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Nota Técnica / Technical Note
Maskana, an institutional research journal. How to improve and maintain its relevance?
Maskana, revista de investigación
institucional. ¿Cómo mejorar y mantener su relevancia?
Professor Emeritus, Catholic
University of Leuven, Belgium.
Corresponding author:
jan.feyen@kuleuven.be
Reception dat=
e: February
15, 2021 - Acceptance date: May 27, 2021
ABSTRACT
Research journals disseminate scholarly work to the
scientific community and by doing so fulfill a fourfold role, namely sharing
knowledge with colleagues for evaluation and verification, serving as a bas=
is
for the generation of new knowledge, assisting the society in turning it in=
to a
better one, and for the archiving of research work. An immense variety of
national and international journals exist, varying from high- to low-ranked
peer-reviewed journals, from printed to e-journals. At the occasion of the =
10th
anniversary of Maskana, an e-journal of the University of Cuenca, a descrip=
tion
of its objectives and status is given. Given the recent and in the future t=
o be
expected decline in the reception of articles and Mask=
ana’s
overall low impact factor, the author discusses some possibilities to maint=
ain,
even upgrade the journal’s role and efficacity. The transformation with tim=
e of
Maskana, preferably in cooperation with the other 6 active institutional
e-journals, to a learning platform challenging the graduate students of the
master programs in writing the thesis in the format of a peer-reviewed rese=
arch
article is probably the most realistic role for low-ranked institutional
journals. If this concept works, other universities in future might be invi=
ted to
join the UJs adventure.
Keywords: University Journal, academic
journal, relevance, quality.
RESUMEN
Las revistas de investigación difunden el trabajo académico a la
comunidad científica y, al hacerlo, cumplen una función cuádruple, a saber:
compartir conocimientos con colegas para su evaluación y verificación, serv=
ir
como base para la generación de nuevos conocimientos, ayudar a la sociedad a
convertirlos en mejores, y para el archivo de trabajos de investigación. Ex=
iste
una inmensa variedad de revistas nacionales e internacionales, que varían d=
esde
revistas revisadas por pares de alto o bajo impacto, y desde revistas impre=
sas
hasta revistas electrónicas. Con motivo del 10º aniversario de Maskana, rev=
ista
electrónica de la Universidad de Cuenca, se da una descripción de sus objet=
ivos
y situación. Dada la reciente y la previsible disminución en la recepción de
artículos en el futuro, y además tomando en cuenta el =
bajo
factor de impacto general de Maskana, el autor analiza algunas posibilidade=
s para
mantener, e incluso mejorar, el papel y la eficacia de la revista. La
transformación con el tiempo de Maskana, preferiblemente en cooperación con=
las
otras 6 revistas electrónicas institucionales activas, a una plataforma de
aprendizaje que desafíe a los estudiantes graduados de los programas de
maestría a escribir la tesis en el formato de un artículo de investigación
revisado por pares es probablemente el papel más realista para las revistas
institucionales de bajo rango. Si este concepto funciona, se podría invitar=
a
otras universidades en el futuro a unirse a la aventura de los “University
Journals” o UJs.
Palabras clave: Rev=
ista
universitaria, revista académica, relevancia, calidad.
1.&n=
bsp;  =
;
INTRODUCTION=
The first number of Maskana was published in December 20=
10.
