4. Consensus Reviews of Journals in the Group
4.1 History
4.1.7 South African Historical Journal
Panel’s consensus view:
i. The journal should not continue to be listed on the DHET accredited list.
ii. The journal should not be invited to join the SciELO SA platform.
iii. The Panel recommends that the Editors should improve international visibility by attracting more high-profile southern African and international authors.
iv. In addition, the Panel believes that the journal should re-define its focus and be more selective in accepting articles that convincingly engage with the core discipline of history.
4.1.7 South African Historical Journal
one special issue closing remark, three obituaries, two commentaries, and one interview. Conference papers go through the peer-review process in the same way as full articles. The journal received 160 original articles, 61 book review articles and 11 review articles/essays through the online submission system between 2015 and 2017. A total of 22 manuscripts were rejected without peer review, and 33 after peer review. About 38% of authors who provided addresses had a non-South African address in the review period.
Two to three peer reviewers are usually approached for each submitted manuscript. Peer reviewers are selected based on their field of specialisation. The journal follows a ‘double-blind’ process of evaluation of material. The names of authors are not disclosed to reviewers, and the identities of reviewers are not revealed to authors. The implementation of valid reviewer critique and article improvement is very rigorous. If an author does not sufficiently address reviewers’ comments and suggestions in the revisions, the Editor dealing with the submission can send the manuscript back for further revisions until the Editor is satisfied that the author has addressed all key issues. Peer reviewers do not receive follow-up information. A reviewer’s performance is assessed by the Editor following the submission of the review report. The assessment is based on the relevance of the report and timeous submission. In 2017, 85 peer reviewers were used. Of the 85, 63 provided their address and 39 were based outside South Africa. All the peer review reports are archived through ScholarOne and remain accessible to Editors via this system. The average period between receipt of a manuscript and its publication in print and online is six to twelve months.
There is no Editor-in-Chief and the current Editorial Collective has been serving the journal for between three and 13 years. The Editorial Collective has been appointed competitively for a four-year renewable term. Members of the Editorial Board handle peer review where appropriate for the topic but do not provide advice on editorial policies and practices. Members of the Board have been in office since 2011 and were appointed through invitation. Their term of office ranges from four to five years. This is determined by the South African Historical Society Executive Council in conjunction with the Editorial Collective. They are appointed from inside and outside the country to provide specific topical expertise.
The journal has an Instructions for Authors page on the journal website. The publisher is a member of COPE. All of the Routledge, Taylor & Francis journals, including the South African Historical Journal abide by the COPE guidelines on publication ethics: http://publicationethics.org/about. The guidelines of the journal are not aligned with ASSAf’s Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing, Editing and Peer Review, as the Editorial Collective was not aware of ASSAf’s guidelines at the time of the review. It is the publisher’s policy to publish errata, as per the guidelines.
The value-added features published in the journal include critical editorials, ‘news and views’ analyses of articles published, critical topical reviews, analytical book reviews, correspondence on published articles (commentaries and rejoinders), and interviews with authors. Each volume contains about 90% peer-reviewed content.
Content:
(Quality, focus, spread within domain, sample of best work in SA, enrichment features)
Consensus review: The journal is widely respected as a leading outlet for high-quality articles. Useful additional scholarly features like editorials, topical reviews, book reviews, scholarly correspondence, etc. add to the high standing of the journal.
Essential technical features:
(English abstracts, errata, citation practice, presentation)
Consensus review: The journal maintains excellent standards regarding all technical aspects.
Usefulness in capacity development, and international comparability:
Consensus review: The journal is definitely suitable as an important platform for supporting emerging scholars.
Business aspects:
(Business-related criteria, bibliometric assessments)
The owner of the journal is the Southern African Historical Society, and the publisher is Unisa Press and Routledge. The Taylor & Francis UK print run is about 100 copies per issue (it is flexible according to requirements), and the Unisa Press South African print run is 200 copies per issue. Production and distribution are not outsourced. The UK print issues add free advertisement to balance page composition. The journal does not receive any financial support.
Article-processing charges (APCs) are not levied. The journal uses ScholarOne as an online management system. The journal is not open access and articles are password protected. The content is accessed by subscribers via the South African Historical Journal Taylor & Francis webpage.
The journal, however, operates on an open-select model meaning that authors can choose to publish open access after their article has been rigorously peer reviewed and accepted by the journal Editor.
This further means that these open-access articles can be read by anyone, anywhere immediately upon publication. Taylor & Francis does, however, provide free and low-cost access to the research community in developing countries via initiatives such as STAR, Research4Life, INASP and TEEAL (The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library). The journal is part of a commercial e-publication service.
The publisher, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), is multinational but has a South African based office and works with co-publishers Unisa Press and NISC. The Southern African Historical Society retains ownership of the journal. In terms of copyright agreement, authors sign a form which assigns copyright to the Southern African Historical Society, and this process is managed by Taylor & Francis. The Society manages the intellectual property rights in each article, maintains the article as the version of record, and can represent articles in cases of copyright infringement. As an alternative, a licence to publish is available for book reviews and for if authors wish to avoid the transfer of copyright. The journal uses the standard Taylor & Francis licensing agreement, which is a copyright assignment form.
The South African Historical Journal is currently abstracted and indexed by African Studies Abstracts Online; America: History and Life; Current Abstracts; Historical Abstracts; Humanities International Index; IBSS; International Index to Black Periodicals; Clarivate Analytics Arts & Humanities Citation Index; and Clarivate Analytics Social Sciences Index.
The journal has the following impact factors: WoS 2016 impact factor = 0.180; five-year impact factor
= 0.288; ranking = 71/87 (History); ©Clarivate Analytics, Journal Citation Reports 2016. On Scopus, the metrics values are: SNIP 2016 = 0.166 and SJR 2016 = 0.125; CiteScore rank = 431/912; Scopus® and Journal Metrics®. Altmetric indicators are administered by Taylor & Francis. Data such as number of views per article are available via the webpage. Altmetric Attention Scores have now also been added to all journal articles published since January 2012, offering users a more complete picture of how readers are engaging with research articles, whether via traditional or social media, blogs or online reference managers.
The ‘front details’ for papers and English abstracts are mandatory. The journal has been independently reviewed before by Thomson Reuters (now Clarivate Analytics) for inclusion in the WoS and Scopus.
Suggested improvements:
Consensus review: The journal should consider introducing special issues on international cooperative debates and projects. A section on conferences should be considered to cover junior scholars’
meetings, conferences, working groups, etc. The Editors should develop and enforce some guidelines
about what a good editorial introduction should contain. This should include a substantiated rationale and an overview of the individual contributions and how they are linked.
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 the SciELO SA platform should its relationship with publishers change and become open access.
iii. The Panel recommends that the Editors should solicit more articles in particular areas, such as on innovative research methodologies in historical investigations.
4.1.8 Yesterday and Today