Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2018/Report
WikiJournal User Group
Open access • Publication charge free • Public peer review • Wikipedia-integrated
- Report accepted
- To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2018.
- You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
- You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.
This is a report of the activity and organizational structuring of the WikiJournal User Group for the period from Jan 1 2018 to December 31 2018.
Goals
editDid you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?
The journals underwent great expansion this year, with two new journals publishing their first issues and adding 8 new articles to the w:Category:Wikipedia articles published in peer-reviewed literature. Since each article engages at least 2 non-wikipedian peer reviewers and often a non-wikipedian author, this also facilitated high-quality content addition and review from people who would not normally have been wikimedia contributors. As a part of this, the journals have also continued to gain further professional recognition, such as membership in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and further indexing in scholarly databases. There has been a growth in the editorial boards of all journals of the project.
Outcome
editPlease report on your original project targets.
| Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
| Expand scope of journals | WikiJournal of Science and WikiJournal of Humanities published their first issues this year. | Expansion of the editorial boards and their activities resulted in a large number of invitations to submit articles and in organising their external peer review. |
| Expand participation in the journals | All three journals expanded the size of their editorial boards. Presentations, interviews and media regarding the project at the following: | Editorial board members reached out to clinicians, academics, and other relevant professionals who were already involved in Wikipedia, or in open access projects, as well as Wikipedians with relevant skills to inform them about the journals and suggest they apply to the relevant editorial board. Outreach was continued via |
| Improve and streamline procedures | Procedure streamlining via standardised forms:
Overhaul of the 'embassy page' on Wikipedia to streamline the submission of existing Wikipedia articles in a process analogous to Features Article nomination. |
Since the editorial board members and associate editors do a large amount of work (mostly off-wiki) in contacting potential authors and peer reviewers, other procedures are being made more efficient and automated where possible, even if that requires non-wikimedia tools (e.g. google forms). |
| Increase professional recognition of journals |
|
Since WikiJournals straddle both the wikimedia and academic worlds, it is important to continue to push for recognition of the journals in scholarly circles. To this end, membership of professional bodies and indexing by the main repositories is a vital ongoing goal. |
Learning
editProjects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:
- Although the WikiJMed best article prize was well received by the winners, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that it increased participation. This may be due to insufficient publicity, or that cash was not a particular motivator of relevant authors.
- As will all academic publishing, the journals still struggle to secure peer reviewers, which can lead to delays. WikiJournals may struggle more from this due to being relatively new, having an unusual format, often having authors who are not 'big names' in their field. Nevertheless, many peer reviewers are enthusiastic about the project, and even those that have to decline to review frequently express their support for the concept. In general the journals have prioritised ensuring that peer reviewers are suitably qualified and that reviews are thorough, rather than pushing for shortened review deadlines.
Finances
editFunds at beginning of year
edit$1342, whereof:
- $610 in remaining funds from previous year: Grant report for 2017
- $732 grant for 2018.
Subtotal: $1332
Grant funds spent
editPlease describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.
- Crossref annual fee for 2018: $275
- COPE membership fee for 2018: $105 (81 GBP, journal got accepted from July)
- Domain fees: $36
- Prize competition: $300, from an initially estimated $350, but the $50 winner regarded it not worth the international bank transfer. Bank fees of $11, with $50 provided for the purpose. The winners are announced at: Wikiversity:WikiJournal of Medicine/Best articles of 2017.
Subtotal: $716
Remaining funds
editDo you have any remaining grant funds?
- $105 left from COPE fee because half the year had passed before the application got approved.
- $89 left from prize competition: 50$ not payed to one winner who didn't think it was worth the international bank transfer + $39 left from funds meant for bank transfer fees.
- $400 left of funds directed at social media outreach.
- $21 left because cheaper domain hosting (by Google Domains)
Total: $615
The remaining funds will be accounted for in the grant for funding through 2019, see: Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2019
Anything else
editAnything else you want to share about your project?
WikiJournal User Group
edit- The journals continue their application for sister project status.
- The first all-board meeting was held in December (minutes)
- Citations in academic literature
- None of the journals have a high citation rate according to Google Scholar. However, there are currently several uncounted citations, so can't yet be fully trusted. Articles in WikiJMed have been cited >100 times. The two highest-cited are this and this, with 45 and 26 cites respectively per Gscholar.
- Equivalent 'Topic Page' articles in PLOS Comp Biol and PLOS Genetics have median citation rate of >30 each. We can therefore expect citaion of WikiJournal articles to increase as it becomes better known.
- AltMetric
- Combined AltMetric report indicates 200 mentions of WikiJournal articles (with medical gallery articles highest scored, due to frequent image re-use)
- Readership
- Readership on the journal pages is growing, with 66,000 views during 2018. 40% of these come via the doi links which have increased form 1000 to >7000 per month over the last year.
- Journal articles that have been incorporated into Wikipedia unsurprisingly dwarf this readership, at 4.2 million during 2018 (WikiJMed, WikiJSci, WikiJHum).
- Overall stats for the three journals combined in 2018 (Note: The turnaround time between submission and decision varies):
- Gained COPE membership after audit of ethics statement and editorial practices
- Indexing in Informit
- By the addition of 6 new members, the editorial board expanded to 14. One new member brought the number of associate editors to 4
- Published 1 article, with 10 articles currently in review (several have had low acceptance rates for peer reviewer invitations)
- WikiJSci published its first and second issues, including an editorial on the future of the publishing format
- The editorial board was greatly expanded from 16 to 28 plus 4 associate editors
- Published 8 articles (inc. aims editorial), with 9 currently in review
- Indexing in Informit
- Applied to DOAJ
- Registered for ISSN: 2639-5347
- WikiJHum is processing the initial article submissions including topics in history, linguistics, and literature in preparation for publication of its first issue once the ISSN is registered
- Published first article with 5 currently in review
- The editorial board has increased form 8 to 21 board members