Figure 5.2: Article unit outputs in accredited journals from 2005 to 2014 Data source: SA Knowledgebase (SAK), CREST
Understanding the DHET Funding Framework
The 2003 DHET Funding Framework, as it pertained to subsidies for journal articles until 2016 (See section 5 of Chapter 3), was built on three pillars of ‘accreditation’
(or quality control):
1 The DHET recognised all journals listed in the Thomson Reuters (TR) WoS, the core collection, for subsidy purposes. This meant that any publication by one or more university academics who published an article in any of the more than 20 000 journals indexed in the WoS (formerly the ISI) automatically qualified for a subsidy to the institution concerned. From the perspective of the DHET, this meant that it ‘trusted’ the judgment of the WoS in its inclusion of journals.
There was a low ‘turnover’ of journal titles in the WoS; some journals were
‘de-accredited’, while new journals were added every year. This meant that academics or research offices needed to monitor the WoS list quite regularly to ensure that articles were submitted to journals that appeared in the ‘active list’ of the WoS to qualify for a subsidy.
2 The DHET also recognised all journals listed in the ProQuest IBSS. The IBSS was added in 2003 apparently to ensure better coverage of the social sciences and humanities, since the WoS had been consistently criticised for its inadequate coverage of the humanities and social sciences. As is the case with the WoS, the DHET therefore also ‘trusted’ ProQuest in its decisions to include or exclude journal titles.
3 The DHET-accredited South African journals not indexed in these databases for inclusion or exclusion for subsidy purposes on the basis of general (non- qualitative) criteria (See section 5 of Chapter 3). This was an ongoing process as new journals could apply for accreditation to the DHET on an annual basis;
if they are successful, they were added to the DHET List.
The relationship between these three journal lists9, and specifically the coverage of journal titles, and hence the number of journal articles by the respective lists, are depicted in Figure 5.3. The data for this figure and for all of the analyses reported in the CREST report were sourced from SA Knowledgebase (SAK)10.
Figure 5.3: Share of article output by journal list
Journal output by journal list
The disaggregation by journal list shows that articles published in WoS journals constitute the biggest share (62%), followed by articles in South African journals (35%) and articles published in IBSS journals (9%). However, this disaggregation does not take into account the overlaps between the three lists. Correcting for that, then the relative proportions of articles in the WoS are 59%, articles in SA journals are 33%, and articles in IBSS journals are 8%.
Based on this disaggregation by journal list, the trends over time for each list are examined (Fig. 5.4). This shows that the numbers of articles in the respective lists
9 Throughout this report we refer to the TR WoS Core Collection, the ProQuest IBSS list and the DHET-accredited list of SA journals as journal lists.
10 SAK is a proprietary database at CREST of scientific publications authored by South African scientists and scholars at SA universities. It is not a citation database, although SA-authored papers that are published in the TR WoS can be linked to the citation data available in the latter (See above). SAK is unique in that it is the only database that contains metadata on all SA-authored scientific articles, books, book chapters and conference proceedings that are recognised under the DHET Funding Framework. This means that it presents the most complete coverage of SA-authored scientific publications as it includes all papers in the TR WoS, local SA journals accredited by the DHET and articles published in IBSS-listed journals.
have increased at different rates, with the biggest increase (in recent years) in IBSS journals. As a result, by 2014, the proportional shares of article production were:
WoS (56%), DHET (28%) and IBSS (15%). However, it will be shown in the section on predatory publishing that a substantial proportion of increases in publications in IBSS journals are found in (probably or possibly) predatory journals.
Figure 5.4: Distribution of SA journal articles by journal list (full paper count) Data source: SAK, CREST
A typology of journal publication configurations
The SA HE sector produced an estimated 113 555 unique articles in the lists of accredited journals over the period 2005 to 201411. These articles appeared in 8 055 individual journals. However, these figures are somewhat misleading as 50% of all the articles appeared in 296 journals only.
