Adding Value to Malaysian Scholarly Journals through

MyCite, Malaysian Citation Indexing System

A.N. Zainab1, 2

, A. Abrizah1,2

, M.Z.N. Husna2

R.G. Raj1, T. Aruna

2, M.P. Dzul Nizam

2, M.Z. Zulfadhli

2

1Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya

2 Malaysian Citation Centre, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia

2

Abstract: There are problems in (a) identifying the entire scholarly journals published in Malaysia, (b) locating

and accessing the journals, (c) knowing who has published what and in which journals; and (d) assessing the

indexation status of the journals; and the citation received and general impact count of the journals. These issues

may be addressed by MyCite, a citation index system developed by the Malaysian Citation Centre, Ministry of

Higher Education, Malaysia. This paper describes the systems design of MyCite, the modules and their

functions, the value added to indexed journals and articles in terms of bibliometric indices provided for authors,

journals, institutional affiliations and the special reports generated which include, top authors, journals citation

report ranked by yearly impact factor, top institutions ranked by total publications, and top country contributions.

Limitations in terms of journal access and authors’ inconsistent name variations are highlighted.

Keywords: Indexing, Abstracting, Malaysia, Citations, General impact, Scholarly journals.

1. The Problems Related to Malaysian Scholarly Journals

While access and inclusion in indexing databases such as Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science (WoS) and

Elsevier’s Scopus are true for main stream foreign journals, it is not so for most national journals published in

developing countries. This leads us to the first problem of accessibility and visibility. For these countries, which

includes Malaysia, scholarly works published by academic publishers and professional associations remain

unaccessible and sadly unused as well as uncited. This may be related to the indexation of Malaysian journals.

Zainab (1997) who studied the indexation status of Malaysian scholarly journals in 23 indexing and abstracting

services found that only 54 Malaysian journals were indexed by subject-based international databases. Out of

this number, 43 were in the Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) and 11 titles were in the Arts, Humanities

and Social Sciences (AHSS). Recent studies indicated that out of 464 scholarly journals published in Malaysia, a

total of 49 (10.5%) are indexed by Scopus and 9 (1.9%) titles by WoS (Abu Bakar, et al., 2009; Zainab et al.,

2012). These situations revealed that the indexation status of Malaysian journals in international indexes was

very small and the contents of the majority of Malaysian journals remain inaccessible and invisible. An indexing

and citation system is therefore critical in helping to increase Malaysian journals’ accessibility within Malaysia

as well to the global research community providing opportunity for their contents to stand an equal chance of

being used and cited.

The second problems is related to identifying the corpus of Malaysian scholarly journals. Md Sidin (1997) and

Roosfa (2006) both highlighted this problem. Currently, no comprehensive listing of scholarly Malaysian

journals can be located. The two listings compiled by the National Library of Malaysia are outdated (Senarai

induk terbitan bersiri = Malaysian union list of serials, 1976 ; Indeks majalah Malaysia = Malaysian periodical

index, 1973 – 1990). MyULIS or Malaysian Union list of serials compiled and published by PERPUN or The

Conference of Academic Librarians and the National Library covers total serials holdings including those

published outside Malaysia and no separate Malaysian journal listing is given (MyULIS, 2008). Roosfa (2006)

provided a listing in 2006 and mentioned the elusive and mushrooming journal titles from the newer universities

as well as those published solely in the electronic form. Md Sidin (1997) appended a list of 214 journal titles to a

paper presented at a conference, and indicated that 59.3% of the titles were in the AHSS and 40.7% were in the

STM fields. Normah (1999).

