Indexing & Abstracting

The purpose of this page is to establish publisher-level principles for presenting information about journal indexing, abstracting, bibliographic coverage, and related scholarly discovery services.

Public statements should distinguish confirmed inclusion from applications, evaluations in progress, technical eligibility, metadata availability, search-engine discovery, and other forms of scholarly visibility.

Indexing claims should be made only where the status is current, accurate, relevant to the individual journal, and capable of reasonable independent verification.

Selective indexing services independently determine whether a journal satisfies their current eligibility, quality, editorial, technical, and continuing-coverage requirements.

Macaw Publications does not treat eligibility for evaluation, preparation of an application, submission of an application, or an evaluation in progress as equivalent to acceptance for indexing.

A selective indexing service should be listed as current journal coverage only after the journal's inclusion has been officially confirmed.

A Macaw Publications journal should identify itself as indexed in Scopus only when the journal's coverage has been officially confirmed through the appropriate Scopus source information.

Eligibility for Scopus evaluation, submission through the title suggestion process, or receipt of a tracking identifier does not constitute indexing.

Where Scopus coverage is discontinued, interrupted, or otherwise changed, the journal's public information should be revised to reflect the applicable status accurately.

A journal should describe itself as included or indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals only after the journal has been formally accepted and appears in the DOAJ directory.

Operating as an Open Access journal, using a Creative Commons licence, or following transparent publishing practices does not by itself mean that a journal has been accepted into DOAJ.

Application to DOAJ and confirmed DOAJ inclusion should therefore be treated as distinct statuses.

Scholarly articles may be discoverable through general search engines, academic search tools, repositories, DOI metadata, library systems, and other discovery mechanisms.

Such discoverability can improve access and visibility but should not automatically be described as selective journal indexing.

Macaw Publications therefore seeks to distinguish discoverability from verified selective database coverage.

Where an external database no longer provides current coverage, historical inclusion should not be presented as though the journal remains actively indexed.

Historical coverage may be disclosed where relevant, provided that the period or nature of coverage is communicated clearly.

Journal websites should be updated when the publisher becomes aware of a material change in indexing or abstracting status.

Macaw Publications journals should avoid displaying indexing claims from services whose identity, editorial purpose, database coverage, ownership, methodology, or scholarly legitimacy cannot be reasonably established.

Particular caution should be exercised with unsolicited indexing offers, paid inclusion presented as quality certification, unverifiable database listings, fabricated impact indicators, and services whose principal purpose appears to be promotional rather than scholarly discovery.

Inclusion in a questionable service should not be used to strengthen the apparent academic standing of a journal.

Each journal should maintain a stable and functional website through which its published scholarly content and essential journal information can be accessed.

Article landing pages should provide sufficient bibliographic information to identify the scholarly work accurately.

Broken article links, inconsistent titles, incorrect ISSNs, missing article metadata, or conflicting journal information should be corrected when identified.

Editorial decisions should be based on scholarly merit and should not be manipulated merely to influence an indexing application or journal metric.

Publication volume, article nationality, citations, authorship patterns, special issues, or editorial decisions should not be artificially engineered to create a misleading appearance of journal quality or international participation.

Sustainable indexing readiness should arise from genuine scholarly quality, appropriate peer review, editorial independence, regular publication, responsible research practices, accurate metadata, and transparent journal management.

Authors, institutions, librarians, and readers are encouraged to verify important indexing claims through the official source of the relevant database.

Unofficial certificates, screenshots, copied logos, social-media posts, search-engine results, third-party conference advertisements, or unsolicited communications should not be relied upon as authoritative confirmation of current indexing status.