









































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 6, No. 3, 2023 
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Original Paper 

“Promising” and “Inaction” in the Evaluation of Academic 

Journals: Thoughts on the Construction of Academic Credibility 

Value 
Chen Yuan1* 

1 The Editorial Department of the Distance Education Journal, Zhejiang Open University, Zhejiang 

Provience, Hangzhou 310012, Zhejiang, China 
* Chen Yuan, chy0501@126.com 

 

Received: May 6, 2023            Accepted: June 3, 2023          Online Published: June 8, 2023 

doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p1                         URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p1 

 

Abstract 

Comparatively speaking, academic credibility has dual tension at system and the value level, which 

cannot be replaced by academic administrative power. Academic evaluation and academic research are 

integrated and inseparable, and the process of academic journal evaluation and its own development 

cannot be separated from the participation of academic community. At present, it is urgent to build 

academic credibility based on academic spontaneous order at the boundary between administrative 

power and academic power, and strengthen the maintenance of credibility by scientific rigid system 

norms, so as to form consistent action and self-discipline of academic community and constantly improve 

academic ecology. 

Keywords 

Academic governance, Academic credibility, Academic journals, Academic evaluation, Evaluation of 

academic journals 

 

Introduction 

Academic journals, as the exchange and the display platform of academic research, have the function of 

spreading academic information to readers, and are also an important part of academic evaluation system. 

Since 1960s, quantitative evaluation has been introduced into academic journals, resulting in the concept 

of core journals, which defines journals with more citations as important journals with higher quality. In 

1993, Nanjing University linked SCI evaluation index with scientific research evaluation, and formed an 

academic journal evaluation system by verifying the evaluation of academic papers by journals through 



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the literature quantification. Then, in scientific research evaluation, the academic value of the papers 

published by journals was determined according to the influential power of journals (Feng, 2016). As a 

result, the evaluation of academic journals has become increasingly fierce, and a variety of journal 

evaluation systems have been formed based on bibliolatrous statistics. Linking academic journal 

evaluation with scientific research evaluation saves the evaluation link and repeated operation of 

scientific research management to a certain extent, but it confuses the fundamental purpose of academic 

journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation. At first, the evaluation of 

academic journals are to provide readers with the basis for screening effective journals, to quickly select 

journals suitable for authors, and to publish papers efficiently; providing reliable reference for libraries to 

subscribe to periodicals and saving costs is also a kind of introspection of periodical industry’s own 

development, not to solve the problem of scientific research evaluation. Over-evaluation or regarding 

journal evaluation as scientific research evaluation goes beyond the scope of academic journals and goes 

against the initial intention of academic journalsevaluation, which leads to the alienation of academic 

journal evaluation function. 

 

Second, the performance of alienation of academic journal evaluation 

1) the relationship between academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research 

evaluation 

Academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation have common 

categories, but they cannot belong to each other. The existing evaluation of academic journals considers 

the academic power and communication power of academic papers published in academic journals 

through various evaluation indicators, so as to evaluate the discipline influence and academic influence 

of academic journals. The existing evaluation of academic journals does not include the evaluation of 

normative standards such as editing and proofreading and management and operation ability in the 

industry. The main object of evaluation is academic papers published in academic journals. It is an 

important index to measure the professional level and academic influence of academic journals. 

Academic evaluation is the purest, evaluating all kinds of academic works that reflect the academic 

content and academic value of researchers. 

The core of academic evaluation is works, including papers, works, topics, teaching materials, patents etc. 

Different academic works should have their own evaluation measures and standards. Scientific research 

evaluation is an activity that scientific research administrative departments carry out the value judgment 

on academic achievements, personnel and institutions according to definite purposes and standards and 

adopting certain theories and methods. Scientific research evaluation is based on administrative 

management system and aims at administrative functions, which involves more complexity. At present, 



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in scientific research management, it is usually a simple operation to equate academic journal evaluation 

with academic evaluation, and then interweave academic evaluation with scientific research evaluation. 

Academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation are three evaluation 

methods based on different goals, among which there are their own non-standard and individual 

references, while the unusual modal references have their own performance evaluations to describe and 

analyze (Yang, 2018), academic value evaluation is the common point of the three, but the three cannot 

be simplified. It can be seen that the current alienation phenomenon is not so much the alienation of 

periodical evaluation as the alienation of academic evaluation and diverse scientific research 

administrative management systems, which reflects the academic governance problems. 

2) the alienation of academic journal evaluation 

At present, the evaluation of academic journals has become a baton of scientific research evaluation, and 

its evaluation criteria have led to the distribution and organization of various scientific research resources, 

affected the choice of various guiding work policies, and accordingly formed the academic discourse 

power. This is of positive significance for concentrating superior academic resources and improving the 

efficiency of scientific research evaluation, but it also shows numerous academic chaos. 

(a) A large number of manuscripts are invested in “highly evaluated journals”, while ordinary journals 

lack high-quality manuscripts, resulting in waste of academic resources and forming the so-called 

“Matthew effect”; (b) The publishing effect is better than the academic effect. Academic journals pursue 

academic hotspots, and those hot and highly concerned topics become papers that is competing to be 

published, while some unpopular Juexue are neglected. Some academic journals do not hesitate to set up 

sections across fields in order to win attention, resulting in improper publication of academic journals; (c) 

The evaluation of academic journals becomes more and more fierce, which leads to the development of 

academic journals relying heavily on the academic influence and popularity brought by the evaluation of 

journals, pursuing the academic interests of quantitative indicators of journal impact factors unilaterally, 

ignoring their own academic responsibilities, forming passive dependence under the evaluation. It leads 

to the homogenization development of periodical style, and then causes the lack of its own characteristics, 

and its own discipline characteristics and the purpose characteristics of running journals is not obvious; 

(d) Academic utilitarianism prevails, and academic journal evaluation has become an important indicator 

in the promotion of professional titles, awards and evaluation, which makes “operability” introduced into 

the academic evaluation system, and academic public trust and academic value are constantly challenged. 

Some researchers do not hesitate to commit academic misconduct such as data fraud, human manuscripts, 

and even spending money on papers and other academic misconduct, and even form related industries 

against academic fraud, thus causing a serious crisis of academic public trust value. 

It can be seen that the alienation of academic journal evaluation distorts the significance and initial 

intention of running a journal, and when non-academic factors become dominant in academic research, it 



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will become an alienation force that restricts researchers and journal practitioners, and promote 

researchers’ academic research behavior not to realize personal value and social value, which will lead to 

the variation of academic spirit and the crisis of academic anomie. 

 

Third, the limitations of academic journal evaluation 

1) Fuzziness in the evaluation of academic journals 

(a) There are many subjects in  evaluation, such as Peking University, Nanjing University, Wuhan 

University, China Institute of Science and Technology Information, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 

Chinese Academy of Sociacademic journalal Sciences, CNKI etc. The third-party academic journal 

evaluation subjects composed of universities, information research institutes and journal database 

publishers have successively carried out a series of academic journal evaluation work (Yang, 2015). 

Therefore, according to different starting points, purposes and standards of grading, the types, titles and 

evaluation standards of various academic journals have been produced. Many “politics” have affected the 

fuzziness of core concepts, which is only relative and referential for scientific research evaluation. 

(b) With the intersection and integration of disciplines, academic journals, as an important carrier for 

publishing advanced academic research results, do not make strict structural classification according to 

the Classification Table of Periodicals in China Library Book Classification, which leads to duplication 

and flaws. The columns of academic journals are widened, and interdisciplinary manuscript collection 

and over-range publication have become the norm, resulting in fuzziness in the disciplinary orientation of 

academic journals and their papers. 

(c) The research population base of different disciplines will also affect the reading volume and citation 

volume of papers in this field, which will affect the evaluation indexes of academic journals, such as 

journal citation frequency, average citation rate, the reaction rate, journal citation rate, journal citation 

half-life, number of papers by international authors, Web download volume etc. The academic flow 

between different disciplines is quite different, which shows that part of the communication power 

originates from disciplines, not journals, and how to compare academic journals between different 

disciplines is a vague definition.  

