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2 General
2.1 Publication Forum
The Publication Forum established in 2010 under the auspices of the Federation of Finnish
Learned Societies (TSV) is a system to support the quality assessment of scientific publication
activities in all disciplines, based on the classification of domestic and foreign publication series
and book publishers. The rating decisions are taken by the over 200 expert members of the 23
Evaluation Panels covering various disciplines, universities and research institutes. The Panel
members are nominated on basis of proposals made by the universities, government research
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The Panels are appointed and the evaluation work supervised by the Publication Forum Steering
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Education and Culture (MinEdu), the Finnish Council of University Rectors (UNIFI), the Academy of
Finland, the Council for Finnish University Libraries (SYN), the National Library of Finland, the IT
Centre for Science (CSC) as well as various major disciplines. The work of the Steering Group and
the Evaluation Panels is prepared and supported by the Publication Forum Secretariat employed
by TSV which also provides the Panels with meeting facilities at the House of Science and Letters in
Helsinki. The IT services required by the Publication Forum are run in collaboration with CSC.
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In the publication forum, the scientific publishing channels are divided into three categories: basic
scientific channels (level 1), leading scientific channels (level 2) and top scientific channels (level 3).
In addition, all publishing channels evaluated by panels that do not meet the minimum criteria for
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status, but only indicates that the channel did not meet the criteria for Level 1 at the time of
assessment.
The publication forum rating serves as an indicator of the quality of university publication
production in the ministry of education and culture’s funding model from 2015 onwards.
Combined with publication data collected by MinEdu, the classification provides a comprehensive
and comparable information on the volume and development of the publishing activities of
organizations and disciplines. The classification disseminates information on the quality, impact
and prestige of scientific journals, series and book publishers in the scientific community, and thus
encourages Finnish researchers to publish their most important research in the leading national
and international scientific publications channels in their field.
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In the internal use of research organisations, the classification is best suited for the follow-up of
the progress made within the research area’s or unit’s own publication operations. The results can
be used as information to the expert panels evaluating their research. Using the classification
mechanistically to allocate financing to research units may lead to inequitable treatment of
different fields of science. Due to the differences in publication practices and research questions
and methods, the number of publications on the higher level publication channels produced by
individual researchers varies both between and inside the disciplines and fields of research. The
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publications that do not meet the average quality and may be never cited. For these reasons, the
classification cannot substitute for peer evaluation as a criterion or grounds for decisions on an
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‘Publication’ refers to a written presentation of the research outcome by an individual researcher
or group of researchers, published as an article in a journal, congress proceedings, as a part of a
compilation or an independent monograph, depending on the discipline. To meet the criteria of
‘scientific’, the publication must present new research outcome in a form to be accessible,
repeatable and usable by the scientific community. The main target group of a scientific
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used by the ministry of education and culture, scientific publications correspond to types A and C.
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publishers specialised in the publication of scientific research outcomes: they have an editorial
board constituted by experts, and the publication calls for quality evaluation recognised by the
scientific community, above all referee/peer evaluation. Scientific publication channels are
evaluated primarily in terms of their scientific impact, not their societal impact. Scientific
publication channels may also produce not-peer-reviewed publications, such as comments,
reviews and handbooks. In Publication Forum publication channels are divided in three types that
are journals/series, conferences and book publishers.
A publication series can be a scientific journal, book series or a series of proceedings of a regularly
organised conference. Journals, book series and proceedings with ISSN are classified using the title
recorded in the international ISSN centre. The main rule is that the book series of Finnish book
publishers are classified separately in the Publication Forum, while the book series of foreign book
publishers are not classified.
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In addition, the classification includes a limited number of conferences listed under the name of
the event, the type of channel in this case being "conference". The panel 2 (Computer and
information science) and 9 (Electrical and Electronic engineering, information engineering) can
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publisher (e.g. IEEE or ACM) or the publication series (e.g. LNCS), does not reflect the true level of
the publications of the specific conference.
