Manuscript matcher a tool for finding the best journal proceedings of the 13th international multi conference on complexity, informatics and cybernetics, ISSN 2771 5914,

Proceedings of the 13th International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) Manuscript Matcher: A Tool for Finding the Best Journal NAM Nguyen Danh Thai Nguyen University Thai Nguyen, 250000, Vietnam TRUNG Tran Vietnam Academy for Ethnic Minorities Hanoi, 100000, Vietnam TRUNG Nguyen Tien Vietnam Journal of Education Hanoi, 100000, Vietnam THAO Trinh Phuong Thi Thai Nguyen University of Education Thai Nguyen, 250000, Vietnam ABSTRACT publish open access to get more readers, they should know that most journals have open access options explained on the journal homepage The authors should also submit the paper to only one journal at the time and check the information about the review and publication timelines (Beall, 2016) Additionally, before publishing the paper, the authors should think about how their research to reach their target audience as much as possible Therefore, firstly, the authors take into consideration the type of article to publish, such as full length, letter, review, or research results It should be checked the references in the paper and then to indicate possible journals of interest In general, many factors are influencing the choice of journal for manuscript submission (Schuemie & Kors, 2008; Prieto-gutiérrez, 2019) There are many factors involved include the focus of the journal, the visibility of the journal, the topic of the manuscript, the impact factor, the timeliness of the editorial office process and whether the feedback is constructive, journal accessibility, author costs, and the governance of the journal (Brandsma et al., 2013; Tullu & Karande, 2018; Beshyah, 2019) Among these, the impact factor plays a particularly significant role in choosing a journal A manuscript matcher recommends a list of more than ten journals based on the following factors: scope of the study, target journal type, time to publish, accessibility, the field of research Hence, this study aims to investigate some journal matcher applications and the real situation of using these services in the Vietnamese research community One of the critical reasons for the rejections of a paper is that the topic and content of the submitted article are not relevant to the aims and scope of the journal Traditionally, the authors select the journal based on personal experiences, specialist recommendations, and searching engines However, with an exponentially increasing number of papers published every year, the authors could use supportive tools in finding which journal is most appropriate for posting their research as well as determining readers for their work The authors need to take the crucial decision of choosing the journal for their prospective manuscript before even starting to write it The paper introduces some popular manuscript matchers and using these tools in recommending journals in the Vietnamese research community The research results have shown that journal choice decisions influenced by many factors such as time-bound review process, journal’s visibility, indexation in databases, the regularity of publication, acceptance rate, and publication fee Keywords: Manuscript matcher, journal matcher, journal suggester, journal recommender, journal selector, finding journal INTRODUCTION Choosing an appropriate journal to publish their research becomes increasingly difficult for all the authors because of the significant number of journals (Rison, Shepphird, & Kidd, 2017; Bahadoran, Mirmiran, Kashfi & Ghasemi, 2020) Moreover, many journals deal with a wide diversity of topics, multidisciplinary, open access, and reviewers from many countries all over the world The number of authors publishing one or more papers every year does increase rapidly Typically, the authors have to read the aims and scope of the journal on the website or download a guide for authors to know the format and standard of the journal (Kang, 2015; Tullu & Karande, 2018) In particular, the authors could check if the journal is invitationonly This journal only accepts the paper after inviting the author to write about a specific topic However, if the authors need to ISBN: 978-1-950492-60-2 ISSN: 2771-5914 METHODS To find the best journal, we have analyzed the source of journals and papers We randomly selected 10 to 100 (depending on the number of papers published in each journal) already published papers from each Springer/Elsevier journal as the input documents and removed these input documents from the source database If the top three or top ten recommended journals contained the journal in which the input paper published, then this is counted as a correct recommendation; otherwise, it counted as a false recommendation We tested how well journal matchers predict the journal in which a paper published, 50 https://doi.org/10.54808/IMCIC2022.01.50 Proceedings of the 13th International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) options, journal metrics, review time, acceptance rate, and production time assuming that this journal was the most appropriate one This test may not always be the case since many journals overlap considerably, and many factors may influence journal choice The goal of using this research method is to evaluate the suitability of published articles compared with the recommendations of journal matcher softwares, from which to draw some conclusions about the use of these applications for researchers We also used a depth interview of 15 researchers about how to choose the best journal for the paper Some questions were given to these researchers such as: Which manuscript matcher to use to determine a journal? Which journal is appropriate for their papers? How to discover the latest papers in the journal? How to identify and contact the publisher? Does the journal use a precise type of