(d) With the development of academic journals database, academic journals as a whole academic unit are 

gradually being weakened. From the perspective of academic evaluation, the granularity of academic 

factors is correspondingly refined to a single article, which causes the ambiguity of the overall evaluation 

of academic journals. 

To sum up, the evaluation of academic journals is a quantitative technical evaluation, and its basic 

boundaries and norms are still uncertain, which determines the fuzziness of its understanding itself, and it 

is difficult to make a very accurate overall evaluation of the quality of academic journals with completely 

quantitative data. 



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2) Communication or innovation 

With the data dissemination power of journals far exceeding the dissemination power of paper media, 

under this background, various indicators of bibliomaniacal, such as citation frequency, the impact factor, 

average citation rate, the reaction rate, other citation rate, citation half-life of journals, number of papers 

by international authors, Web downloads and other evaluation indicators, are based on dissemination 

power to explain the development law and growth trend of academic journals for quantitative analysis, 

revealing the distribution law of subject literature quantity in academic journals (Chen, 2014). 

Based solely on bibliography, the data obtained by the influence evaluation indicators such as citation 

indicators and the inclusion situation more reflect the communication power and attention of academic 

works, while weakening the analysis of academic factors such as academic quality and academic 

innovation. Although the academic influence of journals will drive the dissemination of published 

articles, and the dissemination of articles will also reflect the innovation of articles, the internal 

mechanism between evaluation indicators is not clear. The fundamental goal of academic journal 

evaluation is to balance the academic quality of each academic journals, and only when it is truly based 

on the academic quality of academic journals can it have evaluation significance. 

Based on the professional, academic and innovative characteristics of academic journals, it is difficult to 

present all quality dimensions comprehensively, truly and accurately through quantitative evaluation 

based on bibliography. It is especially necessary to introduce peer review based on research groups and 

evaluation based on the expert perception. The qualitative evaluation factors in the evaluation of 

academic journals need to shape the value system of academic public trust, such as open and transparent 

academic rules, professional ethics and public academic order. To sum up, the evaluation system of 

academic journals is a complex and pluralistic system, which needs to be developed, and is still in the 

process of gradual revision, gradual enrichment and perfection of several iterative accumulations. 

 

Fourth, the construction of academic credibility value system 

At present, the evaluation of academic journals is getting worse and worse, with multiple systems and 

various indicators, but it cannot solve the alienation of academic journal evaluation and various chaos in 

academic evaluation. The reason is that the evaluation of academic journals, academic evaluation and 

scientific research evaluation can not be reduced, and the evaluation of academic journals is a 

quantitative and technical evaluation, not a substantive evaluation. When the evaluation of academic 

journals is accepted by the administrative power department, the evaluation of academic journals 

changes from academic behavior to administrative power above academic research. However, relying 

too much on evaluation and replacing management with evaluation can not solve the original problems in 

scientific research activities and academic research, but will lead to confusion of academic value system. 



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The subject of scientific research evaluation takes academic journal evaluation as a baton, which will 

form the distribution and organization of various scientific research resources, affect the choice of 

various guiding work policies, and correspondingly form a public academic discourse right (Jing & Lu, 

2017). This kind of power needs not only rigid institutional norms, but also academic public trust 

supervision based on academic community. 

The modern academic system formed since the May Fourth Movement is an institutionalized academic 

system, but it lacks hierarchical evaluation system, rigid system norms and value-based public trust 

supervision in its implementation. Therefore, it is urgent to build an academic governance system with 

academic value system as the core, academic public trust as the credit and system as the guarantee from 

three levels of evaluation, system and value. Starting from scientific academic evaluation and according 

to the academic credibility system formed by the evaluation system, the value system and administrative 

system, an academic communication environment with academic credibility should be established. In 

order to resist the spiritual variation and academic crisis caused by the lack of credibility and authority. 

