Status of Editing and Publishing of Scholarly Journals by Academic Societies of Science and Technology in Korea

BACKGROUND: The present study analyzed publishing data of scholarly journals which were published in 2018 by academic societies of science and technology in Korea to observe journal editing and publishing status. METHODS: A total of 346 regional journals (59 natural science, 118 engineering, 44 agriculture, fisheries, and oceanography, and 125 medical and pharmacy) and 141 international journals (32 natural science, 43 engineering, 12 agriculture, fisheries, and oceanography, 54 medical and pharmacy) were included in this analysis, which applied the journal review by the Korea Federation of Science and Technology. Websites of the journals and the submitted publication data in 2019 were reviewed. RESULTS: Except for a few journals, all of the journals were published by academic societies. Basic information of journals was well displayed by both offline and online. Most of the 346 regional journals were published in Korean language or mixed with English but 77 (22.3%), mostly medical, were in English. One-third (n = 104) journals published less than 40 articles while 9 published over 200, and 261 journals (75.4%) received less than 100 submissions in 2018. Most (n = 298, 86.1%) of them were enlisted in the Korean Citation Index (KCI). Editorial board members performed manuscript editing in 171 (49.4%) journals, and most of the journals paid < 50,000,000 won for publishing costs. Of 141 international journals, 138 (97.9%) were published in English and all of them published overseas submissions. Forty-one (29.1%) journals accepted < 20% of submissions but 58 (41.1%) accepted 100%. Of them, 124 (87.9%) were indexed in the KCI, 93 (66.0%) in the Web of Science, 120 in Scopus, and 62 in PubMed. Editorial board members in 38 (27.0%) journals took responsibility of manuscript editing. Publishing cost of 79 (56.0%) journals was < 50,000,000 won. Only 157 (32.2%) of total 487 journals, mostly medical, documented gendered innovation in their instruction to authors. CONCLUSION: Most of the Korean science and technology journals keep global standard of editing and publishing. Their offline and online visibility is acceptable but most regional journals are small and of low academic impact while international journals are globally indexed and acknowledged. Korean scholarly journals should invite more and better articles to keep quality publication.