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Introduction

TheestablishmentoftheMalaysianCitationCentre (MCC) in 2011marks the beginning of aproper monitoring and bibliographic control ofMalaysian scholarly journals through MyCite,a Malaysian citation indexing system, andthroughMyJurnal,thecountry’sjournalhostingmanagement system, At present, MyJurnalassumes the role of a backup system for 348Malaysian journals so that the articles couldbe searched and accessed on a single platform.MyCite extracts data from MyJurnal to reportthe performance of the journals indexed. Theinformation provided by MyCite would helpimprove the publication quality of scholarlyjournals in Malaysia, as publishers are madeawareoftheirjournal’sproductivityandcitationimpact, and assess the performance betweenjournalsinthevarioussubjectfields.

Editorial

Performance of Malaysian Medical Journals in Universal Citation Databases

Medicalsciencesresearcherswanttopublishin the best journal possible; in their preferredjournalswhichhavereceivedimpactinuniversalcitation databases. Malaysian journals indexedby the Thomson-Reuters’s Web of Science(WoS) and Elsevier’s Scopus are considered tohave a certain degree of quality and authority,and since the distribution of this database isworldwide, journals cited inWoS canbe said tohaveachievedacertaindegreeof “visibility” (1).Also, increasingly Malaysian universities havemandated their academic researchers topublishonly in journals indexed byWoS. However, thenumberofMalaysianjournalswhichhavegainedindexationinWoSissmall(13),andfourtitlesarefromthefollowingmedicaljournals:Asia-Pacific

Performance of Malaysian Medical Journals

Abdullah AbrizAh1,2

1 Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya, 50603 Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2 Research Fellow, Malaysian Citation Centre, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education, 62200 Wilayah Persekutuan, Putrajaya, Malaysia

1Malays J Med Sci. Mar-Apr 2016; 23(2): 1-5

Abstract Indexation status matters for scholarly journal prestige and trust. The performance ofMalaysianmedicaljournalsattheinternationallevelisgaugedthroughtheglobalcitationdatabases,and at the national level throughMyCite, a national citation indexing system. The performanceindicators include journals publication productivity, the citations they garner, and their scoresonotherbibliometric indicessuchas journal impact factor(IF),andh-index.There isagrowingconsciousnessamongstjournaleditorialstoimprovequalityandincreasechancesofgettingindexedinMyCite.AlthoughitisnowpossibletogaugejournalperformancewithinMalaysia,throughMyCite,thegovernmentandpublicareconcernedabout journalperformance in internationaldatabases.KnowingtheperformanceofjournalsinMyCitewillhelptheeditorsandpublisherstoimprovethequalityandvisibilityofMalaysianjournalsandstrategisetobringtheirjournaltotheinternationallevelofindexation.

Keywords: citation analysis, journal impact factor, indexing, bibliometric analysis, Scholarly publications

Submitted:15Jan2016Accepted:2012016

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Malays J Med Sci. Mar-Apr 2016; 23(2): 1-5

Journal of Public Health; Neurology Asia; Tropical Biomedicine; and Malaysian Journal of Pathology. Another four titles (Archives of Orofacial Sciences; International Medical Journal Malaysia; Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences;andASEAN Journal of Psychiatry)areincluded in theEmergingSourceCitation Index(ESCI)andthis indicatesthat“theyhavepassedan initial editorial evaluation and can continueto be considered for inclusion inWoS” (2). Thejournal that attains the highest impact score inWoSisAsia Pacific Journal of Public Health(JCR2014, IF 1.459, Quartile 3). Although publishedby an international publisher (Sage Journals),the country location of this journal is Malaysiasince the consortium has awarded the editorialhandlingtotheFacultyofMedicine,UniversityofMalaya.This isanexampleofa journalthathasimproved its performance after partnering withanestablishedcommercialpublisher. There is an improvement in the numberof Malaysian journal titles covered in Scopus from 53 titles in 2011 to 78 titles in 2015, and13 titles belonged to medical journals. Theyare International Medical Journal Malaysia; Journal of the University of Malaya Medical Centre; Malaysian Family Physician; Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences; Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences; Malaysian Journal of Microscopy; Malaysian Journal of Nutrition; Malaysian Journal of Pathology; Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine; Medical Journal of Malaysia; Neurology Asia; Tropical Biomedicine;andTropical Life Sciences Research.Overall,Malaysianmedicaljournalsdonot perform verywell on their impact scores asindicatedbytheirSJR(SCImagoJournalRankingindex; all below 1.0) indicating comparativelylowcitations.Tropical Biomedicine attained thehighestSJR2014scoreof0.42(Quartile3).