As argued in the main report, the average number of papers produced by a journal per year, as well as the trends over time, are good indicators, even if only a proxy, of:
• The sustainability of the journal in the long run.
• Possible changes in editorial policy or practices of the journal.
• The nature of the underlying ‘community of scholars’ which is served by the journal.
• The possibility of the journal being a predatory journal .
• Indicators of questionable publication practices by the journal.
11 This is the number recorded in SAK. It is, of course, possible that there may be some errors in our data management or that not all submissions from the universities to the DHET were complete. This would impact slightly on the overall number, but we believe that the margin of error would be less than 1%.
Based on the shape of the trend lines over the ten-year period four typical configurations have been identified:
Type 1: Consistent and stable publication output (three sub-types)
• Consistently high levels of annual output (more than 50 papers)
• Consistently moderate levels of annual output (between 30 and 50 papers)
• Consistently low levels of annual output (fewer than 30 papers).
Type 2: Inconsistent and interrupted trends in publication
Type 3: Gradual and incremental increase in publication output
Type 4: Inexplicable spikes in publication trends which may be indicative of a predatory journal.
Type 1: Consistent and stable publication output High-volume journals: More than 80 articles per year
Ten ‘high-volume journals’ or ‘mega-journals’ (more than 80 articles published on average per year) top the list of journals in which SA academics published (Table 5.1). However, as argued later, at least two of these (the Journal of Social Sciences and the African Journal of Business Management) are probably predatory journals.
Another two, AJPHERD and Acta Crystallographica, are journals that probably engage in questionable (that is, unethical) publication practices. The journal that tops the list, PLOS One, is now one of the so-called ‘mega-journals’ in the world.
Although it is not generally seen as engaging in questionable publication practices, some scholars have criticised its editorial policies. The other journals in this list can be seen as the ‘mega-SA journals’: the SAMJ, Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies SA, Journal of Higher Education, the Journal of Psychology in Africa and the SAJS.
Table 5.1: The mega-SA journals Journal title
Average annual number of
papers in past 5 years
Number of articles 2010
to 2014
Number of articles 2005
to 2014
PLOS One 192 960 996
AJPHERD: African Journal for Physical, Health Education Recreation and Dance
191 957 1227
SAMJ: South African Medical Journal 135 674 1109 HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological
Studies 126 631 998
Journal of Social Sciences 95 476 485
Acta Crystallographica Section E:
Structure Reports Online 92 462 728
Journal title
Average annual number of
papers in past 5 years
Number of articles 2010
to 2014
Number of articles 2005
to 2014 South African Journal of Higher
Education/Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Hoër Onderwys
89 445 798
African Journal of Business
Management 83 413 438
Journal of Psychology in Africa 81 403 584
South African Journal of Science 80 401 875
Moderate-volume journals: Between 30 and 50 articles per year
In the moderate-volume and consistent-publication output the findings are:
• Many discipline-specific journals: these are journals that serve a very specific discipline (social work, education, media studies, English, occupation health, nursing and business management) or inter-disciplinary domain (wildlife research, energy).
• The majority of theology journals that serve a very specific religious
denomination (Koers, Journal of Christian Scholarship, SA Baptist Journal of Theology).
• The majority of sub-fields in medicine (Surgery, Cardiovascular Medicine, Sport Medicine).
• Some journals that could be described as ‘advocacy’ or ‘special-interest’
journals such as Agenda, Journal for Transdisciplinary Research and the Next Generation Sciences Journal.
• A range of foreign (non-SA) journals in which SA academics regularly publish including Journal of Ethnopharmacology, JAIDS (Wolters Kluwer), Journal of Education (published by Boston University), African Journal of Ecology (Published by Wiley Online), Urban Forum (published by Springer) and Dalton Transactions (Journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry).
Low-volume journals (fewer than 30 articles per year)
The vast majority of SA journals fall into this category.