Editorial policy
How journals enter POSI, how the Core Collection is certified, and how coverage is reviewed and changed.
1. Two tiers of coverage
Indexed
Every scholarly journal with an ISSN that is registered with Crossref or described by OpenAlex is indexed. Indexed journals appear in the journal directory, have a profile page, are eligible for the rankings, and their publications are eligible for certificates of indexing. Journals without an ISSN are not indexed; records are matched on ISSN only, never on title.
Core Collection
The Core Collection contains journals that applied for certification and passed editorial evaluation under the POSI Quality Framework (PQF). Admission is by application only. Core Collection journals are marked throughout POSI and on certificates.
2. Certification for the Core Collection
A publisher applies through the certification form. The journal must already be indexed. POSI evaluates publicly available evidence only: the journal website, its registry metadata and its deposited article metadata. A decision is issued within ten to twenty business days.
Evaluation criteria
PQF scores six factors from 100 points. Each criterion within a factor is met or not met, and points are awarded in proportion to the criteria met.
| Factor | Assesses | Points |
|---|---|---|
| JTFJournal transparency | Published governance, editorial policies, author charges and reviewer guidelines. | 25 |
| MQFMetadata quality | Article-level identifiers, abstracts, keywords and reference lists deposited with Crossref. | 25 |
| EGFEditorial governance | A verifiable editorial board, its geographic diversity, and reviewer independence. | 20 |
| TDFTechnical discoverability | Machine-readable article metadata, working DOI links and accessible journal pages. | 15 |
| CVFCitation visibility | Citation data visible in Crossref, OpenAlex and OpenCitations, with open reference lists. | 10 |
| RIFResearch integrity | Policies on retractions, similarity checking, data availability, ethics and authorship. | 5 |
Outcomes
| Status | PQF score | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible | 70 or more | Admitted to the Core Collection. |
| Review required | 50 to 69 | Reviewed by the editorial team before a decision. |
| Insufficient evidence | 40 to 49 | Not admitted. The journal may reapply once the missing evidence is published. |
| Not eligible | Below 40 | Not admitted. |
PQF decides admission only. It is not a quality ranking and does not feed the rankings, which are computed from citations as described in methodology.
3. Evidence standards
- Identifiers (ISSN, ISSN-L, DOI prefix, OpenAlex id) are confirmed against the issuing registry before a record is marked verified.
- Registry metadata is recorded with the registry it came from.
- Statements made by a journal, such as peer-review model or publication frequency, are recorded as declared, not as observed.
- Computed values are labelled with the methodology version that produced them.
See provenance and verification for how each state is assigned.
4. Continuing review and coverage changes
| Continuing review | Every Core Collection journal is re-checked against the same criteria at least once a year, or sooner if a concern is raised. |
| Warning | A specific, unresolved concern, such as a policy page removed or an editorial board that can no longer be verified. The concern is shown on the journal record while POSI asks the publisher to respond. |
| Suspension | A warning not resolved in time, or a citation-integrity finding. Affected metrics are withheld with the reason stated. The record stays visible. |
| Withdrawal | At the publisher’s request, for any reason. Not treated as an integrity finding. |
| Ceased | The journal has stopped publishing. The record keeps its last publication date. |
| Delisting | Permanent removal from the Core Collection after an unresolved suspension or a confirmed severe integrity violation. The record states the reason. |
| Reinstatement | A suspended or delisted journal that resolves the issue may return through the same evaluation as a new application. |
Coverage changes are announced in news.
5. Principles
- A journal’s access model and its listing in other databases are never, by themselves, grounds for inclusion, warning or removal.
- Every warning, suspension or delisting names its evidence.
- Records are never deleted silently. The history of a record stays public.
- No score, rank or quartile is ever set or changed by hand.
- Journals published by Panorama Scholarly Group are evaluated under the same criteria. See the conflict of interest disclosure.
6. Corrections and appeals
Publishers may request a correction to a record, or appeal a certification decision, warning, suspension or delisting, by writing to [email protected] with supporting evidence. Appeals are reviewed independently of the original finding, and the appeal status is shown on the record while under review.