2

reported a total of 284 titles recorded through an ISSN listing issued by the National Library of Malaysia. All

these situations indicate that there is no single current list of Malaysian scholarly journals and this has posed a

problem not only to librarians to keep track of serials but also to researchers and authors to support their

referencing needs. Zainab et al. (2012) reported and appended a list of 464 journal titles, tracked through library

catalogues of the National Library of Malaysia (a legal repository) and the University of Malaya library (the

oldest university library in Malaysia). Most Malaysian journals are published in single volumes annually and

about a third is published twice a year. A total of 265 titles (57.1%) are in the AHSS and 199 titles (42.9%) are

in the STM fields. Knowing what titles exist is extremely important to estimate just how large is the corpus of

Malaysian scholarly journal article publications available for reference to the Malaysian research community,

that needs to be covered by a national abstracting and indexing systems.

The third problem concerns Malaysian scholars and their unawareness about which Malaysian journals are best

suited to disseminate research results. Technology can both empower or exclude people from accessing

knowledge (Adams, Blandford and Luntm, 2005). Malaysian scholars often do not know what their colleagues

have published in their respective fields in Malaysian journals and therefore seldom cite each other (Science and

Technology, 2004). This has resulted in the flow of quality articles out of the country and low submissions to

local academic journals. This situation inevitably affects the attempt of Malaysian scholarly journal publishers to

sustain their content’s quality and issue currency. The spiral effect of this is the poor success in getting

indexation status in the major universal citation indexes. The existing of a national citation index would provide

this gap, which can help provide the publication status and “national” performance of scholarly journals.

The fourth problem concerns unavailability of complete runs of the majority of journal titles. Scholarly journals

are often run by departments or faculties in universities, research institutions, professional associations and

government agencies. In most instances the journal editors manage the publishing processes perhaps with

minimal support staff. This situation is worsen when the baton of editorship is passed around among faculty

members who “volunteer” to do the job. As a result the availability of issues comes into jeopardy when the

handing over process is not done properly. Often the new editor could not provide or have little knowledge of

how to locate previous issues It is therefore extremely important to provide Malaysian scholarly journals with an

avenue for archiving their issues. For journals that are already publishing electronically, archived issued in an an

indexing and abstracting systems would increase the rate of availability.

The fifth problem has been identified from conversations with editors of academic journals at national

workshops and conferences (Workshop on the Editorial Proses, 2009; Workshop on Managing Scholarly

Journals, 2008; National Conference on Scholarly Publishing, 2009), which revealed that the editorial

members are often so bogged down with editorial processes, and they have little time to strategize about

marketing or improving the status of their journals. Authors want to achieve international status for their journals

but are unaware of what this means in terms of improving the institutional and geographical composition of

authors contributing to their journals. In summary, Malaysian journal editors are facing poor submission and

this makes it difficult for them to maintain frequency punctuality. Very few get financial support to engage

personnel help to manage the journals. Very few journal editors are aware of the processes involved in getting

their journals indexed either by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) databases, Scopus or other

discipline-based databases or regard this as a strategy to improve their visibility and credibility. Authors are less

aware of the availability of journals in their fields within Malaysia or about who are publishing what and where

in Malaysian journals, and there is no means of knowing who are citing the articles they publish. As a result

many of the journals are either institutional or faculty based where in most cases the articles are mainly

contributions from academics from the same institutions and faculties. A national citation system could help

publishers gauge their journal performance though bibliometric indices.

The problems that plauged the scholarly journal publishing in Malaysia are captured in a rich picture (Figure 1)

and may be addressed by Mycite or the Malaysian Citation Index systems which aims to provide a system that

supports accessibility to and visibility of Malaysian scholarly works. It is envisioned that MyCite would help

improve journal quality, increase indexation in universal citation databases and contribute to the enrichment the

corpus of Malaysia’s scholarly e-content.