After 10 years it is probably a good moment to analyze whether the journal =
has
achieved its objectives and whether it makes sense to go on with the journa=
l,
given the multitude of institutional and academic journals we are confronted
with today (Gu & Blackmore, 2016, Collazo-Reyes, 2014). Maskana publish=
es
research articles and operates under the auspices of the Dirección
de Investigación de la Universidad de Cuenca (D=
IUC),
the university’s central research office. The journal's main objective is
offering to the academic and research community of the institution a platfo=
rm
to practice the art of article writing, and getting acquainted with the
journal’s submission and review procedures. When Maskana emerged at the end=
of
2010, the main focus of the university was still on tea=
ching,
research was slowly emerging as was the number of staff holding a PhD. The
rather weak research profile of the institute before 2010 can best be
illustrated using as a barometer the number of academic articles registered=
in
Scopus journal database. Before 1967 there is no record of any article in
Scopus journal database of an author of the university. In the period
1967-2010, the university has 96 research articles registered in Scopus,
corresponding to a yearly average of 2.23 articles (STD=3D4.03), whereas in=
the
period 2011-2020 the academic and research staff of the university realized=
the
publication of 1259 articles in a journal registered in Scopus, correspondi=
ng
to a yearly average record of 12.59 articles (STD=3D94.38), varying from 16
articles in 2011 up to 264 in 2020.
The rising trend in the number of articles published in
peer-reviewed journals by the staff of the university in the last decade is=
the
result of multiple factors, such as a rise in staff holding a PhD, the Prometeo program of the government which enabled Ecua=
dor’s
higher education institutions to attract senior academic and research staff
from abroad to assist the institution in improving and strengthening their
research profile, an increase in competitive funds, a change in the attitud=
e of
the authorities who realized that a strong research profile is needed to
upgrade continuously the institution’s educational profile and the cooperat=
ion
with the society, and the positive role of institutional journals such as
Maskana. Analysis of the author teams, who published in Maskana, clearly sh=
ows
that after the acceptance of 1 to 2 papers, authors seem to possess the
capacity and the courage to submit their next article to an academic journal
registered in the journal databases of Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, or a=
ny
other journal database.
The observed growth of articles published in peer-review=
ed
academic journals is not observable in Maskana, one of the 11, 7 active and=
4
inactive, institutional journals of the University of Cuenca. Maskana is a biannual journal publishing original
research in all areas of science. It is a peer-reviewed open-access journal
without commercial purpose. The journal is published online in the OJS/PKP
system[1] and is freely accessible[2]. The first issue of the journal was published in
December 2010, and since then 21 issues, or 11 annual volumes, have been
published. A total of 187 research articles have been accepted, varying bet=
ween
6 and 13 articles per number, corresponding to a total of 2489 pages. On
average 40% of the submitted articles were accepted after review.
Classification of the published articles per main science area yields the
following distribution: 41.2% of the articles belong to Social Sciences and
Humanities, 8.5% to Natural and Environmental Sciences, 38.5% to the field =
of
Engineering and Exact Sciences, and 11.8% to Life and Health Sciences. In
the period 2010-2014 belonged the majority of accepted articles to the
Engineering discipline, whereas more recently the bulk of articles are
submitted by academic staff and researchers belonging to the domain of Soci=
al
Sciences. Maskana accepts articles publish=
ed
in Spanish and English; 53 of the published articles (28.3%) were written in
English, and 93% of the first authors is Ecuador=
ian
while 7% possess the international nationality. The majority of the first authors, namely 70%, are
docent or researcher associated with the university.
Recently Maskana includes three types of
articles: original research papers, an editorial note addressing a general =
and
actual issue, and technical notes. Articles are accepted as a technical note
when the article gives a brief description of a s=
pecific
development, technique or procedure, or even the description of a modificat=
ion
of an existing technique, procedure or a device method, or the results of an exploratory study. The journal obliges=
authors
to use the APA citation/referencing style. Submitted articles are sent to
academics and professionals working in the same field as the article and ha=
ving
experience in the evaluation of research articles. Normally, two reviewers =
are
contacted who provide free of charge their review to the editor, who in turn
provides feedback to the authors. The entire process is supervised by the
editorial board, consisting of international experts who monitor the qualit=
y of
the journal. Information on the citation of Maskana’s articles can be found=
in
Google Academic, an open-access repository. The main Google Academic indices
derived for the entire period of the journal’s existence are the total numb=
er
of citations (1484), the h-index[3] (17) and the i10-index[4] (38). The value of those indices did not decline drastically and ba=
sed
on the data of the past 5 years, equal to 1333 (citations), 16 (h-index), a=
nd
33 (i10-index), indicating that the journal is relatively stable performing.