peer review? Does the journal site require publication fees and payment methods? Does the journal publicize the members of the editorial board on their websites? Is the journal open access and in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? The results of the interview were analyzed and posed some problematic issues in the findings and discussion section Finding the right journal to submit a paper is one of the most critical steps during the process of paper publishing A new journal information service that makes finding and accessing journal articles more accessible and more effective than traditional methods Smart search technology and field-ofresearch specific vocabularies used to match the paper to scientific journals The authors enter the title and abstract of the paper to find journals that could be best suited for publishing quickly Manuscript matchers take all of the data in one place to provide authors with an easy way to select the appropriate journal for their publication It is easy to compare relevant journals to find the best place for publication In other words, journal matchers help give the authors ideas for where to publish their paper, based on the keywords, abstract, and title the authors write The authors insert keywords from their manuscript abstract into a search engine, which then compares the words to many online publications The authors must analyze each of the results critically to see if they are relevant to their article (Bavdekar & Save, 2015; Tullu & Karande, 2018) It is significant to note that many of these sites or applications are promoting their journals and will likely not give the authors results from other publishers In this paper, we present the seven popular manuscript matchers that help the authors efficiently to find relevant journals for their papers Springer Journal Suggester This machine (https://journalsuggester.springer.com) searches over 2,600 journals of Springer and BioMed Central to find the most suitable journal for the document It is easy to compare relevant journals to find the best place for publication The authors need to copy in their abstract or a description of the research The authors can then sift through results based on Impact Factor or whether a journal is open access IEEE Journal Recommender This machine (http://publication-recommender.ieee.org) searches over 170 periodicals and 1500 conferences of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers It compares critical points such as Impact Factor and Submission-ToPublication Time It gets all the critical data about IEEE publications at a glance No results mean that IEEE is not for the article This link also provides the authors IEEE conferences going to be held all over the world Edanz Journal Selector A Japanese company that offers support to researchers has created this journal selector (https://www.edanzediting.com/journal-selector) that can match the abstract of over 28,000 journals from publishers such as Springer, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, Taylor & Francis, Nature Publishing Group and more The authors can also select only journals indexed in Web of Science, to those that are open access or offers open access possibilities Any Impact Factors (Web of Science) displayed in the search results Edanz Journal Selector ranges a broad set of journals The online tool also offers a journal selection service in which specialists use their experience to categorize up to four of the best journals for a given paper Enago Open Access Journal Finder This machine (https://www.enago.com/academy/journal-finder) enables the authors to find quality open access journals that are pre-vetted to protect the authors from predatory publishers This free application resolves shared problems on journal authenticity, predacious journals, and article processing fees by using a validated journal index provided by The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Enago’s proprietary search algorithm helps the authors shortlist journals that are most relevant to their manuscript and research objectives, thus giving the authors the best chance of publication After sending the criteria, the authors receive the top 3-5 journals best suited to their manuscript and preferences Additionally, Enago provides the authors with vital feedback for their manuscript, including suggestions on how to improve their paper Elsevier Journal Finder This tool is a freely available online application (https://journalfinder.elsevier.com), which is one of the most comprehensive journal recommender systems, covering all scientific domains and more than 2,900 peer-reviewed Elsevier journals It uses semantic search technology and field-of-research specific vocabularies to match the abstract to relevant Elsevier journals This application compares the abstract with all journal articles in Scopus and recommends up to 50 of the most relevant journals to consider Keywords allow the authors to focus their search Upon entering keywords, the autofill function helps the authors to identify which keywords are available in the index, both for single and combined keywords This service recommends if it has published articles that are highly similar to the article A list of relevant articles generated, and the tool can filter on the authors’ preferred criteria, such as open access Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE) This tool is a freely available web-based application (http://jane.biosemantics.org) that, based on a sample text (e.g., the title and abstract of a manuscript), can suggest journals and experts who have published similar articles BioSemantics Group manages JANE at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands JANE depends on the data in PubMed, which can contain papers from predatory journals, and therefore these journals can appear in JANE’s results To help 51 Proceedings of the 13th International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) the