Performance of Malaysian Medical Journals in MyCite

By the end of 2015, a total of 46 titlescategorised under Medical and Health scienceshave been covered in MyJurnal. However, theperformance of some titles cannot be reportedduetothefailureofthesejournalstomeetMyCitejournal selection criteria, especially due totimelinessandavailabilityoraccessibilityfactor.Out of these 46 titles, 20 have been completelycoveredfrom2008to2015,andtheyhavebegunto show their performance in MyCite. Table 1provides the journal performance activity in2-yearand5-yearwindows,usingjournalmetrics

namely yearly IF and 5-year IF, and h-index.TwoWoS-indexedjournals(Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health and Neurology Asia) are notcoveredbyMyCiteduetoconstrainissuesrelatedtorequirementforsubscriptionorpurchasefromthe publishers. As a result it is not possible toshowthenationalimpactofthesejournals. Out of the 20 journal titles indexed inMyCite,fourtitlesobtainedh-indexscoreof4andabove,withMalaysianJournalofNutritionscoresthehighesth-indexof 7.H-index is regardedasa fair measure of journals’ current and futureimpactasit isnotconstrainedbyspecific2-yearor 5-year publication and citation windows. Asa result, journals that publish more articles orgain longeryearsof coveragebyMyCite tend toperformbetterintheirh-indexscores,However,increasingpublicationofarticlesperissuemustbeadoptedwithcautionasthiswouldhaveaneffectonjournalIFscores.TheyearlyIFmeasurestheaveragenumberoftimesarticlespublishedinthepast2-yearwindowthathavebeencitedin2015.Atotalof17titlesattainyearlyIFscores,andtheirIFare low(below1.0).However,all titlesattain5-year IF scores, indicating that citations arereceivedoveralongerperiodoftime.Malaysian Journal of Psychiatry attained the highest IFscoreof0.089.ThisjournalisnotWoSorScopus-indexedbutperformswell inMyCite, indicatingitsnationalimpact.JournalsthatarecoveredbybothWoSandScopus (Tropical Biomedicine andMalaysian Journal of Pathology)maynot rankhighintheyearlyIFlist,buttheyperformequallywellinMyCiteaswellasinWoSandScopus.Thisindicatesthatanarticlethathasanimpactatthenationallevelisalsocitedwellattheinternationallevel. Theeffectonajournal’sIFisobservedwhenit publishes too many articles per issue. ForexampleMedical Journal of Malaysia indicatesreceiving citations in their 2-year and 5-yearwindowsbuttheIFitobtainsisonly0.048.Theimpactof this journal is reducedwhen the totalnumberofarticlespublishedistoolarge(i.e.565titles in the 5-year period). This indicates thatpublishing higher number of articles does notguarantee increase in citation.However, it doeshelp toboost itsh-indexscore,which inMyCiteis6. Medical journals indexed in MyCitegenerally have low IF scores as none attainedscoreofabove1.0.Thissituationindicatesthatalargenumber of articles published inMalaysianmedical journals are uncited. This was alsohighlighted in MCC’s (2014) report that papersin the fields of medicine and health sciences

Editorial |PerformanceofMalaysianMedicalJournals

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has the highest percentage of articles not cited(91.6%), compared to other fields. Uncitednessis expected to decrease as more journals are

noweasilyaccessibleontheWebandthiswouldcertainlyimproveopportunityforreaderstofindarticles(3).IntheMalaysiancontext,eventhough

Table 1: Performance of Malaysian Medical Journals Indexed in MyCite in 2015 (ranked basedonyearlyimpact)

No. Journaltitle Totalarticles(5years)

Totalcitation(5years)

Totalcitation(2years)

5YearImpact

YearlyImpact

H-index

1 MalaysianJournalofPsychiatry

113 15 4 0.133 0.089 3

2 EducationinMedicineJournal

92 9 6 0.098 0.087 2

3 JournaloftheUniversityofMalayaMedicalCentre

59 1 1 0.017 0.071 1

4 MalaysianJournalofMedicalSciences

253 17 8 0.067 0.068 4

5 MalaysianJournalofNutrition

173 18 5 0.104 0.068 7

6 TropicalBiomedicine 399 18 12 0.045 0.063 57 MalaysianJournalof

PublicHealthMedicine65 6 2 0.092 0.059 1

8 ASEANJournalofPsychiatry

128 13 3 0.102 0.058 3

9 MalaysianFamilyPhysician

125 6 3 0.048 0.049 3

10 MedicalJournalofMalaysia

565 34 13 0.06 0.048 6

11 MalaysianJournalofPathology

113 6 2 0.053 0.044 2

12 MalaysianOrthopaedicJournal

193 3 3 0.016 0.036 1

13 Medicine&Health 80 1 1 0.013 0.034 214 JurnalSainsKesihatan

Malaysia89 1 1 0.011 0.026 2

15 MalaysianJournalofMedicineandHealthSciences

85 4 1 0.047 0.024 2

16 JournalofSurgicalAcademia

80 1 1 0.013 0.016 1

17 PertanikaJournalofScience&Technology

226 3 1 0.013 0.011 1

18 Internationale-JournalofScience,Medicine&Education

86 1 0 0.012 0 2

19 MalaysianJournalofPharmaceuticalScience

44 1 0 0.023 0 1

20 TropicalLifeSciencesResearch

88 3 0 0.034 0 2

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Malays J Med Sci. Mar-Apr 2016; 23(2): 1-5

