The Base Score Card is a questionnaire on the transparency of the journal’s website with respect to the following aspects: Editorial information, Peer review, Governance and Workflow. Every aspect has four bullets and each bullet can be rated from 1 to 5. The average of these ratings is called the subscore for this aspect. The lowest subscore of these four aspects is called the Base Score of the journal.
As a consequence a journal with a high Base Score, has a web site that addresses the four critical journal aspects adequately. On the other hand, a journal with a low Base Score has at least one weak aspect, but may still be strong in other respects. In order to climb on the list a journal must address its weakest aspect.
1. Editorial information
2. Peer review
3. Governance
4. Workflow
Additional question
Pop up box in case the first or second checkbox is ticked:
The Valuation Score Card is a reality check, preferably based on experience as an author, editor or peer reviewer of the journal. It has four bullets that can be rated from 1 to 5 and the average of these ratings is called the Valuation Score of the journal.
Valuation
(NB As of May 20, 2016, the first two questions replace the question ‘I would consider the peer revview process of this journal to be transparent’ of the old version)
Additional questions
I have published an article in this journal less than a year ago (If ‘Yes’, please tick the box)
Pop up question in case of ‘Yes’:
Publishing my article in this journal did cost
I am an editor or peer reviewer of this journal (If ‘Yes’, please tick the box)
In case of ‘Yes’ a text box with two questions pops up:
Together, Base Score and Valuation Score determine the following SWOT matrix:
Valuation Score | |||
> 3 | ≤ 3 | ||
Base Score |
> 3 | Strong journal | Threat to author: Journal may not meet its promises |
≤ 3 | Opportunity to publisher: Improve the journal's web site |
Weaker journal |
Per journal this is depicted as follows.
Strong journal |
SWOT matrix
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Weaker journal |
SWOT matrix
|
Opportunity to publisher |
SWOT matrix
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Threat to author |
SWOT matrix
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To avoid framing only members of the academic community can publish Journal Score Cards. Therefore, only people with an academic email address can log in to the scoring section of QOAM. Usually, library staff publish Base Score Cards; authors, editors and peer reviewers publish Valuation Score Cards. Per person only one JSC may be published for a specific journal. In case several people publish a JSC for the same journal the subscores will be averaged. For calculating the scores the scorecards of the preceding two years are used. A month before a scorecard becomes ineffective its author will be notified of this and will be invited to update their JSC (provided they are still a member of the academic community). In case of no response the Journal Score Card will be open-archived in QOAM.
In order to reflect new developments of or new experiences with the journal, everybody may edit their JSC at any moment. Updated Journal Score Cards will be dealt with as newly published ones.
The Journal Score Card’s format will be evaluated periodically and possibly adapted to new insights. However, changes will not be abrupt and draft versions will be circulated for comment prior to installation. As JSCs are only effective for two years the migration period in which ‘old’ and ‘new’ subscores sit together is limited. Effectively the migration period could be shorter because everybody may renew their JSC at any time. Thus, the JSC may evolve organically.