International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2021 рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa EDITORIAL Dilemma: Quality or Quantity in Scientific Periodical Publishing Melnyk Yu. B.1,2 , Pypenko I. S. 1,2,3,4 1 Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of Health” (KRPOCH), Ukraine 2 Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH, Ukraine 3 Educational Center KRPOCH, Ukraine 4 Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Ukraine Received: 09.12.2021; Accepted: 23.12.2021; Published: 25.12.2021 Keywords: scientific periodical, quality, quantity, International Journal of Science Annals Copyright: © 2021 Melnyk Yu. B., Pypenko I. S. Published by Archives of International Journal of Science Annals DOI DOI https://doi.org/10.26697/ijsa.2021.2.1 Conflict of interests: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests Source of support: This research did not receive any outside funding or support Information about Melnyk Yuriy Borysovych (Corresponding Author) – https://orcid.org/0000- the authors: 0002-8527-4638; YBM.office@gmail.com; Doctor of Philosophy in Pedagogy, Associate Professor; Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of Health” (KRPOCH); Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH, Kharkiv, Ukraine. Pypenko Iryna Sergiivna – https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5083-540X; Doctor of Philosophy in Economics, Associate Professor, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of Health” (KRPOCH); Scientific Research Institute KRPOCH; Educational Center KRPOCH, Kharkiv, Ukraine. Dear Readers, Authors, and Publishers, The selection process in Scopus describes the procedure The eternal dilemma of quality or quantity affects many of their strict standards quite responsibly and areas of human life. One of these areas is the publishing transparently. industry. This issue is particularly acute for scientific “The Content Selection and Advisory Board continually periodicals (Michalska-Smith & Allesina, 2017; Peng, review titles using both quantitative and qualitative 2011). measures. Every year, approximately 3,500 new titles are The aim of the study. To analyze the dilemma of the suggested for inclusion in Scopus, but only 33% of those quality or quantity of papers in the publication of a titles meet the technical criteria. And of those roughly scientific periodical Journal, and to share the four-year 1,200 titles, only 50% are accepted after CSAB review” experience of publishing the International Journal of (Elsevier, 2021b). Science Annals (IJSA) with publishers, editors, The Scopus ranking of Journals clearly characterizes the reviewers, and authors. priority of quality over quantity. Undoubtedly, it is important to develop both quality and For example, Ca-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians is quantity for any periodical Journal. ranked number one in Scopus indexed Journals (Elsevier, However, for scientific periodicals, the dilemma of 2021a). CiteScore Tracker 2021 is 670.3. CiteScore quality or quantity should be decided definitely in favor Tracker counts the citations to date (for the current year), of quality. and divides this by the number of documents to date. This is important both for the development of one or CiteScore Tracker 2021 calculated by Scopus on another scientific direction, and for a particular person, December 2021 is 71722/107=670.3. especially when it comes to influencing him (medicine, In IJSA, the problem of the quality of papers published biology, ecology, etc.). in the Journal is clearly regulated by the peer review The most reputable leaders who have developed their procedure. own quality standards are Web of Science and Scopus. 5 International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2021 рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa All manuscripts submitted for publication the IJSA are The Editorial Office of the Journal denounces plagiarism. peer reviewed. Manuscripts of the IJSA Editorial Board KRPOCH Publishing uses the CrossCheck service from Member are submitted to the review process on general Crossref to initially detect possible plagiarism. terms. Each participant in the review process – author, If plagiarism is detected in the paper, it is completely reviewer or editor – is required to declare a possible removed at any stage. conflict of interest so that the publisher anticipates the The IJSA Editorial Office has developed a procedure for possibility of such influence. The Editorial Office strives removing published papers in case of detection of to exclude conflicts of interest between authors and plagiarism in them after their publication, which is reviewers. described on the Journal’s website. The average number of rejected manuscripts is 85%, of The Journal Editorial Office denounces the following which: 40% are rejected during the preliminary types of authorship: “Ghost” author, “Guest” author, and evaluation process; 45% are rejected during the peer “Gift” author. Therefore, the Editorial Office strictly review process. monitors the awareness of the authors about their At the first stage, the reasons for rejection are: the submission of the manuscript to the Journal, the presence guidelines of the study have not been followed, the of the contribution of all authors to the manuscript, manuscript title is out of scope of the journal, manuscript signed supplemental documents, etc. requirements have not been followed, the manuscript Perhaps some Journals have a policy of refusing authors contains stylistic, spelling and syntax errors, plagiarism, to publish a manuscript based on the authors’ low H- etc. index or even their residence in developing countries. At the second stage, the reasons for rejection are: We strongly believe that such a position is not only scientific relevance and practical importance are absent, unacceptable, but also erroneous. methodological errors, there is no logic between the For example, George Huntington only published two sections of the manuscript, etc. medical papers, of which one, produced at the age of 22 All authors complete the conflict of interest declaration. describing his eponymous chorea (Huntingdon, 1872) Authors should disclose at the time of submission any was subsequently eulogized by Osler et al. (1950) who financial arrangement they may have. Such information said there are “few instances in which a disease has been will be held in confidence while the manuscript is under more accurately, more graphically or more briefly review and will not influence the editorial decision, but described”. if the manuscript is accepted for publication, the editors So, George Huntington’s H-index couldn’t be higher than will usually discuss with the authors the manner in which 2 in