3

Problems

Expressed by

Journal

publishers

Problems

Expressed by

Researchers

& Academics

How do I find out what are published in Malaysian journals in my discipline? How can I search for authors who are publishing works in similar fields as I ? Which institutions are they affiliated to? Are their work current? Are the journals refereed or reviewed? Are the journals indexed by ISI, Scopus or other databases? Whatis the frequency? The more the frequency the more chances I have in getting my article publish? Where can I locate these journals besides the library shelves? How can I obtain copies of articles I need from the journals? Is there an electronic version of the journal

• How can I encourage quality submission? How do I get my journal indexed by the ISI, Scopus and other international databases ? What can I make my journal more visible ? How can I get information about who are citing articles in my journal as it is not covered by the ISI’s JCR? I need a system that could get my journals indexed nationally & internationally. Is there an abstracting service in Malaysia? How do I improve the quality of my journal? Is there a tool that can guide me where I need to improve? I don’t have any funding to publish electronically over the web

It is difficult to bibliographically control journals ? Is there a directory or listing? How can we maintain a dynamic list of Malaysian journals?

Problems

Expressed by

Librarians,

Information

professionals

Figure 1: The Problems Expressed by Stakeholders of Malaysian Scholarly Journals

2. Objectives and Methods

The objectives of this paper are twofold, (a) to describe the design of MyCite, and (b) to highlight the added

value to journals and articles indexed through the generation of reports from MyCite. The development of the

system was mooted by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia mainly to help improve the quality of journals

by providing publishers with indicators that reflect their journal performance within Malaysia. To realize this

aspiration, an interim Malaysian Citation Centre (MCC) was set up at the Faculty of Computer Science,

University of Malaya. The initial development of MyCiteMy was undertaken collaboratively by staff seconded

from the faculty to MCC and the Information Technology Centre University of Malaya. Mycite was developed

using the rapid prototyping method. The development of modules were benchmarked against WoS and Scopus as

the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia requires the system to be up within a year.

MyCite indexes only scholarly journals which loosely refer to Malaysian-based titles that are refereed and are

research based. Even though an audit on Malaysian scholarly journals identifies a total number 464 titles (Zainab

et al., 2012), the total number of journals currently indexed in MyCite are 75 titles. At this initial stage MyCite

focused on a selection of journals that are already indexed by WoS, Scopus and MyAIS (Malaysian Abstracting

and Indexing System) (http://myais.fsktm.um.edu.my/) as well as titles that has complete issue runs at least

between 2006 and 2011.There are reasons for this decision. Firstly, the focus is adequate coverage of each title

so that there is sufficient data to test the correctness of indices used. The performance indices used are total

publications, total citations, impact factor for data sets within a two-year and five-year windows (Garfield, 1972;

Thomson Reuters, 2012), h index (Hirsch, 2005), and based on the Institute for Information Sciene’s Journal

Citation Report’s (JCR) immediacy index, and citation half-life. These indices are comonly used in most citation

indices such as WoS, Scopusand Thai Citation Index.. It is expected that data from journals that has at least a 5-

year publishing track record would respond well and show some results. Secondly, the targeted journals are

mainly those which are electronically published and on “Open Access”. This provide MCC with access to

articles’ references which is needed to generate the citation count. This characterised medical related journals

which, seems to be early adopters of electronic publishing compared to publishers in other fields. As such the

coverage of medical related journals in MyCite are higher. Thirdly, it was possible to migrate data that are

already in MyAIS and this speeds efforts in populating the system. For Malaysian journals which are already

publishing online and are on Open Access, their coverage in MyCite are more comprehensive.

4

MyCite categorized journals into five broad fields; Arts and Humanities, Engineering and Technology, Medical

and Health Sciences, Sciences and Social Sciences. Under each broad fields journals are further assigned to more

specific fields (Table 1). This categorization is found to be sufficient to accomodate most Malaysian journals.

Table 2 shows the 75 journals currently indexed in MyCite, comprising 39 (52%) titles from the STEM and 36

(48%) titles from the AHSS fields all of which provided 11,816 articles. We would like to note that even though

MyCite is indexing many journals not every form of writings are indexed. Editorial notes and book reviews are

excluded. For articles in the the “religion” category, titles and references in Arabic or Jawi text are not indexed.