open access journals only, and it usually introduces free open access journals with high impact factors, more significant readers, and reputable in the field of research JANE could give the author similar papers from all of the journals in the proposed list based on the title, abstract, and keywords The author provided more information about the references and other new findings related to the paper JournalGuide is more helpful for authors because it could find many documents that match the content of the manuscript from ten years ago The author could use these papers for looking back literature review and revise the draft before sending the document to the most suitable journal identify high-quality journals JANE now tags journals that currently indexed in Medline and open access journals approved by the DOAJ It is also limited to journals included in Medline, a database published by the United States National Library of Medicine Thus, it restricted to biomedical sciences journals This one offers an alternative search method for entering the article’s title and abstract, in which the authors can enter keywords in a simple search box JournalGuide This application is a free tool (https://www.journalguide.com) designed by a group of former researchers, software developers, and scholarly publishing veterans at Research Square A growing journal database across all academic fields that search, filter, sort, and compare journals from more than 46,000 titles Searching by journal name, publisher, or category, the authors can use the title and abstract of a paper to discover journals that have already published articles on similar topics By matching journals to a paper’s content, researchers can see which journals would be most likely to have an interest in their story Table Some essential functions of the manuscript matchers Title Manuscript Field of Open and Keyword Matchers Research Access Abstract Elsevier Journal Yes Yes Yes Yes Finder Springer Journal Yes Yes Yes Yes Suggester IEEE Journal Yes Yes No No Recommender Edanz Journal Yes Yes Yes Yes Selector Enago Open Access Journal Yes No Yes Yes Finder Journal/Author Yes Yes No Yes Name Estimator JournalGuide Yes Yes No Yes RESULTS We selected some critical functions of these applications and compared the benefits for authors during the process of choosing a suitable journal The authors must enter the title, abstract, and keywords of the manuscript to the input box of the manuscript matchers Some optional features the author should be chosen are a field of research and the reader’s accessibility All of these applications could introduce the list of journals if the author provides title and abstract Most of them require more information like keyword, the field of research, and paper accessibility We also realized that each application has its strengths Enago is one of the non-free applications that it found Manuscript Matchers Elsevier Journal Finder Springer Journal Suggester IEEE Journal Recommender Edanz Journal Selector Enago Open Access Journal Finder Journal/Author Name Estimator JournalGuide Table Some optional functions of the manuscript matchers Acceptance Rate CiteScore Impact Factor Publication Time Database Elsevier (2,900) Springer, BioMed (2,600) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes IEEE (1,670) Yes No Yes No Yes No No Yes (28,651) Web of Science, Scopus (10,700) Yes Yes Yes No Medline, DOAJ Yes Yes Yes Yes Research Square months to one year The papers typically are the output or product of the research Therefore, choosing the journal that guarantees the publication time plays a significant role in the author’s decision We have found that some applications of the publishers tend to introduce the journals that the publishers are responsible for publishing and almost not recommend the article from other publishers Such requests are from Springer, Elsevier, IEEE, and all the databases also from these publishers Some independent non-free tools could recommend journals from different Beside some obligatory inputs, most applications have more options like acceptance rate or confidence index, CiteScore, impact factor, publication/review time, and databases Based on the publication need, the authors could choose a suitable journal that satisfying all their requirements In Vietnam, most publications are supported by the universities, institutes, ministries, and Nafosted (abbreviation for National Foundation for Science and Technology Development) during researching at ministerial level as well as university level (Tran et al., 2019) For that reason, the time for requiring publication is about six 52 Proceedings of the 13th International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) databases like Enago, Edanz, JANE, or JournalGuide However, all of these tools require the authors to pay a fee for providing their utilities This requirement is one of the financial barriers for most researchers in Vietnam - a developing country Moreover, these tools offer more services for authors like statistical analysis, English revision, paper review, publication counseling But non-experience authors could use these services for improving paper writing skills as well as publishing skills The independent non-free tools use big databases to find the most appropriate journal so that the author could choose the journal with huge readers all over the world As a result, it could help the authors to increase the numbers of followers, impact index, and cite index (Bavdekar & Save, 2015) Another scientist at a research institute insisted that: “We only choose to publish articles in open scientific journals that are accessible to many scientists, so it is easier for us to improve the article’s citation index and own citation index In addition, publication of international articles may be a mandatory requirement of scientific research projects with limited publication time, so we