This week there are good news and bad news to report on academic matters. The good news is that there has been a steady rise in the number of research papers published in Philippine academic journals since 2001, as shown by the records of publications indexed by Scopus from 2000 to 2011. It will be recalled that the Commission on Higher Education has promoted research in various academic fields of knowledge since 2000 when it established zonal research centers in higher education institutions in various regions of the country. This program appears to have been successful in promoting research activities that have resulted in the publication of research results during the past 10 years.
The academic community in the Philippines is responding to criticisms of weak research performance of universities by trying to close the gap in the number of scholarly publications that exists between the Philippines and its ASEAN neighbors. It is hoped that this increasing trend will continue, despite the decrease in the number of journals indexed in ISI Thomson and Scopus.
The bad news is that the number of active journals indexed in Scopus and ISI Thomson has been reduced in 2012. Scopus has recognized 12 active journals. It has classified 13 journals among the 25 in its list as inactive, which means they will be dropped from the list if nothing is is done about them. ISI Thomson lists only 8 active journals. It has dropped 10 out of the 18 journals in its 2009 active list. It is hoped that the institutions or professional groups publishing the 10 dropped journals will do something to reinstate them.
Among the 10 journals delisted in the ISI Thompson database in 2012 are the Philippine Scientist, Sylvatrop, Silliman Journal, Science Diliman and Asian Fishery Science. It is suspected that one of the reasons is failure to publish on time or lack of timeliness. But declining quality may also be another reason.
To guide Philippine scientists in their choice of appropriate journals for their research papers, I am listing 12 journal titles in Scopus, as follows:
ADB Economics Working Paper Series
Asia Life Sciences
Asian and Pacific Migration Journal
Asian Development Review
Asia Pacific Education Researcher
DLSU Business and Economics Review
Kritica Kultura
Philippine Agricultural Scientist
Philippine Journal of Science
Philippine Journal of Veterinary Medicine
Philippine Studies
Philippine Journal of Internal Medicine
There are other good journals not in the lists of Scopus or ISI such as the UPV Journal of Science that should be included in these two databases. The institutions publishing them should exert effort to have them listed in either Scopus or ISI to help in further elevating the academic reputation of Philippine universities.
