New Website and Resources

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​The Philosophy Journal Insight Project (PJIP) officially began in June of 2023 with the launch of a spreadsheet containing a comprehensive overview of ≈50 philosophy journals. While that spreadsheet is still available here, it has been superseded by two new resources: The PJIP Directory and the PJIP Ranking Index.

PJIP Directory

The directory currently contains 190 peer-reviewed philosophy journals and details information about the journal's specialism, word limits, review anonymity, open-access status, SJR ranking, SNIP ranking, CiteScore, types of papers published (book reviews; discussions), and in a drop-down menu, aims and scope, eISSN, and publisher. The purpose of the directory is to help philosophical researchers decide what journal would be most suitable for prospective manuscripts.

It comes with search and sort functions that allow users to identify journals that fit specific requirements. For example, the ‘Custom Search Builder’ can be used to show Generalist and Moral and Political journals, that allow for open-access publication, practice triple-blind review, and would accept a manuscript of 8,834 words. As shown in the picture below:

More generally, ever wanted to know how many journals practice triple-blind peer review? (25 out of 190) Or how many publish book reviews? (65 out of 190 + 39 by invitation only) Or how many are published by Springer? (33 out of 190). Now you can!

​Over time this resource will be continually developed by expanding the number of journals included, the metrics tracked, and the table’s functionality.​

PJIP Ranking Index

As the Directory already contains a vast amount of data, the PJIP Ranking Index is a separate resource that focuses on journal ranking metrics. It includes SJR, SNIP, CiteScore, Cite Percentage, H-5 (Google Scholar), H index (SJR), survey results from Leiter and de Burin, acceptance rates, and number of submissions. The index aims to help philosophical researchers determine, via their preferred metric (or a combination of metrics), which journals are the ‘best’. The site also contains a guide that explains what each metric means and how it can be used to assess journal quality here.

Similar search and filtering options allow users to evaluate specific types of journals. For example, to view the ranking metrics for only Philosophy of Science journals, short paper length journals, or Open Access journals, etc. The image below shows the rankings for Generalist Diamond Open-Access journals when sorted first by Leiter poll and then by SJR. ​

Surveys

Presently, some of the columns in both resources are completely vacant (acceptance rates, comment chance, average days for a desk rejection, average days for an external review, and number of submissions). This is because accurate information on journal operations is not accessible for most journals. To remedy this, the PJIP is currently conducting the first ‘Operations Survey’.  Journals are invited to submit their statistics each year and the results will then be incorporated into the PJIP's resources. The goal is to establish the PJIP Operations Survey as the standard format for tracking journal operational efficiency.

Additionally, most entries in the PJIP Directory are incomplete because the appropriate information is not publicly accessible. To remedy this a journal can complete the ‘Cataloguing Survey’ to provide information about journal policies (word counts, if they accept unsolicited book reviews, etc.) This process will help clarify, publicise, and standardise important information about the journal thereby making things simpler for authors to assess whether their manuscript is a suitable fit.
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Future

The results of the operations survey should be incorporated into the Directory and Ranking index in the second half of 2024. The plan is to run the same survey each year – opening in the spring and disseminating the results in the autumn.

I’ll also endeavour to regularly update the directory to include new journals, correct any inaccurate information, and reflect changes in journal policies. Any time I make substantial alterations, I’ll post an update log detailing what changes were made. 

​When there is sufficient data to analyse, I’ll aim to put some brief reports together that explore trends. For example, assessing  changes to average review length. 

Lastly, the feedback I received on the initial spreadsheet was incredibly helpful and I weclome any suggestions on ways to improve this resource.