On March 20, 2023, Web of Science, Clarivate announces that more than 50 journals have already been de-listed this year for failing to meet their quality selection criteria (https://clarivate.com/blog/supporting-integrity-of-the-scholarly-record-our-commitment-to-curation-and-selectivity-in-the-web-of-science/). Unfortunately, Annals of Palliative Medicine (APM) is among them. On February 16, 2023, the Web of Science (WOS) informed the editorial office that the coverage of APM in the Web of Science will be discontinued, and no further content will be indexed. After an inquiry, the WOS told us that the last issue indexed will be January 2023 Early Access content.
As APM has maintained and will continue to maintain the utmost in ethical publishing and best practices, this decision was a huge surprise to us and seemingly quite unfounded. To advocate for our authors and the journal, and to seek a fair reassessment, we decided to appeal this decision, as indicated in the website of WOS: https://clarivate.com/products/scientific-and-academic-research/research-discovery-and-workflow-solutions/web-of-science/core-collection/editorial-selection-process/web-of-science-core-collection-editorial-policies-category-change-requests-and-appeals-process/. The letter of appeal was submitted on February 25, 2023.
On April 14, 2023, we received the results of the appeal from WOS that they are upholding the original decision to discontinue coverage of APM in WOS. They cited deficiencies in 1 of the 24 quality criteria metrics that they assessed, specifically, Content Relevance, and they stated that APM published 3 articles that they believed to be outside of the current aims and scope of the journal. Below is the full statement from WOS.
Besides, WOS declares that if the journal is removed from coverage, content will not be backfilled: https://clarivate.com/products/scientific-and-academic-research/research-discovery-and-workflow-solutions/web-of-science/core-collection/editorial-selection-process/web-of-science-core-collection-editorial-policies-category-change-requests-and-appeals-process/. Below is the email reply from WOS.
Despite the shock and disappointment brought by the final decision of WOS, we remain fully committed to continuing to improve the journal quality based on the rigorous and transparent peer review process that APM has long followed. Of note, we will reapply for inclusion into WOS at the next allowable time. Also of note, this decision by WOS does not impact the listing of APM by the many other indexing bodies that index APM, and articles published in APM will continue to be indexed in those databases, including PubMed/MEDLINE.
Editorial Office
Annals of Palliative Medicine
First published: April 18, 2023
Updated on: April 24, 2023 (please note the announcement will be updated according to the latest notice/communication from WOS)