Finance Journals Ranking: Google Scholar

Google Scholar (GS) has been my favourite tool for: (1) literature review; (2) tracking citations to my own research articles; (3) tracking citations to key papers in my research topics; (4) determining whether someone is a “Google” scholar (as there are professors whose publications can’t be captured even by GS, which the local netizens called “kangkung”); (5) assessing the quality of academic journals. 

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A Guide to Publishing in International Peer-reviewed Journals: III

Nowadays, with Google, it is not difficult to find materials on publishing tips. From the many materials that have been downloaded, I recommend the following five:

  1. How to Publish in Top Journals” by Kwan Choi (if the original link does not work, click here then).
  2. Tips for Publishing in Finance Academic Journals” by Don Chance (if the original link does not work, click here then).
  3. How to Prepare a Manuscript for International Journals” from Elsevier Author Workshop (if the original link does not work, click here then).
  4. The Challenges of Publishing in Top-Tier Finance Journals” by Michael Lemmon (if the original link does not work, click here then).
  5. Tips for Preparing and Publishing Research Papers” by Karl Whelan (if the original link does not work, click here then).

A Guide to Publishing in International Peer-reviewed Journals: II

Wiley Chinese Scholars Network (CSN) provides text, audio, and video resources to support the journey to publication for Chinese authors in an English-language journal.

In CSN’s website, you can interact with experts and your peers, access detailed explanations of the peer review process, and discover the latest news from your discipline.

Even though the objective of CSN is to support Chinese scholarship, I find that the materials on the site are useful for most researchers, in particularly the Audio Presentations and Video Lectures.

Check it out here. This is cool!

A Guide to Publishing in International Peer-reviewed Journals: I

Nowadays, greater weight is being given to publications in good quality journals, especially those indexed by Thomson ISI/WoS. Researchers, especially early career or those from developing countries, are eager for publishing tips.

I came across this useful page of Wiley-Blackwell on the Opportunities for Publishing in International Journals in Economics. This page publishes videos from the recent Econometric Society World Congress in Shanghai. The speakers are all editors of international journals.

To get some publishing tips, listen to those videos here.

LSIBF in ISI/WoS

Given the emphasis on publications in ISI/WoS, it is good to check the performance of LSIBF. To do an institutional search in WoS (click here), we have to search for “Labuan Sch Int Business & Finance”  in “Address”. This will return 13 records (click here).

How about the School of Business and Economics (SBE) in the main campus? To do that, we have to search for “Sch Business & Econ” in “Address” AND “Univ Malaysia Sabah” in “Address”. This will return 5 records (click here). If we exclude proceeding papers, SBE will only have 3 records.

Despite the lack of research facilities and the small number of academic staffs (no full professor in LSIBF), LSIBF is publishing more ISI publications than their sister school in the main campus.

Well done and keep up the good work.


UM II: A Model of Reward Structure for ISI/WoS Publications

In my previous posting on National Academic Award (click here), I noted there is still much room for improvement in terms of the reward structure offered by my home university.

When designing a reward structure based on ISI/WoS (Web of Science) publications, it is important to first understand the underlying mechanisms. Several important points are highlighted here:

  1. Sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities are three different fields that cannot be put together (for details, click here). It just does not make sense to compare the impact factor of a science journal vs a social science journal.
  2. Even in the same field (sciences, social sciences, arts & humanities), the impact factor should be discipline-specific (for details, click here).
  3. Is the reward structure based on publications indexed in WoS or impact factor reported by Journal Citation Reports (JCR)? UM encourages her staffs to publish in journals indexed in ISI-WoS, which consists of 3 important components- Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (click here for notice dated 10/8/2010, and here for WoS fact sheet). However, if the reward structure is based on impact factor, one has to bear in mind that JCR only provide impact factors for journals indexed in SCI and SSCI, but not AHCI (click here and here). How do you then reward those staffs who publish in AHCI if the incentive is structured around impact factor?
  4. How do we define high impact journals? Well, not all journals indexed by ISI-WoS are considered high impact. UM defines high impact research as any research that could produce publications in Tier 1 or Tier 2 ISI/WoS journals (click here).  I suppose it is Q1 and Q2 in the JCR.
  5. The next related question is whether the university rewards publications indexed in ISI-WoS or just high impact journals. UM has structured her reward system according to ISI Journal Tiering, that is Q1- RM6000, Q2- RM4000, Q3- RM2000 and Q4- RM1000 (click here). Apart from that, the university has also announced a cash incentive of RM50,000 for each publication in Science or Nature (click here). This is a good model, not only in monetary terms but also in ensuring fairness across disciplines.