often choose journals with a limited time to publish articles so that it is consistent with the plan of the research projects” Using journal finder application 10% 15% Specialist recommendation Table Some priority criteria for choosing the journal Priority Criteria Percentage Order ISI/Scopus list of journal 7% Acceptance rate or confidence 30% index Publication time of publication 25% speed Impact factor, cite score 5% Accessibility (open access), the 10% number of readers Publication fee 15% Field of research, database 5% Others 3% Total 100% 30% Personal experiences 45% Other sources Figure Information for submitting a paper on the journal Besides, only 10 percent of researchers used manuscript matchers to recommend the journal for publishing their manuscript It means that there is only some researchers know how to use these manuscript matchers in finding publication places for their research The other 15 percent of researchers used information from their colleagues, search engines, books or papers’ references, conferences, forums Some authors agree to charge fees for publishing their papers more efficiently The cost also could be one of the factors considered while the authors are selecting the journal However, some journals routinely not charge fees for publication unless the number of pages exceeds a prescribed limit of a volume Results from Table show that the essential factor that the authors refer to choose the best journal is the acceptance rate or confidence index In other words, the authors may want to consider the acceptance rate as one of the criteria for choosing a journal for submission In this study, the authors would submit the manuscript to the journal if the acceptance rate is more than 50 percent The second important factor is publication time or publication speed Usually, the authors choose the journal that its review process is around six months Other factors that may impact the author’s decision are publication fee, accessibility, the reputation of the journal (ISI/Scopus list), databases, impact factor, or cite score The research has also revealed that nonexperienced authors choose the acceptance rate as the priority; experienced authors choose the impact factor or cite score in the ISI/Scopus list is a decisive factor Some authors were interested in other factors like editorial board, language, publication country, the review process Finally, it is also possible that journals that not consider as prestigious have a better acceptance rate The research shows the real situation of using journal matchers in the researcher community in Vietnam Surprisingly, 45 percent of researchers choose the journal based on personal experiences and 30 percent from specialist recommendation Through our interview, a lecturer of a university shared his opinion as follows: “We often choose journals in the list recommended by Nafosted or through the recommendation of colleagues in the same research field, this is also because we have not known these search engines However, there are also scientists who believe that the wide accessibility of publication determines the selection of journals” 5% 3%2% 1% 1% 3% 2% 13% 70% Elsevier Journal Finder Springer Journal Suggester IEEE Journal Recommender Figure Percentage of using manuscript matchers tools for choosing a journal Figure shows that 70 percent of researchers in Vietnam not use any manuscript matchers in recommending the journal, and only 17 percent of authors using seven popular search tools This result also fits very few numbers of papers that publish on ISI/Scopus journals Recently, Web of Science provides an invaluable tool named The Master Journal List (https://mjl.clarivate.com/home) to help the authors to find the right journal which hosted on the Web of Science platform This application only introduces journals that demonstrate high levels 53 Proceedings of the 13th International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) professional standing, and review process, among others Therefore, journals that include in these databases are considered to be quality journals and thought to be more prestigious There are also many different opinions about choosing multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or single disciplinary journals In this study, we have found that the authors in the field of research, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology would publish their papers on narrowly specialized journals, and even they are loyal followers of a specific journal The authors in the field of research, such as education, social and humanities, economics, anthropology, tend to submit their papers on multidisciplinary journals However, some researchers think that interdisciplinary journals are not prestigious Therefore, using manuscript matchers to determine the best journal plays a vital role for authors who want to improve the confidence index as well as the impact of their papers in the research community of editorial rigor and best practice For that reason, there are only some researchers using this tool for recommending journal (Tran et al., 2019) In Vietnam, some universities and research institutes encourage lecturers and researchers to publish their papers in prestigious international journals Publishers and their journals would like to invite reviewers from different countries as well as receive papers of authors from different nationalities so that they could create an international readership community Hence, they like to publish articles in journals that are highly visible and easily accessible to potential readers Through the interview, we also found that some authors believe that the chances of acceptance are generally higher in journals publishing several issues in a year and have more pages printed Assurance of a timely and fair review process, high visibility, and regular publication of the journal could consider as some of the other essential features that