However, the journal impact factor (IF[5]) gives a less favorable impression. The average value of this factor
based on all available data equals 5.63, whereas the average value of IF
dropped to 1.76, using the available data of the last 5 years. Last but not
least, Maskana is indexed in the bibliographic information systems Latindex
2.0, REDIB, and DOAJ and each article receives when published a digital obj=
ect
identifier (DOI) code.
Notwithstanding the Google Scholar metrics of Maskana did
not drop that much since 2010, those metrics do not reveal information on t=
he
journal’s position at the national and international level. The ranking of a
journal is a widely used metric in academia, expressing the journal’s impact
and quality, the difficulty of getting an article accepted for publication,=
and
the associated prestige. Independent of the ranking system used, journals a=
re
classically ranked in four categories, respectively q1 (the top 25% journal=
s),
q2 (journals in the 25-50% group), q3 (journals in the 50-75% group), and q4
(journals in the 75-100% group). Several countries use this ranking as a
research evaluation tool, and it is also the ambition of an author to get
his/her research work published in the highest class, not only for the
appreciation of the research quality but also for the indirect benefits
associated with it. Up to today, Maskana is not included in any of the jour=
nal
ranking systems, such as SCImago, Scopus, WoS, SciELO, or any other=
ranking
system, for the simple reasons that the journal does not meet the minimum
criteria of acceptance. Maskana is not just alone in this situation, because
the SCImago Journal Ranking system[6]=
(SJR) lists for 2019 only 3 Ecuadorian journals, all in the category q4,
respectively the Revista E=
cuatoriana
de Neurología, La Granja, and the Revista
Bionatura. A disadvantage for Maskana of not yet
being indexed in a journal ranking system is the fact that it is a
multidisciplinary journal, while the majority of indexed journals are
disciplinary. Of course, in addition, Maskana does not score well on most i=
ndexation
criteria of the different journal ranking systems.
The challenge for Maskana, as an institutional
multidisciplinary journal will be how to maintain and improve its current
status, in particular in view of the Covid-19 challenges, which for sure wi=
ll
result in a decline in research funding at the international, national and
institutional level, leading to a decline in the submission of research
articles. Consequently, the above-cited metrics will drop and might lead to=
a
temporary or definitive inactive state of the journal. In the following, we
will discuss subsequently the following aspects: (i)
journals remain important instruments in the dissemination of knowledge; (2=
) is
it needed and will it be possible to get Maskana indexed in for example
2. &nbs=
p;
THE RELEVANCE OF RESEARCH JOURNALS
The first journal in Europe that resembles today's
peer-review academic journals, the Journal des Sçav=
ans,
was published in 1665 in France by Denis de Sallo (Jinha, 2010). Its content included obituaries of famo=
us
men, church history, and legal reports, but with time the journal continued=
to
be a leading academic journal in humanities. Since then, the number of jour=
nals
grew steadily for over two centuries by about 3 to 3.5% yearly, and the last
years accelerated the growth to 4% per year for articles and over 5% for jo=
urnals
(Johnson et al., 2018). According to these authors was mid-2018 the
number of active scholarly peer-reviewed English language journals 33,100 (=
plus
a further 9,400 non-English-language journals), collectively publishing yea=
rly
over 3 million articles. The explanation is the continued growth in research
and resources, and the associated increase in the number of researchers, of
whom the number stands between 7 and 8 million. Whereas the US was so far t=
he
leading country, China based on the yearly number of research papers produc=
ed recently
overtook the US. China accounts for 19% of global articles, versus 18% for =
the
US, while the scientific output of India in number of articles is growing
rapidly, reaching 5% of global outputs, ahead of Germany, the UK, and Japan,
each respectively 4%. Analysis of the top list of academic research databas=
es
such as Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, ERIC, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct,
DOAJ, and JSTOR shows that in 2019 the total number of articles registered =
in
those 8 bibliographic databases equals 239,6 million (=
Paperpile[7]=
).
