KI launches its own journal list

Christian Giske chaired the panel of ten researchers that produced the first version of the Karolinska Institutet Journal List, KI‑JL, which has now been approved by the Faculty Board.

KI‑JL classifies scientific journals into four levels, based on an overall assessment across six categories of quality criteria (see fact box). The criteria were developed by the researcher panel, drawing on established international lists and databases.

“Level 0 includes journals that do not meet the criteria for scientific publishing and are therefore not recommended. Level 1 means the journal meets the criteria, level 2 indicates a high standard, and level 3 represents the highest quality,” says Erik Åkesson Kågedal, librarian at the University Library (KIB) and project manager for KI‑JL.

Close to 7,000 journals

At present, the list includes close to 7,000 journals. It covers all journals in which KI researchers have published over the past seven years, provided they are indexed in KI’s bibliometric system, which is based on PubMed and Web of Science. The list also includes journals in medicine and health sciences at the highest quality levels, as well as level‑0 journals from the Norwegian and Finnish journal lists.

The intention is for KI‑JL to be a living document, updated annually, explains Erik Åkesson Kågedal. Each year, during a consultation process, KI staff will be able to submit comments on journal levels and propose journals for assessment.

“It is an open process that we hope will stimulate discussion about journal quality at KI. We see the list as a tool for researchers when choosing where to publish, which journals to act as peer reviewers for, and which editorial boards to join,” he says.

One purpose of creating the list was for it to be used in the new performance‑based component of the university’s model for allocating faculty funding, which was previously based on the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Moving away from heavy reliance on JIF is in line with international developments in responsible research assessment, Christian Giske notes.

“This requires us to work with a far more complex assessment that is not driven by the JIF metric. This list will serve as a qualitative complement to JIF in various applications,” he says.

Their specific subject areas

An important aspect of the list is that journals are assessed in relation to their specific subject areas. The ambition has been to ensure that there is at least one journal at the highest quality level within each subject area, based on the Norwegian list’s subject classification in medicine, Christian Giske explains. However, because the quality criteria must also be met, this has not always been possible.

“It will be an important task for the university to monitor how this affects different subject areas over time. Responsible use means examining the consequences of applying the list,” he says.

The Committee for Research, which is responsible for the list, will now plan the next steps in the development of KI‑JL. One possible step is to review groups of journals that the researcher panel did not have time to assess manually for this first version, and where the current level assignment is instead based on consistent classification in the Finnish and Norwegian lists. The automated list of top publications on ki.se will also be aligned with KI‑JL.

“We are very pleased with the tremendous response to the consultation process, which yielded 946 responses from KI’s researchers. We would like to thank everyone who took part in shaping the journal list in this way,” says Christian Giske.