principle. Journals, guided by the selection of articles such information is to be communicated to the reader. according to the author’s citation index, would not give Because the essence of reviews and editorials is selection this author any chance of publishing his work. and interpretation of the literature, journal expects that IJSA provides immediate open access. All texts are free authors of such manuscripts will not have any financial for all users and (or) institutions they represent. This can interest in a company (or its competitor) that makes a greatly increase the likelihood of citations. product discussed in the manuscript. Journal policy The confidence that academics and the public have in the requires that reviewers, associate editors, editors reveal research published in the IJSA relies on the diligence of in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief any relationships that our peer review process as well as the Editorial Office they have that could be construed as causing a conflict of commitment to ensuring objectivity and high-quality interest with regard to a manuscript under review. The publication. letter should include a statement of any financial All manuscripts that have been submitted to the Editorial relationships with commercial companies involved with Board go through a peer review procedure. The reviewers a product under study. fill out the reviewer evaluation form, which they submit We welcome genuine appeals to the editor’s and the to the IJSA Editorial Review Board. reviewers’ decisions. However, authors will need to Reviewers could submit their reviews via the IJSA provide strong evidence or new data in response to the profile on Publons (International Journal of Science editor’s and reviewers’ comments. The Journal has Annals, n.d.). developed a template for the replies to reviewers’ The Journal Editorial Office is grateful to all editors. comments. IJSA Editorial Board includes the most authoritative Ethical behavior is very important. No author should scientists from 17 countries, 5 continents in the fields of insist on the publication of his/her manuscript. Respect Education, Psychology, Medicine. We guarantee the opinion of the reviewers and the editor. Rejecting a compliance the proper level of publication ethics, manuscript can be an important step in improving the copyright protection at all stages of material review. quality of your manuscript. The Editorial Board members We are extremely grateful to our editors and reviewers or the editor may not treat any manuscript or author as for their expertise, time, and willingness to provide biased or favorable. essential feedback. IJSA is committed to a high standard of editorial ethics. The Editorial Office is proud to have been able to provide IJSA is the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) the required quality of publications in our Journal, as well Member. as funding for all published papers by 2022. 6 International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2021 рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa IJSA publishes manuscripts not only of reputable works/content?dgcid=RN_AGCM_Sourced_300 scientists, but also of those who are just starting their 005030 scientific career. Huntingdon, G. (1872, April 13). On chorea. The In 2021, the Journal initiated, co-organized, and Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia, sponsored the international competition “Blockchain in 26(15), 317–321. the Digital Society” (ICBDS-2021) (Kharkiv Regional https://archive.org/details/b29349023 Public Organization “Culture of Health”, 2021a). International Journal of Science Annals. (n.d.). Home – This competition was held among masters, graduate Journals and Conferences – Journal/Conference students, and young scientists. Details [Publons page]. Publons. Retrieved In 2022, the Journal will initiate the international November 17, 2021, from competition “Mental Health in the Digital Society” https://publons.com/journal/105740/international (ICMHDS-2022) (Kharkiv Regional Public Organization -journal-of-science-annals/ “Culture of Health”, 2021b). Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of All winners of the ICMHDS-2022 competition will be Health”. (2021a). International competition able to publish their papers in the next issues of IJSA. “Blockchain in the Digital Society” (ICBDS- There is no fee for entering the competition or for 2021). publishing the manuscript for participants. https://competitions.culturehealth.org/index.php/ competitions/icbds Conclusions Kharkiv Regional Public Organization “Culture of Scientific periodicals should solve the dilemma of quality Health”. (2021b). International competition and quantity of papers definitely in favor of quality. “Mental Health in the Digital Society” Journals should be committed to a high standard of (ICMHDS-2022). editorial ethics. https://competitions.culturehealth.org/index.php/ Journals should have a clear and precise procedure for competitions/icmhds reviewing and selecting papers for publication. Michalska-Smith, M. J., & Allesina, S. (2017). And, not Journals should necessarily consider the possible conflict or: Quality, quantity in scientific publishing. PloS of interest in research between authors, editors, One, 12(6), e0178074. reviewers, funders, etc. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178074 Journals should motivate young talented scientists to Osler, W., Bean, R. B., & Bean, W. B. (1950). Osler publish their manuscripts by providing them with aphorisms: From his bedside teachings and editorial support in the preparation of the manuscript and writings. Henry Schuman. funding for its publication. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.63933 The implementation of these key principles will Peng, C. (2011). Focus on quality, not just quantity. contribute both to the development of science in general Nature, 475, Article 267. and the Journal in particular. https://doi.org/10.1038/475267a References Dr. Yuriy Melnyk, Elsevier. (2021a). Ca-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Director of KRPOCH Publishing, https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/28773 Editor-in-Chief of the IJSA Elsevier. (2021b). How Scopus works – Content. https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/how- Dr. Iryna Pypenko, scopus- Technical Editor of the IJSA Cite this article as: Melnyk, Yu. B., & Pypenko, I. S. (2021). Dilemma: Quality or quantity in scientific periodical publishing. International Journal of Science Annals, 4(2), 5–7. https://doi.org/10.26697/ijsa.2021.2.1 The electronic version of this article is complete. It can be found online in the IJSA Archive https://ijsa.culturehealth.org/en/arhiv This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en). 7