Conferences that have their own publication series with ISSN that only publish proceedings of this
conference will be treated as journals/series with the name registered at the ISSN Center (only if
the ISSN is actually included in the publications). For conferences that do not have their own
(active) ISSN-recognized publishing series, either a publication series with ISSN (in the case of a
journal or a book series specializing in proceedings) or an ISBN-based book publisher is primarily
identified as a publishing channel.
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the Publication Forum and the data collection the “book publisher” means a publisher who is
responsible for the publisher's ISBN (not other kind of publisher or printing house). Publishers who
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company is classified as an independent publication channel. Publisher’s activities in different
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have their own ISBNs, they are considered the same publication channel as the university.
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content to be evaluated.
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Publication channel must have a registered ISSN or ISBN number. The exception is a small number
of conferences categorized under an established name that do not have their own ISSN-recognized
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Publication Forum does not classify channels targeted at professional or general audiences. If the
boundary is not clear, channels for the professional and the general public can be evaluated by the
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they will be transferred to a separate list of professional and general publication channels.
Nature and Elsevier have started publishing channels to support open access and reuse of research
data. In the articles, the researchers describe the published data, including the methods and
technical analyzes used for generating/collecting the data. Journals publishing only data
descriptions are placed directly in level 0 without evaluation, but the development of the status of
these channels is monitored.
In computer science publishing channels have been set up for publishing open source software
and descriptive articles. Journals specializing in articles describing software are normally processed
for panel evaluation.
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International publishers, for example, Palgrave Macillan and Routledge, have launched a new
peer-reviewed publication format, the publication type of which corresponds to a monograph but
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collection short monographs are instructed to be classified as book articles. If the publication
channel for short monographs can be identified with an ISSN, it can be evaluated in the Publish
Forum.
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The journals/series and conferences are divided between the panels according to the discipline, so
that the responsibility for evaluating each publication channel is limited to one panel. The
exception to this rule is a small number of multidisciplinary journals (e.g. Nature, Science and
PNAS). These multidisciplinary publications series, as well as most of the book publishers, have
been placed on a panel of general publication channels (panel 24), which is common to all panels.
All panels can participate in evaluation of the channels placed in Panel 24.
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The Publication Forum includes active publication channels that specialize in publishing of
research results and are relevant from the point of view of Finnish research. The classification thus
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various disciplines as widely as possible, but national and local publication channels in different
countries can be limited to those used by or relevant to Finnish researchers.
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Level 1 is the basic category of the Publication Forum classification that contains vast majority of
foreign and domestic peer-reviewed publication channels. Open access journals are accepted to
the classification and evaluated using the same criteria applicable to conventional publication
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publishers meeting the criteria of a scientific publication channel:
• The channel is specialised in the publication of scientific research outcomes;
• There is an editorial board constituted by experts;
• The scientific publications are subject to a peer evaluation focusing on the entire
manuscript.
In principle, a publication channel meeting the criteria of a scientific publication channel must not
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• over half (1/2) of the reviewers or authors come from the same research organisation that
is also the publisher;
• the scientific level or relevance raises questions.
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To level 1 can be accepted channels that publish peer-reviewed publications on a regular basis.
Channels that occasionally publish individual scientific publications will not be accepted for level 1.
Scientific publishing channels may also include not-peer-reviewed publications for both the
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that are acceptable to the level 1 indicate as clearly as possible which publications are peerreviewed.
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in the field to make an evaluation of the scientific merits and fitness for publication of manuscripts
offered for publication. The peer review should focus on the entire manuscript to be published,
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Only such channels can be approved for Level 1, in which researchers from different research
organizations publish their research results. The local publishing channel refers in particular to the
publications and dissertation series of universities and research institutes.
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The panels do not have to accept channels formally satisfying the level 1 criteria if the scientific
quality or relevance is questionable from the point of view of Finnish research. For this reason, e.g.
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for payment without proper quality evaluation can be placed on level 0.
