4. Consensus Reviews of Journals in the Group
4.2 International Studies & Multidisciplinary
4.2.5 Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa
receives funding from various sources, mostly international development agencies. This is alongside a commercial agreement with Routledge of Taylor & Francis publishers.
Most subscriptions to the journal are from organisations and individual subscriptions present a negligible number. The sales and marketing focus is not to target individual subscribers but rather to focus on institutions, although individuals can subscribe to SAJIA should they wish. There is no author publishing fee imposed by SAJIA. APCs are optional, should an author wish to make their paper open access via Taylor & Francis’ Open Select programme. Some discounts and waivers on APCs apply for authors based in developing countries. The journal is part of a commercial e-publication service. The journal uses an online management system, uploads articles to the web, and uses a manual system to manage the editorial workflow.
The publisher is multinational but has a South African-based office and they have not purchased the journal. SAIIA retains ownership and holds copyright of the journal by way of a copyright agreement form, which all authors are asked to sign upon publication. Authors are asked to transfer to SAIIA the rights of copyright to the articles they contribute. This enables Taylor & Francis, on behalf of SAIIA and SAJIA, to ensure protection against infringement.
The South African Journal of International Affairs is indexed by African Studies Abstracts Online (ASAO); IBSS; and Scopus. Impact factors are as follows: 2016 Scopus metrics: Citescore: 0.72; SNIP (Source Normalised Impact per Paper): 0.748; SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): 0.748. Altmetric indicators are administered by Taylor & Francis. Data such as number of views per article are available via the journal’s web page. Altmetric Attention Scores are also available for the journal articles on Taylor &
Francis Online. Taylor & Francis has added altmetric data to all articles published since January 2012, offering users a more complete picture of how readers engage with research articles. Taylor & Francis also monitors and reports on full-text downloads, page views and other data regarding the journal’s performance. The ‘front details’ for papers and English abstracts are mandatory. The journal has not been independently peer reviewed before.
Suggested improvements:
Consensus review: The journal should encourage submissions with stronger theoretical components.
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 its publishers change and it become open access.
4.2.5 Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa
The journal is used by many South African social scientists and southern Africanists abroad. It is distributed through Project Muse which gets the journal into many universities around the world as part of a package. The journal has international and local subscribers.
Editing functions:
(Standing, local institutional spread, international participation)
Consensus review: The Editorial Board consists of a mixture of senior, well-known scholars with high national and interdisciplinary standing as well as younger scholars from a variety of disciplines. All the Board members are from South African institutions although it is dominated by academics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Questionnaire:
(Editorial process-related criteria)
Transformation was established in 1986 and is published three times per annum. It is accessible on the following links: http://transformationjournal.org.za/ and http://muse.jhu.edu/journal/198. The information on visits, downloads, and countries in which the journal is read was not available at the time of review. The journal is pre-scheduled to appear on given dates in April, August and December.
Until about four years ago the journal did not follow a publication schedule.
During the three-year review period, 45 full articles, one review article and 53 book reviews were published. Other published papers included 18 comments and obituaries. The number of manuscripts rejected without peer review was about 75–80% of full articles. No data were provided for the number of manuscripts rejected after peer review. Information about the proportion of peer-reviewed papers that had at least one author with a non-South African address was not available at the time of the review.
Two peer reviewers are usually approached for each submitted manuscript. The selection of peer reviewers is based on their recognised expertise in the field, e.g. publications. Peer review is conducted in a ‘blind way’. Valid reviewer critique and article improvement are rigorously implemented. Authors are sent comments, and invited to respond, amend, correct, or amplify appropriately, and re- submit. Re-submissions are read by reviewers, who then accept or request further re-working before publication. Peer reviewers receive follow-up information and copies of the journal in which the article was published. Reviewer performance is not formally assessed, and information is also not formally captured in a database. About 30 peer reviewers were used in one year of the review period. The proportion of these who had non-South African addresses was about 5%. The peer review reports are accessibly retained in the journal’s records. The average period between receipt of a manuscript and its publication in print and online is the same and typically is less than a year, unless the authors take A longer time to revise.
The journal has an Editorial Collective with no overall ‘Chief’ and the members were not appointed competitively. Some members have been active on the Editorial Board since the journal’s inception.
The members of the Editorial Board handle peer review and advise on the editorial policies and practices. The members can serve on the Board for as long as they remain active and involved. They were appointed from inside and outside the country to provide specific topical expertise.
The information about the editorial guidelines and conflict-of-interest policies was not provided at the time of the review. The journal does have an errata policy in place. The journal publishes value-added features such as analytical book reviews. The percentage of pages in each issue that represents peer-reviewed original material is about 85% to 90%.
Content:
(Quality, focus, spread within domain, sample of best work in SA, enrichment features)
Consensus review: Generally, the quality of articles, which are dominantly South African focused, is good. Marginal attention is given to neighbouring countries. Nevertheless, the articles represent a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.
The journal consists of useful scholarly features like editorials, topical reviews, review debates and book reviews.
Essential technical features:
(English abstracts, errata, citation practice, presentation)
Consensus review: Articles contain English-language abstracts and good citation practice is followed in line with international standards. Images are also used in an ethical manner. The overall presentation and design of the journal can also not be faulted.
Usefulness in capacity development, and international comparability:
Consensus review: The journal serves as a stimulus for local graduate students and young staff in the discipline concerned. It also provides the John Daniel Southern African Young Scholars Publishing Grant.
The journal is comparable with leading international journals in the field such as New Left Review in the UK or Leviathan in Germany as well as the Review of African Political Economy, Constellation, Alternatives and Millennium.
Business aspects:
(Business-related criteria; bibliometric assessments)
The journal is independent and is published and owned by the Editorial Board. The regular print run is 90 copies per issue. Production and distribution are done in-house. The journal does not carry any advertising and does not receive any financial sponsorship.
There are 90 paying subscribers: 77 institutions and 13 individuals. The journal does not charge page fees or APCs. The journal uses a manual system to manage the editorial workflow. The journal is accessible freely online after two years. It is part of a commercial e-publication service via Project Muse.
There have been offers from multinational publishers to purchase the journal, but they were declined.
Authors retain copyright.
The journal is indexed by IBSS and Scopus. The impact factors and altmetric indicators have not been determined. The ‘front details’ for papers and English abstracts are mandatory. The journal has not been independently reviewed before.
Suggested improvements:
Consensus review: The Editorial Board should be broadened to enlist scholars from the southern African region and internationally. The Editors should also consider broadening the predominantly South African focus of the journal by inviting contributions from regional and international scholars.
Furthermore, the distribution of the journal is rather limited and ways to increase its distribution should be considered.
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.
iii. The Editor should seriously consider the suggested recommendations for improvement.