It is a blessing for the society that research and
associated herewith the number of research papers are still growing not only
constituting an impressive and powerful resource but also supporting humani=
ty
finding timely solutions for the ever new challenges the world faces. Howev=
er,
it also requires that the available and new knowledge be easily accessible,
adsorbed, and used by the governments, policy-makers, managers, lecturers,
students, and the new generation of researchers. One can get access to the
Scopus journal database either as a private person or as a member of a defi=
ned
group of authorized users, for example via the library portal of the
organization or institution. In both cases, the user needs a registration ID
and password, with an end date for user access. Having paid the registration
fee, which of course vary from a simple user to a defined group of users, o=
ne
gets access to nearly 36,377 journal titles (=
22,794
active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 =
publishers,
of which 34,346 peer-reviewed journals in the fields of life sciences, soci=
al
sciences, physical sciences, and health sciences. The registration costs are
that high that an individual researcher cannot afford the registration. How=
ever,
many universities in the high to middle-income countries provide academic s=
taff
and students access via an institutional license.
A solution to this is the open-access movement which
supports the sharing of scientific research outside the paywalled silos of
academic journals (Ingram, 2012). This author, in his blog, states that the
academic-publishing business is unfair because it commercializes research t=
hat
scientists in many cases created with public funding, get academics and exp=
erts
to do the peer review for free, and then publishes the articles in
limited-access journals that are only available to institutions at a high c=
ost.
Luckily for the research community, the open access movement is winning
terrain. However, the open-access movement still faces headwind from inside,
because still a large fraction of the academic community, primarily the
authorities, link promotion, tenure nomination, the allocation of research
grants, and other aspects of academic life, to the number of articles he/she
published in high-ranked journals.
The above brief overview of
scholarly articles in peer-reviewed and open access journals is far from
complete because in parallel a considerable amount of time and energy is
devoted to publishing institutional journals. It is almost impossible to
provide a full overview of the latter category. The num=
ber of
institutional journals are considerably less in the northern hemisph=
ere
where it is the tradition to publish research primarily in academic journal=
s,
in contrast to the culture of the higher education institutes in the middle=
- to
low-income countries. The enormous number of peer-reviewed articles that are
published today is certainly not an excuse for the academic and research st=
aff
of those countries not to publish, on the contrary. They should base their
research on the knowledge available in the international literature to deri=
ve
appropriate, efficient, and sustainable solutions for the problems and
constraints hindering the progress of the society at national, regional and
local scale. In turn, findings ought to be published to make them accessibl=
e to
society so that the locally generated knowledge is used by the teaching sta=
ff
for the continuous upgrading of the educational programs, and policymakers =
to
allow them to improve policies to the changing conditions of the society sa=
ving
time, effort and money. Similarly, published research can be immensely help=
ful
for managers of industrial plants enabling them to upgrade the production
process, reduce the environmental impact, in addition to the improvement of=
the
quality of the industrial product. New research findings will be continuous=
ly
requested by the society, to assist the people in coping with the challenges
arising from the ongoing demographic expansion. In conclusion, research wil=
l never
end, today and in the future even needed more than before, and research and
publishing will be a never-ending task of academia.
3.&n=
bsp;  =
;
CAN MASKANA’S
QUALITY BE UPGRADED?
