Evolutionary transformation of the journal. Part 8

The article outlines the eighth phase of the development of the journal Studia Historiae Scientiarum (previous name Prace Komisji Historii Nauki PAU / Proceedings of the PAU Commission on the History of Science). Information is provided on the following matters: the journal’s evaluation by the “ICI Master Journal List 2019” (released at the end of 2020), by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Polish Republic (released on February 9 / 18, 2021), by Scopus (released on 6 April 2021), and by the SCImago Journal Rankings 2020 (released on May 17, 2021; unfortunately, the journal data in Scimago website are inconsistent with the Scopus data, e.g. most of the 2020 volume’s citable texts that are indexed in Scopus have been omitted). Michał Kokowski Evolutionary transformation of the journal. Part 8 M. Kokowski SHS 20 (2021) | DOI: 10.4467/2543702XSHS.21.001.14032 14 Additionally, the number of foreign authors and reviewers of the current volume of the journal is quoted. From volume 21 (2022), the journal Studia Historiae Scientiarum will implement additional organizational solutions: a CC BY license for the texts of articles (retaining the possibility of other licenses for illustrations), the CrossMark service and the publishing option, the so-called FirstView Articles.


Changes made so far
The journal's development since 2013 is described in the following texts: Kokowski 2013;2014;2015;2016;2017;2018;2019;2020. In this text we are announcing additional modifications introduced in 2020/2021 or those that will be introduced in 2021/2022.

Journal evaluation by the Minstry of Education and Science of the Polish Republic
On February 9, 2021, pursuant to the decision of the Minister of Science and Education of the Republic of Poland, the score of the Studia Historiae Scientiarum journal was changed from 20 points to 40 points. The decision was justified by the fact that the journal is indexed in the Scopus database, where the data were updated. The score was also kept for the journal's old name the Prace Komisji Historii Nauki PAU / Proceedings of the Commission on the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (40 points; history), 1 despite the fact that the journal was published under this name in 1999-2015.
This means, first of all, that, unfortunately, ministerial officials do not read the submitted appeals. In 2019-2021 the authorities of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the editorial board of the journal appealed several times to representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Polish Republic, the Commission of Science Evaluation and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Poland to remove the journal Prace Komisji Historii Nauki PAU / Proceedings of the Commission on the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences from the "List of scientific journals". This is because in 2016 it had been replaced -with the consent of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland of 2015 -by the journal Studia Historiae Scientiarum, published from volume 15 (2016). Secondly, it means that the output of our journal is still underestimated, because it should amount to at least 80 points, i.e. 40 points for the old title (volumes 1-14) and 40 points for the new title (from volume 15).

Journal evaluation by Index Copernicus International, Scopus and Scimago Journal Rankings
In the "ICI Master Journal List 2019" (published at the end of 2020), the journal Studia Historiae Scientiarum with the ICV score of 100.00 (the same as in 2018) was ranked first among the Polish journals on the history of science and on the science of science; among the Polish journals that can be correctly classified as belonging to the group of journals in the "history and philosophy of science" category, only two journals were ranked higher: Filozofia Nauki (ICV 116.84) and Organon (ICV 111.70). 2 In Scopus (updated on April 6, 2021), Studia Historiae Scientiarum obtained the following results: CiteScore 2019 0.5, ranking first among 16 Polish journals from the "history" discipline and 3 Polish journals from the "history and philosophy of science" discipline; SJR 2019 0.127, ranking first among in the "history" discipline and second after Filozofia Nauki (with SJR 0.194) among Polish journals in the "history and philosophy of science" discipline); SNIP 2019 0.876, ranking first among Polish journals in the disciplines of "history" and "history and philosophy of science"; CiteScore Tracker 2020 0.6, ranking first among Polish journals in the disciplines of "history" and "history and philosophy of science".
In the SCImago Journal Rankings 2020 (published on May 17, 2021), the journal Studia Historiae Scientiarum obtained the following result: SJR index 0.100, and on this basis the journal was included in the lowest quartile Q4 in the discipline "history" and in the discipline "history and philosophy of science", which means a decrease from the Q2 quartile in the discipline "history" and the quartile Q3 in the discipline "history and philosophy of science".
However, when determining the value of the SJR 2020 indicator, the SCImago team made a profoundly serious mistake, because it omitted in the assessment of the yearbook 2020 of Studia Historiae Scientiarum most of the cited texts published in this volume and indexed in Scopus. The case was reported to the Scimago Team on May 17, 2021, in which the SCImago Journal Rankings 2020 was published, and on May 20 -June 3, 2021 to Scopus. 2 The "ICI Master Journals List 2020" lists many Polish journals in the "history and philosophy of science" category. However, the vast majority of them are not of this nature, for example Scientia et Fides (ICV 121.02), Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (ICV 100.00), Studia Religiologica -Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego (ICV 100.00). The fact that the ICV value is higher than 100 is influenced by the value of the SJR index (determined by Scimago Lab) in the previous two years (however, it does not necessarily mean the status of an active journal in Scopus), while it is not generally influenced by the journal's depositing files of articles, abstracts, keywords and bibliographies in the Index Copernicus International.
The Editorial Board of the journal are waiting for an urgent correction of data in the Scimago Journal Rankings 2020 and Scopus List 2020, because: a) volume 19 (2020) of the journal (a yearbook) was released in good time -September 30, 2020 -and this data were available for Scopus on the journal's website and also were indexed in Crossref; b) the dissemination of defective information about the journal Studia Historiae Scientiarum by the Scimago Journal Rankings 2020 and its duplication by the Scopus List 2020 harms the good name and economic interests of the journal. As a side note to this case, one should note the fundamental problem missing quick possibilities to fix incorrect data on the Scimago Journal Rankings and Scopus websites (changes are introduced at least after six to twelve months) and WoS (we have not been able to receive information about the journal's evaluation on this portal for fifteen months). Business companies such as Elsevier and Clarivatics should be required to have a much higher level of "customer service", which in this case is a scientific journal.
Another fundamental problem is the fetishization of citations in international databases, and ignoring numerous unquestionable reservations, formulated in the context of integrated science of science, regarding the issue of misconduct in citing scientific publications.
Due to such fundamental problems, the Polish system of journal evaluation should be thoroughly reformed: it is necessary to abandon the primacy of international business databases, the primacy of citations, and the alleged principle of "inheritance of prestige", a which guarantees the pathological score-obsession, and to assign appropriate weight to publishing standards. 3

Foreign authors
The percentage of foreign authors in the previous volume was 29% of all authors, and in the current volume -59% of all authors. 4

Foreign reviewers
The percentage of reviewers employed in foreign research institutions in the previous volume was 17% of all reviewers, 5 and in the current volume -47% of all Reviewers. 6

New organizational solutions from volume 21 (2022)
From volume 21 (2022), according to plan S, the journal is implementing a CC BY publishing license for the text of the articles; illustrations may be licensed under other CC licenses or other copyright. From volume 21 (2022), the journal implements the CrossMark service, which will enable the publication of updated versions of files.
From volume 21 (2022), the journal introduces an additional publishing option, the so-called FirstView Articles. These are completed articles, that is, articles after reviews and final revisions, queued for assignment to the upcoming journal volume and distributed online prior to inclusion in the upcoming volume. Such articles receive a DOI (Digital Object Identifier); the final page numbering of such articles is established in the journal volume; CrossMark service will ensure that after the publication of the journal volume, the files will be replaced with their final versions. Kokowski, Michał 2013: Introduction (in Polish