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The publishing model based on author fees has increased the number of predatory journals and
book publishers. Characteristic features of the predator include low-quality webpages, fast
processing time of manuscripts, vague topic, aggressive email marketing and lack of contact
information. Author fees alone do not make the journal suspicious, but for all kinds of fraud
attested in the amount of fees, in the composition of the editorial board, database indexing and
impact factor information or the peer review implementation is a good reason to leave the journal
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limited group of peer-reviewed publication channels. Level 2 can be awarded mainly to the leading
international publication channels, but in the social sciences and humanities also leading national
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Level 2 can be awarded to leading scientific publication channels of the various disciplines that
meet the following criteria:
• has a wide reach and respect among the international experts in the field
• researchers from different countries seek to publish their best results
• editors, authors and readers represent various nationalities.
All publication channels meeting these criteria cannot be rated as level 2 but the Panels must
choose, within their own level 2 quota (see below), the publication channels attracting and
selecting the highest quality publications as a consequence of extensive competition and
demanding peer reviews. Finnish channels aimed at international audiences are evaluated in
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In humanities and social sciences (Panels 14, 16-23), level 2 can also include leading Finnish or
Swedish-language publication channels having the widest coverage of the research on Finnish
society, culture or history in their field.
Due to the lack of citation data, the scientific impact of the domestic publication channels cannot
be measured but the level 2 publication channels need to meet the following criteria:
• The quality assessment of the scientific writings must be in line with the best practices;
• The publication series must be among the ones that cover the research in the respective
discipline – and the book publishers in their main discipline – most comprehensively and be
used by the entire national scientific community in that particular discipline;
• The context of the research problems is strongly focused on the Finnish society or the
Finnish or Swedish-speaking culture.
• Publishing in these channels is regarded as high merit as publishing in foreign level 2
channels.
All publication channels meeting these criteria are no rated as level 2 but it will only include a
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publication channels covering the disciplines where it is justified to produce and publish new
scientific information in the national languages. The Panel Chairs acting in corpore are to make a
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Level 3 is the top category of the Publication Forum classification. Level 3 is a sub-category of
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topmost publication series of various disciplines meeting also the following criteria:
• The research published in them represents the highest level in the discipline and has very
high impact (e.g., as measured through citation indicators);
• The series cover the discipline comprehensively, not limiting to the discussion of narrow
special themes;
• Both the authors and readers are international and the editorial boards are constituted by
the leading researcher in the field;
• Publication in these journals and series is highly appreciated among the international
research community of the field.
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take consensus decisions to include publication series in the level 3 category.
The quotas of levels 2 and 3 are determined for journals and series in each Panel on the basis of
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The aggregate publication volume of the journal/series titles rated as level 2 must not exceed 20%
of the corresponding publication volume of the journal/series titles in the panel’s list meeting level
1 criteria. The aggregate publication volume of the journal/series titles rated as level 3 must not
exceed 25% of the corresponding publication volume of the journal/series titles in the panel’s list
meeting level 2 criteria. In other words, the level 2 consists of 15 % and the level 3 of 5 % of the
publication volume of the panel.
The book publisher list is common to all panels, and to level 2 a total of about 100 publishers can
be classified and to a total of about 10 publishers can be classified as level 3. The panels make
suggestions for level 2 and 3 book publishers, and the chairs of all panels confirm the classification
by common decision.
4.5.1 Counting the publication volume
The Secretariat will provide the Panels with the publication volume data while the evaluation
website will take care of the statistics within the Panel per each discipline.
Publication volumes (3-year average) are updated to all Scopus and Web of Science indexed
publication series. For other publications volume determined in 2014 will be used, or if the
channel has been added to level 1 after 2014, the median of the level 1 journals/series of the
panel is used. The publication series consumes the level 2 or 3 quota only up to 2500 publication
volume, even if its publishing volume exceeds 2500. The publication volumes are rounded up to
the nearest twenty-five. Also the removal of conferences from the panels’ lists of journals/series in
2016 is compensated.
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The panels need to have a discussion about the importance of impact factors, as well as the
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needs to be a discussion about how to deal with review journals in the panel and how open access
is taken into account in the assessment.