=
The question if it makes sense and if it is relevant to
upgrade the institutional journal with low impact to an academic journal wi=
th
impact. First, the transfer if possible is contradictory to the original
objective of Maskana, which was being a learning platform for the
non-experienced teaching and research staff in the writing of research
articles. Peer-reviewed academic journals are not in the first-place learni=
ng
platforms, their objective is to publish quality articles that after an
advanced review process are accepted for publication. The primary aim of peer-reviewed academic articles are the publish=
ing of
new findings, strategic and technological developments in the various areas=
of
science. Analysis of the 187 articles in Maskana, since the first published
article, clearly shows that the majority of the published articles are rese=
arch-based,
aiming to test the suitability and the usefulness of known methodological,
technological, and policy solutions for solving local problems. The majorit=
y of
the published articles start with defining the problem to be studied, an
exhaustive review of the related literature, the formulation of research
questions, followed by the identification of the research methodology that
preferentially is applied to find adequate answers to the research question=
s,
the assembling, and processing of data, the presentation of results, and th=
eir
confrontation with existing findings, to conclude with the conclusion secti=
on.
Although the structure of the articles in Maskana resemble the structure of
high-level peer-reviewed articles, what the institutional articles miss is
pioneering and innovative perspective and high-quality. This should not be
surprising because the articles in Maskana reflect the average scientific l=
evel
of the University of Cuenca, since 70% of the author teams that published an
article in Maskana belong to this institution. So, upgrading of Maskana can
only be materialized by improving the research profile of the university, o=
r by
publishing articles of renowned national or international academics. The la=
tter
will be unlikely because scientists of those institutions prefer to publish=
in
high-quality level journals. But even if Maskana would receive articles from
skilled scientists from outside the university, the limited size of the edi=
ting
team, the moderate quality level of the few reviewers, and sparse financial
resources will hinder the quality upgrading of the journal to meet the mini=
mum
indexing criteria of Scopus, WoS, JSTOR, and ot=
her
journal databases. In conclusion, according to the author, it does not make
sense to invest resources in Maskana to leverage it from an institutional
journal to a peer-review high-quality level journal. It is kind of a utopia,
comparable to the effort required by an inexperienced team of mountain clim=
bers
to conquer Mount Everest.
4.&n=
bsp;  =
;
REPLACING
INSTITUTIONAL JOURNALS WITH A UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
The University of Cuenca publishes in its digital reposi=
tory[8]=
11 institutional journals, of which 4 journals are inactive for various
reasons. The 7 active journals are disciplinary, with the exception of Mask=
ana.
The 6 disciplinary institutional e-journals cover respectively the science
domains of architecture and urbanism (ESTOA), economy and politics (Revista Economía y Política), arts and arts education (TSANTSA and Revista de Investigación =
y Pedagogía del Arte), literature, historical, philosop=
hical,
anthropological, archaeological and educational perspectives of culture and
society (PUCARA), and medicine (Revista de la <=
span
class=3DSpellE>Facultad de Ciencias Médicas). The inactive institutional e-journals are <=
span
class=3DSpellE>Anales, the oldest journal of the university covering=
all
science areas, IURIS a journal of the Faculty of Law, Political and Social
Sciences, ACORDES publishing articles in the area of socio-organizational,
socio-political, socio-environmental and social and solidarity economy
processes, and the journal of the Faculty of Chemical Sciences. The active
institutional journals are of recent date launched in the period 2010-2017,
they all claim to apply the peer-review process, the average number of arti=
cles
per issue varies between 12 and 25.6, the total number of all citations ran=
ge
from 22 to 975, and the journal impact factor using for each of the active
journals all available data varies between 0.27 and 5.63. Those data clearly
demonstrate that none of the active institutional journals are outstanding =
and
that the efficiency of the invested human and financial resources of each
journal is low to moderate.
A University Journal (UJ) is a multidisciplinary journal
that bundles all the human and financial resources of the existing
institutional journals, with the objective to provide a quality, reviewed,
open-access infrastructure for scholarly articles and other research produc=
ts.