1) Classified and hierarchical evaluation system 

On the basis of perfecting evaluation, academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific 

research evaluation should return to their respective places, and a set of more systematic and meticulous 

system design and thinking should be established. Academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and 

scientific research evaluation are independent evaluation systems, and academic nature is a common 

factor among them. In the construction of evaluation indicators of the three, it is necessary to clarify the 

different evaluation purposes, methods, standards, applicable scope, limitations and other factors, so as 

to establish interoperable academic factors among the three in the form of core concepts and 

modularizaion, classify academic evaluation, journal evaluation and scientific research evaluation, and 

establish a more professional and refined hierarchical classification evaluation system. 

(a) In the evaluation of academic journals, the evaluation method of subdividing disciplines and fields 

should be adopted. Academic research involves a wide range of fields, with a large degree of professional 

differentiation, and different fields and disciplines uphold different research standards. Therefore, in the 

evaluation of academic journals, it is necessary to strictly distinguish the nature of disciplines to which 

journals belong, set different evaluation indexes and weight systems according to the major categories of 

disciplines, and obtain corresponding evaluation indexes. 

Ye Jiyuan put forward personalized characteristic indicators for academic journals of different 

disciplines and types, including: the principle of times, functionality, utility, review and factual evidence, 

and the principle of application of new technologies (Ye, 2021). 

Hu Xiaoyang believes that the evaluation of academic journals should adhere to the quality evaluation of 

published content as the basic evaluation, and the evaluation of the influence, service capacity, and 



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contribution evaluation of journal platform as the value-added evaluation, in order to achieve the 

integrated development of basic evaluation and value-added evaluation (Hu, 2022). 

(b) There are great differences in research objects, methods, cycles and results in various fields of 

academic evaluation and research. The standards for various academic works should be independent, 

objective, clear, unified and interpretable. Academic, evaluation and academic research are academic 

communities that go in opposite directions, and feedback and cooperation within the academic 

community should be strengthened. Through academic evaluation, the academic factors and evaluation 

norms that can be shed among academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research 

evaluation are formulated and established. Constantly optimize the effective application of evaluation 

tools and evaluation techniques in academic evaluation. 

(c) In scientific research evaluation, from the orderly operation of scientific research management 

objectives, the indicators based on scientific research evaluation can achieve a clear understanding of 

scientific research evaluation according to the needs of evaluation subjects, formulate a fair and 

transparent evaluation work plan, comprehensively consider the academic contribution of academic 

works themselves, and pay more attention to the scientific application and transformation of evaluation 

results. From multiple perspectives, multiple index systems and multi-source data, the quality evaluation, 

effect evaluation and contribution evaluation of the entire life cycle of researchers are obtained through 

dynamic tracking evaluation. 

Completely consider the specific citation situation of the paper after publication, objectively balance the 

research influence of the paper on this research field, the influential papers and their citation situation, as 

well as the research direction, scientific problems and application results after citation, and then refer to 

some values in academic journal evaluation, combined with peer review and expert certification, and 

obtain the evaluation results. 

2) Value-based public trust supervision 

Academic credibility is a kind of values and spirit for academic community, which is the adherence of 

academic groups to the core values of research in academic research, and also the social rules and the 

action environment on which they depend for survival. It is a credit system for researchers, and then 

forms a code of conduct with professional ethics, and chooses behavior consciously, voluntarily and 

independently. As far as academic journals are concerned, it represents the ability of learning to gain 

support and trust from peers and the public, the result of persuading their peers under the same public 

mechanism, and the quality and influence of academic achievements published by academic journals. As 

far as the evaluation of academic journals is concerned, it plays a role in providing value support and 

value evaluation for the evaluation system of academic journals. 

Academic credibility has the dual tension of degree and value, which originates from endogenous, and 

plays the role of providing value support and the value judgment for the system and restraining individual 



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behavior as an individual’s conscious, voluntary and independent choice, which cannot be replaced by 

academic administrative power. On the one hand, based on the same public mechanism, the public trust 

results supported and trusted by the academic community can often be trusted by the public, thus 

realizing the social synergy of academic judgment and evaluation. On the other hand, entering the 

academic public domain and the operational level of policy system with academic public trust as the core 

can assist or even replace the administrative system to a certain extent, and play a substantial role in 

regulating social relations.Thirdly, the boundary between administrative power and academic power 

forms the middle zone of academic credibility of academic spontaneous order with academic 

self-discipline, which makes both administrative power and academic power subject to the supervision of 

academic public trust, and restricts each other from non-academic factors in academic research to 

become the mainstream. 