somejournalsareavailableontheWeb,mostarenotsearchableat thearticle level.However, thissituationisexpectedtoimproveintimeasmorejournalsbecomeaccessiblethroughtheMyJurnalplatform,andgainedindexationstatusinMyCite.This problem of accessibility and visibility ofscholarlyjournalsisalsohighlightedbyKieligandGoncalves (2007), who observed that journalsin psychiatry published in Brazil experienceimproved submission rate and a gentle rise inimpact scores only after gaining indexation inWoSorMedline (4). Malaysian researchers behaviorally donot cite their colleague’s article published inMalaysian journals (5). This citing behaviourof Malaysian medical researchers/authors hasresulted in low yearly and 5-yearly IF scoresof below 1.0 inMyCite. This againmay be dueto lack of accessibility to the contents of localjournals over the Web. However, this situationis changing and citing of Malaysian articles isexpectedtoincreaseinfuture.Thephenomenonof uncitedness may also be country dependent.IntheMalaysiancontext,thereisaneedtostudythe citation behaviour of authors publishingin Malaysian journals, which may reveal thereasonsforuncitedness.Issuessuchasdisciplinebehaviour, the length of citation windows, thesize of journals available in a particular field,the length and age of references used and thekeywordsusedbyauthorsneededtobefactoredto understand cited and uncitedness of articlespublishedinMalaysianjournals.

Conclusion

This report focuses on the performanceof Malaysian medical scholarly journals,highlighting journals indexation status,publication productivity, the citations theygarner, and their scores on other bibliometricindices such as journal impact factor (IF) andh-index.ProductivityandcitationareonlyoneofthemeasuresfordescribingtheperformanceandimpactofMalaysianjournalsindexedinMyCite.Citationmeasures,canprovideveryusefulinsightsinto scholarly research and its communication,howevertheyarefacilitatedbytherichnessofthecitationdatabase.Impactfactors,asonecitationmeasure,areuseful inestablishingthe influencejournalshavewithintheliteratureofadiscipline.Nevertheless, they are not a direct measure ofqualityandmustbeusedwithconsiderablecare.The impact and ranking of these journals maybe used in conjunctionwith journal publicationinformationasevidenceforscholarstoshowthe

likelihoodofnational impactof the journal theypublishin. The medical journals indexed in MyCitegenerally have low IF scores as none attainedscoreofabove1.0.Thissituationindicatesthatalargenumber of articles published inMalaysianmedicaljournalsareuncited.Forthesejournals,itispossibletogaugenotonlythecitationandIFofeachtitle,butalsotheperformanceatboththemeso(institution)andmicro(author)levels.Itishopedthatthisreportwillmotivatemoremedicaljournal publishers to request for indexation sothat thenational impactof these journal canbegauged, as well as support the government’saspiration to improve Malaysian universityranking by improving the quality of Malaysianscholarly journals, and enriching the nationalheritageofresearchcontent.

Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the team atthe Malaysian Citation Centre who diligentlyupdated and compiled the data inMyCite usedtoproducethisreport.

Correspondence

ProfessorDrAbrizahAbdullahBScEngrg (Temple), MLIS (Mal), PhD Library &InformationScience(Mal)DepartmentofLibrary&InformationScienceFacultyofComputerScience&InformationTechnologyUniversityofMalaya50603,LembahPantaiKualaLumpur,MalaysiaFax:+603-79579249Tel:+603-79676431Email:abrizah@um.edu.my

References

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2. ThomsonReuters.WebofScienceTMCoreCollection:EmergingSourcesCitationIndex[Internet].NewYork(NY):ThomsonReuters;2015[3Jan2016].Availableat: http://wokinfo.com/media/pdf/S024651_Flyer.pdf.

3. LariviereV,ArchambaultE,GingrasY,WallaceM.Thefallofuncitedness.Paperfromthe10thInternationalConference on Science and Technology Indicators,279–282[Internet].[Placeofpublicationunknown]:ScienceMatrix; 2008 [3 Jan2016].Available from:hhtp://www.science-matrix.com/pdf/issi_282.fall_uncitedness.pdf.

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4. Kieling C, Goncalves RRF. Assessing the qualityof a scientific journal: the case ofRevistaBrasileirade Psiquiatria. Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria. 2007;29(2):177–151.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-44462007000200017.

5. MalaysianCitationCentre.Performance of Malaysian journals in MyCite. Putrajaya (MY): MalaysianCitationCentre;2014.