What is indexing?

Sir,

We read with great interest the editorial article titled “What is indexing.”¹ This is such an important article which provides the reply to the questions, what are indexed articles? And how to differentiate indexed journals from those of nonindexed. It has been very hard to answer these questions. Getting the research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals is the best of academic assessment, and communication of research findings is possible with the publication.² It is important to publish the articles in journals which are indexed by reputed databases such as PubMed/Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science. The journals which are indexed by Web of Science/Science Citation Index Expanded will have the impact factor which is given by Thomson Reuters. The Medical Council of India insists the teachers to publish in the journals which have these indexing. We should be happy with this initiative from the Medical Council India. Earlier, the teachers published their papers in predatory journals. A journal becomes “predatory” if it involves an illegitimate publication process which lacks the basic standards and publication ethics.³ The predatory journals may publish the articles with no peer review process and convert it online as given by the author after receiving the publication fee. This becomes unethical practice as the authors may cook up some writing, manipulate the data, and publish. It has been reported that the authors who publish in predatory journals have got limited publishing experience, and they come from developing countries.⁴ India is one among the nations where the predatory publications are high. Xia et al.,⁴ after their study on publications based on pharmacology journals reported that India tops the predatory publications followed by Nigeria and Pakistan. Another study by Shen and Björk⁵ reported that 35% of authors in the predatory journal publication come from Asia, followed by Africa (8%) and the USA (6%). It is a relief that the damage caused by the predatory journals is regional and limited. It has been opined that such publications will decrease in the future.⁵ However, it is surprising to know that few journals indexed by the reputed databases such as Scopus, Medline, and Web of Science are involved in predatory scientific publications. Djuric⁶ reports that the people in Serbia want to publish their research in a journal which has an ISI impact factor. This is mandatory from their government to accomplish an academic appointment and to obtain a PhD. Unfortunately, some local publishers in Serbia have managed to bribe the indexing agencies and get their journals indexed by Web of Science along with an impact factor from the Thomson Reuter. Djuric⁶ also says that he sent a flawed manuscript to one such journal purposefully and he was shocked to have got an acceptance letter very next day. The acceptance letter had an invoice and instruction on how to pay the article processing charge. Lukić et al.⁷ reported about “hijacked” journals, in which hijackers create websites which got similar names as the reputed journals and then ask for papers through phishing E-mails.

Beall's list of the predatory journal provides the authors to know about the publishers and journals which are into this unethical practice. Our sincere thanks are there to Jeffrey Beall, Associate Professor and Librarian, University of Colorado Denver, the USA for taking this effort. Beall updates his list of predatory journals every academic year. We had confusion about the terms Medline/PubMed/Index Medicus/MEDLAR. The authors have clarified the exact meaning of these terms. Now, it is clear that the “PubMed” is just the website, and indexing is actually from the “Medline.” We do agree that the publication in PubMed confers quality publication and Scopus provides H-index,⁸ which will offer the impact of our publication. We are happy to know that our “Indian Citation Index” is emerging.¹

We thank and also congratulate the authors for writing this concept.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.