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Depending on the discipline, the impact and prestige of the publication channels in the
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indicators that the secretariat provides for the use of panels. The citation databases cover better
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humanities. In case of SSH, the focus of citation databases in English newspaper articles is also
problematic. The Norwegian and Danish panel ratings create a more comprehensive basis for
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Various impact factors are available for the journals indexed in the Web of Science or Scopus
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Paper (SNIP), and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR). Common to these indicators is that they try to
measure the impact of publication channels based on the number of references they have
received in their publications. The basic assumption is that the larger the number of citations to
publications in a journal is, the greater its impact on the international scientific community. In the
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In addition, the panels have the ratings given for journals, series and book publishers in the
Norwegian and Danish panel evaluation that is comparable to the Publication Forum. Common to
these classifications is that they are also based on an expert assessment, although impact factors
and may be used to inform the evaluation depending on the discipline. Norway and Denmark have
a 2-tier rating, where class 1 is basic and class 2 is the leading level. In Denmark, there are about
3000 journals/series in Level 2, in Norway about 2000.
Members of the academic community have the opportunity to give panels feedback on ratings by
proposing changes to the ratings on the Publications Forum website and on the JUFO portal. In
addition, members of the Finnish research community can each determine the 10 most important
journals/series and the book publisher for their own research on the JUFO portal. There is also
expertise concerning the evaluation of channels belonging to each panel in other panels, and
panelists can also make rating suggestions across panel boundaries. Panels can use all of this
information to support their assessment. Panel members represent the national research
community of their own discipline or research area, and the assignment also includes the need to
consult with their background communities.
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In natural and medical sciences review articles typically gain the most citations because of their
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publishing original research papers. The best review journals can be classified as levels 2 and 3, as
long as they do not fill the entire quota.
Open access journals are accepted to the rating and are evaluated on the same criteria as
traditional publication series. For the levels 2 and 3, the aim is to promote the open science in the
following way: Green OA channel can be favored if the embargo is at most 6 months in natural
sciences and engineering, and 12 months in SSH. Also open data can be taken into account.”
• if candidates to the level 2 or 3 in the same field have equal impact or prestige, open
access journal or the one permitting self-archiving of the peer-reviewed version of the
manuscript is chosen to the higher level over the channel that does not support open
access.
• the channel allowing for self-archiving can be favoured in comparison if the embargo
period is in science and technology for six months and in human sciences for 12 months.
• openness of data can also be considered an advantage.
It is checked in the case of comparison whether open access provides grounds to decide selection.
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not a reason enough to leave open access channel to category 0. Quite a trustworthy register of
quality open access journals is a Directory of Open Access Journals, which is integrated into the
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criteria for Level 1, for example, regarding the composition of the editorial board and authorship.
Channels permitting self-archiving (green open access) are traditional subscription-paid journals
that allow articles to be stored, for example, in the University's open publication archive. The
SHERPA/RoMEO service, which is integrated into the Publish Forum database, can be used to find
a self-archiving policy. In general, the color code alone does not adequately describe the policy,
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The panels are wide-ranging, so they have to be responsible for fair representation of channels
from different fields in level 2 and 3. The panels need to look at the journals/series and
conferences of each of the research disciplines as a whole in the disciplines of the Web of Science,
Scopus, Norway, Denmark and ERIH Plus, or other groupings. Considerations should also be given
to those journals belonging to the same category of these disciplines that are placed in the lists of
other panels. The level 2 and 3 shares of publication volumes are monitored within disciplines, so
that special attention can be paid to areas with significant under- or over-representation on the
levels 2 and .
All channels regarded as leading by researchers do not have a level 2 or 3 rating, or the rating of
the journals does not fully correspond to the impact factor ranking order of a particular discipline.
Often, this is due to the structure of the rating, for example, the level quotas or the classification
criteria. However, the evaluation work of the panel of experts in the publication forum should be
justified and consistent, and take into account ethical considerations, thereby increasing the
transparency and reliability of the rating.
