KODISA Academic Journal Strategy: Synopsis in 2016 and Vistas of the Future

Abstract

Purpose - The Education Ministry has plans to select top 10 percent academic journals among the domestic registration journals in NRF(National Research Foundation of Korea), and designate them as outstanding academic journals. To reflect this trend, KODISA has set its sights on paper publication rate and citation index with pushing forward globalism. First, this study will arrange the process of globalism and the current state of paper submission, and propose the direction of improvement in academic journals through understanding the characteristics of each major field. Research design, data, and methodology - KODISA has preceeded in examining and publishing research papers related to distribution field through indirectly or stimulating academic advancement. KODISA covers the whole fields in social science as well as in business administration and economics that associated with distribution field not limiting only within the range of distribution field. That is, the new subject that contributes to the progress in distribution field with original research can be a priority criteria in KODISA journal publication. Results - The major fields in papers published in KODISA can be categorized broadly as distribution field with economic and business administration point of view. Therefore, the distribution field with economic point of view includes the issues such as regulations, system, industry, market environment, distribution system, trade, and macroeconomics, etc. The business administration point of view in distribution includes distribution strategy, distribution organization, and distribution channel from the perspectives of the firm, etc. Conclusions - The aim of KODISA in 2020 is to be a global academic journal as SCI level of each journal in KODISA, JDS(Registration journal), IJIDB(Registration candidate), EAJBM(Registration candidate), JAFEB(Cabell's Registration journal). The KODISA journals have already settled as the largest academic society and journals of Korea in 2016 currently from humanities and social sciences area by the most gross in publication circulation, volumes, and types. Hereafter, KODISA will focus on the improvement for the objective indicators such as Impact Factor and Centrality index as qualitative growth as well as quantitative expansion. By doing so, KODISA will be a forum for developmental academic debate with attracting the world's greatest scholars' papers. Furthermore, they will be recognized journals and grow as the first-rate academic journals inside and outside of Korea.

1. Introduction

The Education Ministry said that they will select the top 10 percent academic journals in domestic journals, and designate them as outstanding academic journals.

From government support business, the plan that gives high grades to the universities is under review in case of announcing more research papers into outstanding journals.

According to this, the Education Ministry will designate 200 journals as outstanding domestic academic journals by 2019, and it implies that the selected 10 percent journals in about 2100 registration journals in NRF(National Research Foundation of Korea) will be designated as the outstanding journals.

All the while, the registration journals in NRF have been used as the basis in evaluating for professor’s research result. The papers from science and engineering fields are mainly published in international journals. But in case of papers from humanities and social science fields, the number of publication in registered journals becomes the basis in evaluating of professor’s research result.

According to the Education Ministry survey in 2013, universities of 95.9% have evaluated professors’research result with utilizing the registration journals in NRF.

NRF currently accepts an academic journal as a registration candidate when it gets 80 points or more in the assessment items such as publication volumes, paper published rate, etc. If the registration candidate fulfills NRF requirements for 2 years, it can be upgraded into a registration journal. Furthermore, the Education Ministry plans to designate top 10% journals as the outstanding academic journals in the registration.

Thus, the journal grade system is currently divided into unregistered, registration candidate, and registration journals in NRF. But, this grade system is expected to be subdivided into 4 stages.

The results of research papers published in the NRF registration journals are used for research support business in the Education Ministry as well as each professor’s evaluation of research result. It has great implications for academic associations that the Education Ministry has a plan to grant higher points for the papers which are published in outstanding journals than those just in registration journals through distinguishing superiors with inferiors among registered journals.

As pushing forward internationalization, KODISA has aimed at the improvement in paper published rate and citation index. It is a policy of KODISA to reflects this trend, internationalization. If high quality papers are published in KODISA and the papers are often cited into other papers, there is a high probability of being included as outstanding 10% journals(200) in NRF regis- tration journals(2100).

After arranging the internationalization process and the current state of paper submission of KODISA, this paper will propose the direction of development through getting the characteristics in each major field points.

[Table 1] KODISA Internationalization Process Arrangement

2. KODISA Internationalization Process Arrangement

Discussing these issues in depth, KODISA has been putting a lot of effort to stand as global academic journals since 2008. In 2010, starting with JDS, EAJBM & IJIDB became a registration journal or registration candidate in KCI of NRF, and most notably, JAFEB, nonetheless it was founded in 2014, became a registration journal in Cabell as an international journal in two years. All the journals are now under examination or preparation in SSCI and SCOPUS, and at any rate, it seems that they can stand as global academic journals in the near future.

In particular, a whole managing editor and native editor were arranged in Korean office that always on duty, and a native editor was also arranged in U.S. office to be global academic journals. It is truly the establishment of foundation for global academic journals. This kind of system is being attempted for the first time in Korea in social science field academy.

3. The Current State of Paper Submission Arrangement

As mentioned above, those four academic journals have been published in KODISA, and the current state of paper submission is as follows.

3.1. Journal of Distribution Science(JDS)

As shows in [Table 2], 219 papers in total were published in 2015. Mao, Liu, & Chen (2015) and other 22 papers were published in January, Kim (2015) and 22 papers in February, Youn et al. (2015) and 18 papers in March, Han & Lee (2015) and 19 in April, Koo & Woo (2015) and 19 in May, Ryu (2015) and 14 in June, Avila & Ryu (2015) and 16 in July, Lee (2015) and 20 in August. Min & Bae (2015) and 26 in September, Kim & Kim (2015) and 12 in October, Cho, Kang, & Bonn (2015) and 11 in November. In December, Ahn & Lee (2015) and 14 papers were published. (Hwang & Youn, 2016).