By merging the existing resources, it will be possible to develop and imple=
ment
an innovative, high-quality, and dynamic peer-review process that streamlin=
es
the article submission, the review process, and the delivery of a more
predictable outcome. Articles can be continuously published online the mome=
nt
they are accepted, avoiding the waiting period to the traditional semestria=
l or
annual publication date. The academic and professional profile of University
Journals guarantees the submission of articles by institutional and
non-institutional researchers, and the national and international recogniti=
on
of the journal. Furthermore, UJs do not necessarily have to belong to one
university, in principle several universities can participate by applying t=
he
same approach. They are a low-cost alternative to the current journal syste=
m of
Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, Sage, Hindawi, among other publishers, that requires author=
s to
transfer their copyrights and charge article processing costs. The UJ platf=
orm
offers an efficient workflow and quick publication. The first UJ platform=
span>[9]=
was launched in 2020 and is =
an
initiative of 14 international European universities, under the impulse of =
the
University of Amsterdam of The Netherlands.
In analogy, a UJ platform could for example be formed at=
the
level of the University of Cuenca merging the 7 active journals into a
University Journal. Joining the forces of the 7 editorial teams shall have a
positive impact on the quality of the articles and the journal, the volume =
of
articles that annually will be published and the overall cost will be
considerably less than the sum of the editorial cost of the 7 journals. It =
is
logical that the initiation of a UJ will be accompanied by standardization =
of
the different processes such as the review and evaluation of the articles. =
For
the publication, use can be made of the OJS/PKP system, the actual approach
used today for each of the institutional journals. Of course, if relevant t=
he
UJ platform of the University of Cuenca could be extended by involving the 4
universities of the City of Cuenca in the UJ platform concept, i.e., each of
the four universities publishes a UJ applying the same quality review proce=
ss
and electronic way of publication. The cooperation between the 4 universiti=
es
will facilitate the upgrading of the UJs and reduce the overall costs. Other
constructions are of course also possible as for example among the
better-ranked public universities of Ecuador, or among the overseas
universities with whom the staff of the University of Cuenca is cooperating.
The establishment of a UJ platform at the level of the University of Cuenca,
will not be that simple since one can expect that each institutional journal
wants to maintain its autonomy, and for sure the process will be even more
complex when multiple universities will be invited. Therefore, it might be =
wise
to first consider whether the establishment of a UJ platform at the
institutional level is a realistic and feasible project, before involving o=
ther
universities in the concept.
=
5. =
DO
OTHER REALISTIC ALTERNATIVES FOR INSTITUTIONAL JOURNALS EXIST?
Since the trend to publish research results in existing
peer-reviewed academic and open-access journals is increasing, it is to be
expected that the better research groups of the university will prefer to
continue submitting their articles to peer-reviewed academic and peer-revie=
wed
open-access journals. An additional aspect that stimulates academics and
researchers to continue publishing in peer-reviewed journals is that the
commercial publishers considerably accelerate the review and publication
process of articles to counter the rising competition of the low-cost
open-access publishers. Also, universities stimulate the academic staff and=
the
researchers to publish their articles preferably in q1 or q2 journals, and =
if
not feasible at least in q3 journals. Publishing research in high ranked
journals will not only promote the fame of the authors and the university, =
but
it will also positively impact the ranking of the university, facilitate the
cooperation at national and international level, the cooperation with the
public and private sector, and the acquisition of funds. With time, it will
also have a positive effect on the educational profile of the university. T=
he
ongoing trend to get research published in high ranked journals is worldwide
and for a couple of decades, also included in t=
he
regulations of doctoral programs. Namely, the regulations of PhD programs in
many universities state that candidates to obtain permission to defend the
doctoral thesis must have reworked part of the dissertation into two papers
published or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals and
the third article in process. This is an additional reason why doctoral
students will not be inclined to submit an article to an institutional jour=
nal.
