, but only 33% of them meet the strict technical criteria. And of these approximately 1,200 publications, only 50% are accepted after review by an independent Content Selection Advisory Board.

Scopus citations are one of the main metrics for both scientific publications and individual authors. In Scopus, citations influence the calculation of the following scientometrics indicators of publications to a greater or lesser extent:

• SNIP – the ratio of the number of citations of an article to the average number of citations in Scopus in the subject area
• SJR – an indicator of the authority of journals and their citations in Scopus
• CireScore – the ratio of the number of citations in Scopus to the number of articles over the last 4 yearsw

Scopus continuously monitors all indexed journals to maintain high quality standards. The automated Radar system plays a key role in this process. It is a special algorithm developed by Elsevier that analyses dozens of metrics.

Typically, the main reasons for exclusion are as follows:

• Metrics and benchmarks – inconsistency in the analysis of self-citation rates, CireScore, and Scopus citation coefficients.
• Publication concerns – unethical publication behaviour.
• Radar – a sharp change in the publication behaviour of the journal (based on automatic verification by the service).
• Continuous curation – exclusion of a Scopus journal that was already ‘under control’ by specialists.

However, Scopus has recently changed and generalised the reasons for excluding journals that are listed in the official lists. Instead of detailed notes such as Publication Concerns, Outlier behaviour or Radar, which were actively used before, most new exclusions are now marked as Discontinuation (termination of coverage) and Journal change policy (change in journal policy).

Thanks to such checks and removals, Scopus maintains a high level of reliability and quality of scientific journals.

Citations and h-index in Scopus: key scientometrics indicators of an author

In addition to the above-mentioned Scopus journal profiles, this database also contains author profiles. Scientometrics indicators are also calculated for them.

The main ones are:

• Citations in Scopus – the total number of references to an author's work by other researchers within the Scopus database.
• h-index in Scopus – the interdependence of the number of works published in Scopus and citations within this database.

Uzbekistan journals in the Scopus database

The Scopus database includes many Uzbekistan scientific journals with various metrics. They are represented by the following publishers: Walter de Gruyter, Sciendo, Polish Academy of Science, Elsevier, Via Medica, and others.

Scopus and Web of Science journal list

Scopus or Web of Science?

Regulatory requirements regarding the number of scientific publications often compare these databases with each other. They have many similar features, but there are also significant differences. For example, Web of Science has greater citation depth, while Scopus focuses on “younger” publications. These databases also have different scientific metrics, structures, and ways of implementing their own policies.