4. Consensus Reviews of Journals in the Group
4.3 Philosophy
4.3.2 Philosophical Papers
The impact factor should be improved.
The focus of the journal is too broad and special issues should be introduced.
The Editorial Board should contemplate ways to profile the distinct southern hemisphere Indo-Pacific intention of the journal. In this regard, scholars and scholarship from India and China should also find a way into the journal.
The title of the journal is not appealing. The Editor should consider changing the title to attract more contributors.
Panel’s consensus view:
i. The journal should continue to be listed on the DHET accredited list.
ii. The journal is already on the SciELO SA platform.
iii. The Panel believes that the Editor should seriously reflect on the name of the journal to make it more focused.
4.3.2 Philosophical Papers
During the three-year review period, 50 full articles and three book reviews were published.
Philosophical Papers is the only philosophical journal with a regular re-readings feature, in which authors write on an older article, book, or book chapter that they deem to deserve renewed attention. The number of manuscripts received over the same period totalled 341 full articles. The number of manuscripts rejected without peer review was 127. Manuscripts rejected after peer review was 113. The proportion of peer-reviewed papers that had at least one author with a non-South African address was 79% in 2017.
Two peer reviewers are usually approached for each submitted manuscript. Possible reviewers are selected in the first instance from among experts globally who have published on the submission’s topic. Invited reviewers who decline the invitation to review the submission often suggest other possible reviewers. Peer review is conducted in a ‘blind way’. Implementation of reviewer critique and article improvement is rigorous. Resubmissions of revised papers are reviewed again and do not receive priority over new submissions in the process of editorial decision-making. Peer reviewers do not receive follow-up information. Reviewer performance is assessed, and information is captured in a database. In 2015, 114 peer reviewers were used and 112 had non-South African addresses. The peer review reports are accessibly retained in the journal’s records. The average period between receipt of a manuscript and its publication online is six to eight months, while in print it is only six months.
The Editor has been in office since April 2016 and was not appointed competitively. The appointment period is indefinite. Members of the Editorial Advisory Board do not handle peer review and do not advise on editorial policies and practices. The Board members are local and international scholars who have been appointed for 20 years.
Philosophical Papers has a detailed ‘Instructions for Authors’ page online which gives information on the journal’s editorial policy and guidelines and is available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/
action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rppa20&page=instructions#.VbYN8LNVhBc. Taylor & Francis/
Routledge is a member of COPE. All of the Routledge, Taylor & Francis journals, including Philosophical Papers abide by the COPE guidelines on publication ethics: http://publicationethics.org/about. The Editor was not aware of ASSAf’s Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing, Editing and Peer Review at the time of the review. It is the publisher’s policy to publish errata, as per the guidelines.
Value-added features such as critical topical reviews and analytical book reviews are included in the journal. The percentage of pages in each issue that represents peer-reviewed original material is 95–98%.
Content:
(Quality, focus, spread within domain, sample of best work in SA, enrichment features)
Consensus review: Philosophical Papers is a journal of high repute, both locally and internationally.
The journal publishes good-quality papers and is comparable to other analytic-oriented philosophy journals in the world. The journal is highly internationalised, attracting great contributors from outside the country. The journal publishes an appropriate number of articles per annum and per issue.
The other significant feature is its regular “re-readings” series, which is innovative and contributes immensely to the philosophical conversation in various areas.
Essential technical features:
(English abstracts, errata, citation practice, presentation)
Consensus review: English-language use is appropriate, and all articles have properly written English abstracts. Suitable publication of errata when the need arises. The journal follows good citation practice, adheres to global conventions and images are used in an ethical manner. The journal has good presentation, design, layout, style, and copy-editing interventions.
Usefulness in capacity development, and international comparability:
Consensus review: Although the journal does not often publish works by emerging scholars, it is suitable for graduate students and young staff, if their focus is analytic philosophy, as the journal leans strongly towards this tradition. The journal is comparable to other international journals such as The British Journal of Philosophy or the International Journal of Philosophy in terms of the quality of contributions.
Business aspects:
(Business-related criteria; bibliometric assessments)
The journal is completely owned by the Editorial Board, made up of the co-Editors, as well as the members of the Department of Philosophy at Rhodes University. The information on the regular print run was not available at the time of the review. One of the co-Editors oversees production, which is also handled by Taylor & Francis. The publisher advertises in the journal. Routledge provides the journal with financial assistance for hiring a Managing Editor.
No article-processing or page fees are charged. The journal uses an online management system and a manual system to manage the editorial workflow. The journal is not open access. Authors contributing to the journal have the option to publish their paper through the gold open access route. It is part of a commercial e-publication service and part of a non-commercial e-publication mechanism through AJOL.
One of the publishers is multinational but has a South African-based office and works with a local co- publisher, Unisa Press, and has not offered to purchase the journal. Articles are copyrighted to ’The Editorial Board, Philosophical Papers’. Authors are given the opportunity to choose the publishing agreement.
Philosophical Papers is currently indexed in Periodicals Index Online; Philosopher’s Index; Philosophy Research Index; Scopus; and Clarivate Analytics Arts and Humanities Citation Index®. On Scopus, the SNIP in 2016 was 0.656, the SJR for 2016 was 0.305, the CiteScore was 0.31, and the CiteScore ranking was 157/452. Altmetric indicators are administered. Page views and citation counts are displayed alongside Altmetric Attention Scores (which track social media, news outlets, policy, blogs, and more) at article level on the journal homepage. The ‘front details’ for papers and English abstracts are mandatory. The journal has been independently peer reviewed before by Scopus and by the DHET when it was listed for accreditation.
Suggested improvements:
Consensus review: The African location of the journal does not seem to be adequately represented in terms of the majority of articles published. Although there have been occasional special issues, the journal seems to focus more on articles from the North. This has its own advantages, but it may dissuade African scholars or those who are researching African issues, from submitting manuscripts for publication to the journal.
The journal should encourage young scholars from Africa to publish in the journal.
It might be appropriate to find ways to broaden access to the journal when it comes to the rest of Africa and much of the developing world, which cannot easily afford subscriptions to the Taylor &
Francis stable.
The Editor has been in this position for 19 years. A succession plan should be put in place. The journal also needs to consider sustainability beyond the owners.
The Editorial Advisory Board has no role to play in the journal. The journal should consider changing this and assigning more responsibilities to the Board.
Panel’s consensus view:
i. The journal should continue to be listed on the DHET accredited list.
ii. The journal should be invited to join SciELO SA should the relationship with its publishers change and it become open access.
iii. The journal should consider the suggested recommendations in this review to further improve the journal.
4.3.3 Phronimon