An alternative and supporting role Maskana c=
ould
play is serving as a publication platform for Master Programs. Students
attending an academic master program are expected to conduct a thesis resea=
rch
project and to summarize in a dissertation the topic-related literature, ap=
proach,
methodology, and results. This document, however, could with time be replac=
ed
by an article, with the classical article structure, that before publicatio=
n in
an institutional e-journal is reviewed. Doing so will provide the master's
students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the art of article
writing, in complement with the reading of articles, a capacity students
acquired during the undergraduate and graduate program. It is highly releva=
nt
for the future profession if the students at graduation possess the capacity
and interest to continuously actualize their knowledge and experience by
reading the literature related to their profession. Similarly, in the futur=
e,
it is to be expected that the writing of reports and extension papers will =
have
to be implemented increasingly during one’s career. =
It is recommended that this scenario is critically an=
alyzed
for its added value with regard to the other study components of the master
program. It will offer Maskana, or its successor, the opportunity to resume=
its
original vocation of a learning platform.
6.&n=
bsp;  =
;
CONCLUSIONS
Maskana is a multidisciplinary institutional e-journal,
created in the second half of 2010, under the auspices of DIUC. Ten years l=
ater
the journal is still active, however, the number of submitted and accepted
articles and the metrics are slightly decreasing since 2016. It is expected
that the Covid-19 pandemic, having a negative impact on research and the
research output will further decline the submission rate of research articl=
es.
In addition, the fact that institutions and scientists today and in the near
future will still give preference to publish their articles in higher ranked
academic and open access journals, it is unlikely that the editorial board =
of
Maskana soon will be overwhelmed by an increase in the submission of articl=
es.
Alternatives for the journal were discussed, among them the upgrading of
Maskana from a low impact institutional journal to a medium ranked academic
journal, the integration of the institutional low impact journals into a
University Journal (UJ) platform with the online publication of accepted
articles, the expansion of the UJ platform by inviting local, national, or =
even
international universities, or using Maskana, eventually in cooperation wit=
h the
other institutional journals, as a platform for the publication of the mast=
er
dissertations in the format of a research paper. A major benefit of the lat=
ter
concept is that the students will acquire the capacity of the reading and
understanding of research papers, and how to structure and write a research
paper. This concept offers a rewarding experience to the students and staff,
and will contribute to communication and dissemination, an essential aspect=
of
science. In addition, the distribution of the dissertation in the format of=
an
article will considerably be more beneficial than that of the classically
printed format. Of course, it is up to the authorities to decide after anal=
ysis
what option is the best to turn the low-impact institutional journals into
something more visible, useful, with higher impact, and manageable with few=
er
resources.
REFERENCE=
S
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span
lang=3DNL-BE style=3D'mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"Tim=
es New Roman";
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[1] OJS/PKP=
span>: Open Jou=
rnal
Systems (OJS) is
an open-source software application for the management and publication of
scholarly journals, developed by Public Knowledge Project (PKP).
[2] https://w=
ww.ucuenca.edu.ec/ojs/index.php/maskana
[3] h-index: an h-index of 17 means that 17 articles of the 187 published
articles in the Journal have been cited 17 times or more. The h-index is a
measure of the apparent scientific impact of the journal.
[4] i10-index: this index depicts the number of Journal articles with at
least 10 citations.
[5] IF: is the ratio of the number of citations receiv=
ed
by the journal’s articles in a year or given period.
[6] SJR: https://www.scimagojr.com/ journalrank.php?country=3DEC
[7]=
https://paperpile.com/g/academic-research-databa=
ses
[8] https://publicaciones.ucuenca.edu.ec/ojs/
[9] https://universityjournals.e=
u/ index.php/about-university-journals/
K. Guerrero et al.: Ansiedad e inteligencia emocional de
cuidadores/no-cuidadores de pacientes con COVID-19
MASKANA, Vol. 12, No. 1, 41=
-46,
2021 https://publicaciones.ucuen=
ca.edu.ec/ojs/index.php/maskana/article/view/3727 do=
i: 10.18537/mskn.12.01.05 © Author(s) 2021. CC Attribution 4.0 License. |
|
J. Feyen: How to improve and maintain the relevance of an institutio=
nal
research journal?