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>I was going through the list of SSCI journal and did not find it.Well, let's expand on the "I don't know!", and deliver on our promise to provide an updated report. "SSCI" is the Social Sciences Citation Index(r) [1], published by Thomson Reuters [2], present day owners of the "Impact Factor" [3]. The "list" referred to by our correspondent is the list of journals indexed in SSCI [4]. Our first and only editorial mention of SSCI was in AJET Editorial 23(2) [5], stating that on 18 April 2007 we had received some welcome news from a Thomson ISI Editor:
>May I know if AJET is still considered SSCI?In brief, I don't know! Have a look at Editorial 24(5) when it appears.
I am happy to inform you that the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology has been selected for coverage in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Indexing of this title is scheduled to begin later in 2007 [5]Nothing happened for almost one year, although we made a number of follow up inquiries by email. Then we received a letter from Thomson Scientific, printed on paper and dated April 4, 2008, informing us that "Beginning with V. 23 (1) 2007" AJET will be "indexed and abstracted" in Social Sciences Citation Index(r), Social Scisearch(r) and Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition. Very promptly we completed and returned their "Journal Information Sheet", nominating electronic delivery, method FTP, format PDF (the usual way to do these things). Six months later we are still waiting to receive an FTP host address, login name and password to enable electronic delivery. Hence the "I don't know!"
Currently SSCI covers only 99 journals in education [4], which is far from a reasonable number compared with other disciplines, especially those in the STM (scientific, technical, medical) areas. The current coverage in education is very American and UK oriented, multinational publisher oriented, and is much smaller than its competitors such as the database products by EBSCO [6], Gale [7], ERA [8], Elsevier [9] and others. Compared with its competitors, SSCI's coverage of journals related to educational technology [4] seems to be meagre, including only 9 journals, namely:
British Journal of Educational Technology [10]Of the nine journals in this list, only two, ET&S [12] and LLT [18] are open access. This is an interesting point, reflected upon by Michael Jensen [19] of the USA's National Academies [20], in a remarkable essay on the new metrics of scholarly authority [21]
Computers & Education [11]
Educational Technology & Society [12]
Educational Technology Research and Development [13]
Innovations in Education and Teaching International [14]
Instructional Science [15]
Interactive Learning Environments [16]
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning [17]
Language Learning & Technology [18]
... those who completely lock their material behind subscription walls risk marginalizing themselves over the long term. They simply won't be counted in the new authority measures. They need to cooperate with some of the new search sites and online repositories, share their data with outside computing systems...We agree with Jensen's depiction of the 'new authority measures', with some enthusiasm, as indicated in our previous Editorial 24(2) discussing the topic, "IM 28: Abstracted & Indexed In..." [22]. However, to be prudent, our monitoring and promoting brief has to encompass efforts in at least two main directions. The first is the 'older' authority metrics that are behind subscription walls, for example Thomson Reuters, Scopus and Gale (an agreement with Gale is going to AJET's Management Committee, meeting during ascilite Melbourne 2008, for approval; agreements with ERA and EBSCO are in place). The second direction is the 'newer' authority metrics, especially Google, as explored in Editorial 24(2) [22] and previous Editorials. The qualifying phrase 'at least' reminds us that new providers of 'authority measures' [Jensen, 21] may emerge in the future.
... if scholarly output is locked away behind fire walls, or on hard drives, or in print only, it risks becoming invisible to the automated Web crawlers, indexers, and authority-interpreters that are being developed. Scholarly invisibility is rarely the path to scholarly authority. [21]
For example, an interesting newcomer popped up in the email recently. China Education Publications Import and Export Corporation (CEPIEC) [23] has developed "...the first comprehensive Open Access platform --- Socolar (www.socolar.com) in China which covers almost all outstanding OA resources worldwide." [24]. Their intention to promote open access journals within China is clear (and commendable):
Ever Since the launch of the testing version, Socolar boasts the high visit rate and page view which are 4000 to 5000 person per day and 50,000 times daily on average respectively. Users are mainly from higher education institutes, research institutes and hospitals. Since the platform enhanced the understanding of Chinese users towards open access, more and more people realize the importance and the merits of OA resources. [24, 25]However, at present Socolar is operating in "Beta" or "test version". It needs more work on its search capabilities, which on the basis of a very brief exploration, seem to us to be less powerful than Google and others. The matter of agreements to store copies of open access journal articles on Socolar's servers will need considerable work. For example, AJET has not given a permission to copy entire issues, as Socolar's beta has done with volumes 22(1) to 24(3). The development of Socolar's software may be dependent upon both English language and computer language skills, as indicated by this intriguing error message from Socolar, in Chinese and English:
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With 10 articles and 170 B5 sized pages for the PDF files version, 24(5) is AJET's largest ever issue. This has required some compromising. As a temporary expedient, AJET 24(5) is being published in two stages, firstly PDF files released on 20 November, and secondly HTML files to be published as time becomes available. In the normal course of production, each AJET paper receives a two stage copy editing, the first being preparation of MS Word files, from which PDF versions are created. The second copy editing occurs during the creation of HTML files using a text editor (currently MS Word 5 for Macintosh "Classic" environment). As errors are found and corrected, or as further improvements may be made to grammar, referencing and other matters, the MS Word and PDF versions are updated. So it's a risk to upload PDF versions after doing only the first stage copy editing. As post-publication errata (if any) are noted at the end of each file, readers will be able to assess within a few months whether this risk taken with 24(5) was relatively small, or otherwise!
Roger Atkinson and Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Production Editor and AJET Editor
| Conferences advertised in AJET 24(5) |
 30 Nov - 3 Dec 2008 at Deakin University Burwood Campus, Melbourne http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/ |  Macquarie University, Sydney, 5 December 2008. http://lams2008sydney.lamsfoundation.org/ |
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 http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/ |
The Student Experience Charles Darwin University Darwin, 6-9 July 2009 |
The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) is a refereed research journal published four times per year by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite). AJET retired its printed version (ISSN 1449-3098) at the end of Volume 23, 2007, and from Volume 24, 2008, the journal is open access, online only (ISSN 1449-5554), and does not have paid subscriptions.
© 2008 Authors retain copyright in their individual articles, whilst copyright in AJET as a compilation is retained by the publisher. Except for authors reproducing their own articles, no part of this journal may be reprinted or reproduced without permission. For further details, and for details on submission of manuscripts and open access to all issues of AJET published since the journal's foundation in 1985, please see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/
For editorial inquiries, contact the Editor, Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin, School of Education (ACT), Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia. Email: C.McLoughlin@signadou.acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185.
For review process, production and business matters, contact the Production Editor and Business Manager, Dr Roger Atkinson, 5/202 Coode Street, Como WA 6152, Australia. Email: rjatkinson@bigpond.com, Tel: +61 8 9367 1133. Desktop publishing (PDF versions) and HTML by Roger Atkinson.
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