CI25%
Citation Impact
Recent citation impact and age-adjusted citation breadth.
OAJF journal metric · methodology v2.0
Journal Score (JS)
Journal Score (JS) v2.0 is a coverage-first journal metric for open-access discovery. It deliberately uses a small set of high-availability journal-level indicators rather than forcing a score from incomplete article-level citation graphs.
JS = 0.25 CI + 0.25 FI + 0.15 PS + 0.20 OA + 0.15 ST
Validation status: the final v2.0 methodology passed a deterministic subject-stratified 200-journal canary with 200/200 headline scores, 100% availability for each of the ten core indicators, 0 failed journals and 0 formula/range errors. This is a validation sample, not a claim of 100% full-catalog coverage. Production-wide Journal Score calculation is processed as a manually started snapshot, with completed journal results published progressively.
FI25%
Field-normalized Impact
Citation performance interpreted relative to journals in the same subject.
PS15%
Publishing Standards
Durable preservation and persistent scholarly identifiers.
OA20%
Open Access Quality
Reuse-friendly licensing and author-rights retention.
ST15%
Publishing Stability
Recent publishing activity and established publishing history.
Five-dimensional framework
Ten indicators, five visible dimensions
Journal Score (JS) keeps the radar chart stable and interpretable: two high-coverage indicators feed each dimension. Richer experimental analytics can still be shown separately without blocking the headline score.
Illustrative profile only — not a published journal score.
Core methodology
10 scoring indicators
Five dimensions × two indicators. Work-level FWCI sampling and incoming citation-graph metrics are supplementary, not mandatory scoring inputs.
| Dimension | Indicator | Meaning | Primary source |
|---|---|---|---|
| CI | 2-Year Mean Citedness | Recent journal-level average citation impact | OpenAlex Source |
| CI | Age-normalized Citation Breadth | h-index adjusted for the journal’s publishing-history span | OpenAlex Source |
| FI | Field-normalized Recent Impact | 2-year impact percentile within the same OAJF subject | OpenAlex + OAJF subject |
| FI | Field-normalized Citation Breadth | Age-adjusted citation breadth percentile within the same subject | OpenAlex + OAJF subject |
| PS | Long-term Preservation | Declared durable external archival preservation | DOAJ |
| PS | Persistent Identifier Adoption | Use of DOI or another persistent article identifier scheme | DOAJ |
| OA | License Openness | Reuse openness of the journal’s declared license | DOAJ |
| OA | Author Rights Retention | Whether authors retain copyright rights | DOAJ |
| ST | Publication Recency | How recently the journal has published | OpenAlex / OAJF fallback |
| ST | Publishing Longevity | Length of established publishing history | OpenAlex / OAJF / DOAJ fallback |
Coverage-first optimization
Why age-normalized citation breadth
An early v2 formulation used citation density and an h-index adjustment based on OpenAlex works_count. In the first 200-journal canary, 17 journals had works_count = 0 despite having other valid source evidence. Journal Score therefore avoids making a mandatory score depend on that potentially incomplete linkage.
Citation breadth = h-index / √(active publishing years)
The same raw breadth signal is interpreted globally in Citation Impact and relative to the journal’s primary subject in Field-normalized Impact. A missing stored OpenAlex mapping is also retried deterministically by ISSN-L, E-ISSN and ISSN.
≥ 90% requiredCore indicators must clear the coverage gate in validation.
ISSN fallbackOpenAlex Source linkage can be recovered by journal identifiers.
Version-aware cacheUnchanged DOAJ quality metadata are reused; changed records are refreshed.
Missing ≠ zeroAPI or linkage failures never become artificial quality penalties.
Final v2.0 canary · subject-stratified sample
10 / 10 indicators reached 100% in the 200-journal validation
The sample deliberately did not require a pre-existing OpenAlex mapping. One unmapped journal was recovered through its E-ISSN, testing the fallback instead of filtering difficult cases out.
| Code | Indicator | Available | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| CI1 | 2-Year Mean Citedness | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| CI2 | Age-normalized Citation Breadth | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| FI1 | Field-normalized Recent Impact input | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| FI2 | Field-normalized Citation Breadth input | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| PS1 | Long-term Preservation | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| PS2 | Persistent Identifier Adoption | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| OA1 | License Openness | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| OA2 | Author Rights Retention | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| ST1 | Publication Recency | 200 / 200 | 100% |
| ST2 | Publishing Longevity | 200 / 200 | 100% |
Headline Journal Score: 200/200. Failed: 0. Skipped: 0. Score-range violations: 0. Formula mismatches: 0. Observed sample JS range: 4.75–93.25; mean: 57.79.
OAJF structural coverage audit · 2026-08-31 snapshot
Catalog-level source availability
These catalog figures describe structural inputs available for production-wide Journal Score calculation; they are not presented as ten-indicator full-catalog scoring results.
| Coverage item | Available | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| ISSN in active DOAJ-backed OAJF catalog | 22,249 / 22,249 | 100% |
| Primary subject in active DOAJ-backed OAJF catalog | 22,249 / 22,249 | 100% |
| Current stored OpenAlex Source match | 22,107 / 22,249 | 99.36% |
| Existing first + last publication-year pair | 20,670 / 22,249 | 92.90% |
| DOAJ Seal flag stored in OAJF | 22,249 / 22,249 | 100% |
The DOAJ Seal is retained and displayed as descriptive metadata, but is not scored because its criteria overlap preservation, identifiers, licensing and author rights and would otherwise double-count the same practices.
OAJF can retain total works, citations, FWCI, self-citation, citation-source diversity and other data without forcing them into the headline score.
Journal Score (JS) has no daily, weekly, monthly or annual automatic recalculation. A run begins only after an administrator manually starts it.
JS v1.0 remains archived as the experimental 15-indicator design. v2.0 is the current coverage-first methodology.