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The panels are required to produce more precise justification of what level 1 criteria the channels
rated at level 0 do not meet (see 3.2). For Levels 2 and 3, panels need to produce on a general
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In addition, the aim is to record channel-specific justifications for decisions that significantly
deviate from the impact factors or the Norway and Denmark's ratings of expert panels:
• If the channel gets level 2 or 3, even if the channel is classified in Norway and Denmark for
level 1, or the channel gets level 1 even though it is classified in level 2 in Norway and
Denmark.
• If the channel receives a higher level than another channel representing the same field of
research, the impact of which in the international scientific community is significantly
higher on the basis of the indicators.
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The members of the panels are representatives of the national research community in their field
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unit or a particular publishing channel (publisher or journal).
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The evaluation work must be based on good scientific practice (honesty, general care and
accuracy), including the announcement of engagements. Panel members are responsible for
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Panelists must announce their engagements each time a panel discusses evaluation of channels
linked to them. This applies to publishing channels where the panelists have published more than
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the panelist will not be excluded from the decision-making, but the panel can draw attention to
the engagements in the assessment situation. The Secretariat will compile information on the
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The most important task of panels is the classification of publications channels in their fields.
Evaluation work is done on the JUFO portal or panel meetings. During its four-year term, the
panels will also carry out a yearly complementary evaluation in which previously unclassified or
level 0 rated channels can be added to the level 1, as well as a review of ratings, in which the levels
2 and 3 are updated.
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A continually ongoing complementary evaluation, in which panel has 2 months’ time-window to
make a decision to place a channel on the level 0 or 1, is implemented entirely through the JUFO
portal without panel meetings. The complementary evaluation includes publishing channels that
have been proposed to be added to the classification through the Publications Forum web pages
or identified from the publication data reported by the research organizations to the ministry of
education and culture.
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changes to the level 2 and 3 classification can be discussed. The reviewed rating is validated
through the JUFO portal.
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In the JUFO portal, panelists can view information about the publishing channels that are being
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about publishing channels. Panelists can also download their channel list as an Excel file.
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The panels meet at the House of Science and Letters three times during the first year of their term
of office, when the task is to carry out a review of ratings. For the last three years of its term of
office, when panels perform exclusively a complementary evaluation, the panels meet once a year
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In those years when an review or ratings is not carried out, the panels meet once a year to address
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made according to the current volume situation. That is, if a free level 2 and 3 quota has been
created dut to addition of level 1 journals, it may be used for upgrades.
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Secretariat and the Chair of the Steering Group will prepare a presentation to the Steering Group
on possible panelists. Depending on the timetable, the Steering Group appoints panel extension
members either at their meeting or at a separate e-mail meeting.
7 APPENDIX 1: Evaluation timeline for the term 2018-2021
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Complementary evaluation
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January-
February
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1st panel meeting
- organization of the panels
- introduction to panel work
- Publication Forum and evaluation criteria
- panel fields and representativeness
- level 2 and 3 quotas
- JUFO-portal
- timetable
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Steering-group meeting
- changes to panel compositions
- Top-10 indicator
- other issues
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2nd panel meeting
- preliminary proposal for the level 2 and 3 ratings
Meeting of SSH panel chairs
- preliminary proposal for level 2 national language channels
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Steering-group meeting
- examination of the preliminary propsal and feedback
- feedback to panels
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September-
October
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3rd panel meeting
- examination of the feedback
- final proposal for the level 2 and 3 ratings
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Meeting of SSH panel chairs
- final proposal for level 2 national language channels
Meeting of all panel chairs
- final proposal for level 3 journals, and level 2 and 3 for the panel 24
channels (journals/series and book publishers)
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Steering-group meeting
- confirming the classification
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2019
September-
October
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1st panel meeting
- feedback and individual corrections to levels 2 and 3
- other issues
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2020
September-
October
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1st panel meeting
- feedback and individual corrections to levels 2 and 3
- other issues
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2021
September-
October
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1st panel meeting
- feedback and individual corrections to levels 2 and 3
- other issues
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