[Table 2] JDS : Submissions and Rejection Rate

Meanwhile, we can confirm that the number of papers is increasing steadily. In terms of published rate, 124 papers were published in 2014 with the rate of 64.9% out of the total 191 papers, and 136 papers were published in 2015 with the rate of 62.1% from total 219 papers.

3.2. International Journal of Industrial Distribution and Business(IJIDB)

In [Table 3], 25 papers were published in total. Kim et al. (2015) and other 5 papers were published in March, Baygi & Javadi (2015) and 6 papers in June, Mohammadi (2015) and 6 in September, and Ahmadinia et al. (2015) and 4 in December.(Hwang & Youn, 2016).

[Table 3] IJIDB : Submissions and Rejection Rate

* There may be discrepancy in those numbers due to some papers are carried over to the next month.

In terms of published rate, we can see the continued growth in paper publication. 16 papers were published in 2014 with the rate of 66.7% out of the total 24 papers, and 16 papers were published in 2015 with the rate of 56.2% from total 25 papers.

3.3. East Asian Journal of Business Management (EAJBM)

As shown in [Table 4], 36 papers were published in 2015. Halim et al. (2015) and other 7 papers were published in January, Prashar et al. (2015) and 6 in July, and Ryu & Bringhurst (2015) and 13 were published in October(Hwang & Youn, 2016).

[Table 4] EAJBM : Submissions and Rejection Rate

In published rate, there is the continued growth in paper publication. 17 papers were published in 2014 with the rate of 60.7% out of the total 28 papers, and 21 papers were published in 2015 with the rate of 58.3% from total 36 papers.

3.4. Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business (JAFEB)

As shown in [Table 5], totally 67 papers were published in 2015. Park (2015) and other 12 papers were published in February, Ortiz et al. (2015) and 15 in May, Prashar et al. (2015) and 19 in August, Tan (2015) and 17 in November. With these, the total number of paper publication in 4 journals is 347(Hwang & Youn, 2016).

[Table 5] JAFEB : Submissions and Rejection Rate

* There may be discrepancy in those numbers due to some papers are carried over to the next month.

In published rate, there is the rapid growth in paper publication. 13 papers were published in 2014 with the rate of 32.5% out of the total 40 papers, and 19 papers were published in 2015 with the rate of 28.3% from total 67 papers.

4. Major Field Categorization

The current trend in domestic and foreign journals is in favor of creating a synergy effect through cross-disciplinary integration and cooperation rather than insisting on specific academic field subjects. Thus, KODISA is processing the examination and publication process for research papers on social science concerned with indirect distribution field throughout as well as the overall Business administration and Economics, without limiting paper subjects only to Distribution field in order to get developmental stimulation. That is, the primary standards in KODISA journals publication are applied to the subjects that can contribute to distribution fields as a new one as well as be confirmed to be an creative research.

The major fields in papers published in KODISA can be categorized broadly as distribution with economic and business administration point of view. The distribution field with economic point of view includes the issues such as regulations, system, industry, market environment, distribution system, trade, and macroeconomics, etc. The business administration point of view in distribution includes distribution strategy, distribution organization, and distribution channel from the perspectives of the firm.

But, as mentioned above, the distribution in products is supported by the administrative part functions like human resource management in firms, production management, accounting and finance, etc., therefore, it would be an true development in distribution studies to treat all the relevant economics and administrative management issues. In cases of the issues that treating international management or specific examples from each country, KODISA induces them to be published in other English full text journals depending the academic journal disposition except JDS.

5. Conclusions

The domestic academy is undergoing a paradigm shift. It is launching for the reorganization of structure in broad scale and endless competition led by the Ministry education. Accordingly, KODISA is responding actively to the requirements of international tendency through attracting international outstanding papers. KODISA is going to reinforce the system construction and cooperation between academies to increase the synergy effect on in-house journals in KODISA in long term.

The aim of KODISA in 2020 is to be a global academic journal as SCI level of each journal in KODISA, JDS(Registration journal), IJIDB(Registration candidate), EAJBM( Registration candidate), JAFEB(Cabell’s Registration journal). The KODISA has already settled as the largest academic society and journals of Korea in 2016 currently from humanities and social sciences area by the most gross in publication circulation, volumes, and types.

Hereafter, KODISA will focus on the improvement for the objective indicators such as Impact Factor and Centrality index as qualitative growth as well as quantitative expansion. All the jour- nals in KODISA are already carried forward the registration process in SCOPUS and SSCI to be an indicator for objective academic journals development. In case of SCOPUS, as of February 2016, JDS and JAFEB are under examination, and EAJBM and IJIDB are planning application. As for SSCI, JAFEB is under examination, and EAJBM and IJIDB are planning application soon.

KODISA can be a forum for developmental academic debate with attracting the world’s greatest scholars’papers if the journals of KODISA are registered in SCOPUS　 and SSCI, and KODISA journals will grow as the first-rate academic journals inside and outside of Korea.