Since being put on hold by Web of Science in October this year, we’ve had many conversations with researchers, partner organisations and members of the research community. We’ve listened to thoughts, feedback and been overwhelmed by the support we’ve received. We’ve also seen the impact this news has had on submissions to eLife. It is evident that, at present, inclusion in Web of Science is important to some authors and is still a requirement in many funder and institution policies.
We are not changing our publishing model. But in order to best serve researchers and provide the broadest possible coverage for research published with eLife, we have made the decision to provide a partial feed of eLife articles to Web of Science in order to maintain authors’ coverage in the index.
The partial feed will include Versions of Record (VORs) with eLife Assessments that note papers as “solid” or above when considering the strength of evidence. According to recent data, this means 93% of eLife papers will continue to be indexed, while the remaining 7% of “incomplete” and “inadequate” VORs will no longer be eligible for inclusion in Web of Science.
Our decision means the vast majority of eLife research will be eligible for inclusion in the Web of Science Core Collection. However, because we are not willing to change the eLife publishing model to accommodate Web of Science’s policies, eLife will be a partially indexed journal and as such not eligible for the Journal Impact Factor.
Together with this news, in order to continue eLife’s coverage in Scopus and maintain the integrity of the eLife publishing model, we’ve agreed that eLife will move from the Scopus Journals Collection to the Scopus Preprints Collection. As a result, eLife Reviewed Preprints will now be indexed in both Scopus and Google Scholar. This move will enhance the discoverability of Reviewed Preprints and enable authors to showcase their Reviewed Preprints in their Scopus author profiles. All eLife VORs will continue to be indexed in PubMed, Google Scholar, Open Alex and the Directory of Open Access Journals. Provided current trends continue, 93% of eLife’s VORs will be indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection.
We do not believe that indexing will exert such influence over author behaviour in the longer term, but we acknowledge that at this time it still serves a function. We believe this choice does the most to ensure research discoverability while maintaining the benefits our publishing model provides to authors and readers.
Over the last two years we have shown that our model is something that researchers find valuable and is supported by institutions and funders. Our eLife Assessments directly evaluate and engage with each research article individually, eliminating the need for journal-level metrics to be used as proxies in research assessment.
We have received over 10,000 submissions, published nearly 3,000 Reviewed Preprints and 1,381 VORs, and have an ever-growing number of positive stories from authors who have experienced our model.
Hear from our authors:
- “authors have a lot of control in the publication process”
- “an open ‘conversation’… without the threat of rejection”
- “innovative and intriguing”
- "smooth, fair, and transparent"
- "exactly what our study needed"
- "I fully recommend the new model"
The eLife model provides a viable alternative for anyone seeking a better way of publishing their research, and for anyone hoping to build a fairer system. We will continue our mission to build and advance methods of science communication that reflect the reality of scientific discourse and meet the needs of the research community.
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