Table 1: The Fields Categorization Used in MyCite

Arts and Humanities

History

Language and Linguistics

Literature

Performing Arts

Philosophy

Religion

Visual Arts

Engineering and Technology

Architecture and design

Computer Sciences

Engineering

Medical and Health Sciences

Dentistry

Immununology and

Microbiology

Medicine

Neuroscience

Nursing

Nutrition

Phamacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics

Sciences

Agricutural Sciences

Biological sciences

Chemistry

Earth sciences

Environmental Sciences

Life sciences

Mathematics and statistics

Physics

Space sciences

Social Sciences

Anthropology

Archeology

Area Studies

Business and Administration

Cultural and ethnic studies

Economics and finance

Education

Gender studies

Geography

Law

Library & Information Science

Media and Communication

Political science

Psychology

Sociology

Table 2: Number of Journals Indexed in MyCite by Broad Fields

Disciplines Number of Journals Percent Number of Articles Percent

Arts & Humanities 14 18.0 1292 11.0

Engineering & Technology 7 9.3 948 8.0

Medical & Health Sciences 15 20.0 3429 29.0

Sciences 17 22.7 4139 35.0

Social Sciences 22 29.3 2008 17.0

Total 75 100.0 11816 100.0

3. Systems Design: MyCite

To ensure MyCite functions optimally, two databases were created. MyJurnal (Malaysian Journal Management

System, www.myjurnal.my) is the supportive journal repository which manages the bibliographic data extracted

from journals. It is essentially a journal management system, which contains several modules that support the

content of all journals indexed by MyCite. On its own it is a complete system which publishers can use to

manage article submissions, reviewing processes and issue publishing. Myjurnal is also supported with an

application which automatically create a journal’s website. In many instances MyJurnal provide access to full-

text articles when consent is given by publishers. MyJurnal also provides links to journals’ own websites.

MyCite (www.mycite.my) is the citation indexing system that extracts bibliographic data sets indexed in

Myjurnal to provide publication counts. All references in articles that are indexed are passed through an

automated reference segmentation programme called the “reference editor” that breaks the bibliographic

references (e.g. author, title, journal, year) from the references section of all articles (Table 3). This programme

saves indexers’ references checking time as they just need to ensure that segmentation has occurred faithfully

and correctly. This segmentation allows for the calculation of productivity and citation indices of journals and

authors, as well as their affliated institutions.

5

Table 3: An Item being Segmented by the “Reference Editor” in MyJurnal.

Item title: An unusual presentation of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults

Ray, S1, Sarkar, D

2, Ganguly, S

3, Maiti, A

4.

Medical Journal of Malaysia (Volume 67, No. 1, 2012, Pages 116 to 117) Times cited: 0 4 references

Reference no: 1072

No Author(s) Title Journal Year Vol No Page No

1 Stenstrom G, Gottsater A, Bakhtadze E, Berger B, Sundkvist G

Latent autoimmune diabetes in adults: definition, prevalence, beta-cell function, and treatment

Diabetes 2005 54 S68-S72 •

•

• 2 Lohmann, T, Kellner

K, Verlohren HJ, Krug J, Steindorf J, Scherbaum WA.

Titre and combination of ICA and autoantibodies to glutamic acid decarboxyl ase discrim inate t wo clinically distinct types of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA)

Diabetologia 2001 44 1005-1010 •

•

•

3 Turner R, Stratton I, Horton V, Manley S, Zimmet P, Mackay IR.

UKPDS 25: autoantibodies to islet-cell cytoplasm and glutamic acid decarboxylase for prediction of insulin requirement in type 2 diabetes, UK Prospective Diabetes Study Group

Lancet 1997 350 1288-93 •

•

•

4 Palmer JP, Hampe CS, Chiu H, Goel A, Brooks-Worrell BM

Is latent autoimmune diabetes in adults distinct from type 1 diabetes or just type 1 diabetes at an older age

Diabetes 2005 54 S62-67 •

•

•

Figure 2 indicates the relationship between MyJurnal and MyCite. MyCite repository subjected the extracted

bibliographic data as well as the segmented references to bibliometric programmes which generate indices

reports such as journal citation report (citation_journal), author productivity and citation report

(citation_author_group), affiliation report (citation_affiliation), article citation report (citation_map), and

discipline report (citation_dscipline).