Specifically, it is feasible to strengthen the credibility construction from the following aspects: (a) 

Increase the credibility of the system. Constantly improve the academic evaluation system procedurally, 

establish perfect standards for peer review expert certification, review process record, review the 

quantity identification and review quality evaluation, optimize the review process, and establish review 

supervision and reward and punishment system. Improve the one-vote veto system and lifelong tracing 

system in relevant laws and regulations, on-the-job evaluation, the project declaration and awards. (b) 

Establish standardization credibility. Establish the compilation standard of academic papers, conform to 

the international, unique and lifelong digital resource identifier DOI (Digital Object Identifier), and 

establish the identification, tracking and recording of all kinds of information and the whole process of 

academic papers, academic journals and researchers related to academic achievements, so as to ensure 

that papers can be traced back, authors can be identified and responsibilities can be positioned. (c) 

Enhance the participation of academic community. Academic community is the main force of academic 

research, which encourages the value creation of academic community in the research process, so as to 

enhance the deep understanding and self-purification of academic connotation of academic community. 

Cultivate academic organizations, guide the ecological development of academic publishing and 

evaluation, and constantly promote the improvement of academic governance system and governance 

capacity. (d) Enhance the credibility of technology. Establish a nationwide networked academic integrity 

database based on the storage and certification of academic achievements, and implement digital 

management of academic integrity. (e) Enhance the value shaping of academic research. Professional 

ethics, such as academic ethics and academic norms, run through the whole life cycle of researchers’ 

vocational education, constantly generate the sense of honor and mission of academic community, pay 

attention to the leading role of authoritative scholars in academic connotation value, and radiate the 

formation of individual values. 

 



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Concluding Remarks 

At present, while pursuing the same frequency development of academic journal evaluation and 

international academic, we must consider the implementation significance of its localization and make 

self-innovation suitable for the national conditions. The value system of academic credibility includes 

the ecological system of spontaneous order of various academic elements such as academic journals. For 

the current mobile and diversified academic development, only by clearing the source, systematically 

and holistically solving the problem of academic evaluation transformation from scientific standards, 

core values and rigid systems, repairing academic public trust, and returning academic journal evaluation, 

academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation to academic value can we promote the ecological 

and sustainable development of academic journals and academic journal evaluation in the new era. 

 

Fund Project: 2021 Editorial Program of the National Association for the Study of Liberal Arts Journals 

in Higher Education Institutions “The Development path of Academic Media in the Intelligent Era: The 

Reconstruction of knowledge Production Chain” (PY2021029). The 2020 Scientific Research Project of 

Zhejiang Periodical Association and University Periodical Branch of Zhejiang Higher Education 

Association, “Research on the Reconstruction of Academic Periodical Credibility from the Perspective 

of All Media” (ProjectNo.: ZGXB202001); Zhejiang Open University “312 Talent Training Project” 

training project. 

 

References 

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Yang, J. Q. (2018). Experimental Study on the Evaluation and Academic Evaluation Functions of CSCI 

Journals. Macau Polytechnic Daily, 4, 559-565. 

Yang, Y. (2015). Comparative Study on the Evaluation System of Core Journals in China. Kaifeng: 

Henan University. 

Chen, J. Q. (2014). Alienation and Restoration in the Evaluation of Academic Journals [EB/OL]. 

Retrieved May 7, 2014, from http://news.cnhubei.com/xw/wh/201405/t2930212.shtml 

Jing, L. B, & Lu, W. H. (2017). Reconstructing the Journal Evaluation System. China Social Science 

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Ye, J. Y. (2021). The Construction and Improvement of the Academic “Full Evaluation” System and the 

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Hu, X. Y. (2022). Exploring the Road to High Quality Development of Academic Journal Evaluation 

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