may guide the authors’ choice These results would be appropriate for a developing country where there are lots of novice researchers trying to publish their papers on the international journals However, this situation would be changed in developed countries since the differences in publication opportunities for researchers as well as their leading role in sciences and technologies development REFERENCES Bahadoran Z, Mirmiran P, Kashfi K, Ghasemi A Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine: How to Choose a Journal? International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2020 Nov 25;19(1):e108417 doi: 10.5812/ijem.108417 Beall J Best practices for scholarly authors in the age of predatory journals Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 98(2), 77-79, 2016 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1308/rcsann.2016.0056 Beshyah SA Authors’ Selection of Target Journals and Their Attitudes to Emerging Journals: A survey from two developing regions Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 2019 Feb;19(1):e51-e57 doi: 10.18295/squmj.2019.19.01.010 Errami, M et al eTBLAST: A webserver to identify expert reviewers, appropriate journals, and similar publications Nucleic Acids Research, 35(2), 12-15, 2007 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkm221 Juan José Prieto-Gutiérrez, Ten years of research on ResearchGate: a scoping review using Google Scholar (2008-2017) European Science Editing, 45(3), 60-64, 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20316/ESE.2019.45.18023 Ning Kang, Marius Doornenbal, Bob Schijvenaars Elsevier Journal Finder: Recommending journals for your paper, Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 261-264, 2015 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2792838.2799663 Richard A Rison, Jennifer Kelly Shepphird, Michael R Kidd How to choose the best journal for your case report Journal of Medical Case Reports, 11(198), 1-9, 2017 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-017-1351-y Sandeep B Bavdekar, Sushma Save Choosing the right journal for a scientific paper Journal of The Association of Physicians of India, 63, 56-59, 2015 Schuemie, M.J and Kors, J.A Jane: Suggesting journals, finding experts Bioinformatics, 24, 727-728, 2008 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btn006 Terry W Brandsma, Elizabeth R Bernhardt, Dana M Sally Journal Finder: A solution for comprehensive and unmediated access to journal articles, Serials Review, 28(1), 13-20, 2002 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2002.10764702 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION It is necessary to realize that every author has different goals for publication at a specific time Some authors want to publish a journal in which their papers could have the most significant impact on the research community Therefore, the authors could use journal matcher tools to analyze every recommended journal carefully to see if its options help the authors to achieve goals Gradually, the reputation of the chronicle plays an increasingly important part in the decision to choose a journal All manuscript matchers with different databases and publishers/companies, but they have some similar vital functions such as matching score, impact factor, open access, editorial times, acceptance rate, and production times This information can help the authors to decide which is the best journal to submit their papers and may reduce the probability of rejection There are many other important factors to consider when selecting a journal The authors face a problem that it has a low acceptance rate if they publish their work on a high impact index journal The impact factor and acceptance rate usually correlate (the higher the impact factor, the lower the acceptance rate) (Errami, Wren, Hicks, & Garner, 2014) However, the authors could use manuscript matchers to determine other journals with a higher acceptance rate to increase the chances of being published Using journal matchers is a primary method for non-experienced authors to find and send their manuscripts to the high-ranking journals For some researchers, paper submission time is also a significant factor in choosing the journal In Vietnam, some scientific projects (ministerial level and university level) were deployed in one year or two years and can extend more than six months Therefore, some researchers tend to choose a journal that the submission time is around six months, and usually, the journal should name in the list of ISI/Scopus journals This requirement is a challenge for researchers, especially in the educational research field There are multiple databases that index journals based on various factors related to quality, the regularity of publication, 54 Proceedings of the 13th International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) Trung Tran, et al Compliance of education journals in Vietnam with the minimum criteria to be indexed in the ASEAN Citation Index and Scopus Science Editing, 6(2), 142-147, 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.175 Tullu MS, Karande S Success in Publishing: Selecting an Appropriate Journal and Braving the Peer-review Process Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 2018 Jan-Mar;64(1):1-4 doi: 10.4103/jpgm.JPGM_618_17 55 ... Proceedings of the 13th International Multi- Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics (IMCIC 2022) professional standing, and review process, among others Therefore, journals that include... in the educational research field There are multiple databases that index journals based on various factors related to quality, the regularity of publication, 54 Proceedings of the 13th International. .. University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands JANE depends on the data in PubMed, which can contain papers from predatory journals, and therefore these journals can appear in JANE’s results