The link between MyJurnal to MyCite is transparent to users. Most of the data preparations and editing is carried

out in the following Administrator’s module in MyJurnal.

Affliation Management – all affiliations are displayed

according to name and countryand listed by numerical

order. Affliations can be deleted or edited.

Author Groups Management – Establish authors’

names and their aliases.

Affiliation Alias Management – Establish affiliations

and their aliases.

Journak Alias Management – Establish journal names

and their aliases such abbreviated names.

Reference editor – segment article references

6

MyCite Repository

MyJurnal Repository

Figure 2: Design Relationship of MyJurnal and MyCite

Automated Reference

Segmentation Algorithm

Bibliometric

Analysis Module

7

As indicated earlier, journal editors need to request to MCC for indexation. The basic criteria for selecting

journals to be indexed include, (a) publishers provide access to complete issues run from at least 2008 to 2011 so

that the 2-year impact factor can be calculated; (b) publishers provide access to full-text of articles if the journal

is electronic, or provide MCC with the latest 3 years print issues; (c) publishers are following basic publishing

standards such as providing proper titles, authors’ names, authors’ affiliations, authors’ emails, abstracts (English

language is required if the article is in the Malay language); keywords and standard referencing practice; (d)

publishers agree to display their full-text articles through MyCite and Myjurnal (optional).

Once the bibliographic elements in a record are edited, and the record is indexed, algorithms that calculate the

bibliometric indices for MyCite transfer and display the results in various modules. MyCite Repository focuses

on providing reports that support users’ browsing and retrieval options. There are three main User modules;

General Search Module, Advance search module, and Journal Citation report module. Tables 4,5 and 6 showthe

Main and Sub-menus as well as their functions.

Table 4: General Search Module in MyCite

Menu Items Sub-Menu Items Description

Topic Search

Search by topic Search for articles by topic Display option Display search results per page according to selected display option Sort articles Sort display by relevance, article title or citation count, ascending /descending order Articles listing Lists articles and the citation count according to the topic searched

Links and view abstract or full-text of articles in MyJurnal Article Citation Report Displays the citation report of selected article(s)

Display the citation statistic of articles according to selected year in the year option View citing articles in respective years

Author Search

Search by author Search for authors’ names Display option Display search results per page according to selected display option Sort Sort authors by publication count, citation count or h-index

Selected to arrange listing in ascending / descending order Authors listing Lists authors by country affiliation, country, publications, citations and h-index

Links affiliation to Affiliation search result Links publications to list of publications by respective authors View citing articles and cited articles related to the author

Author publication report

Displays the publication statistic of searched author(s) Display the publication statistic of authors according to selected year option View publications of the author in respective years

Author citation report Displays the citation statistic for searched author(s), with year selection options View citing articles and cited articles of the author in respective years

Authors’ h-index Displays the h-index statistic of the author(s)

Journal Search

Search by journal Search for journal titles Display option Display search results per page according to selected display option Sort journals Sort by journal name, publication and citation count, h-Index, ascending/descending order Journals listing Lists journal titles withpublication and citation counts and h-index

Links displayed journal titles to its location in MyJurnal View articles published and cited articles by each journal

Journal publication report

Displays the publication statistic of selected journal(s) by selected year option

Journal citation report Displays the citation statistic of selected journal(s) Display the citation statistic according to selected year option View citing articles and cited articles of the journal(s) in respective years

Journals’ h-index Displays the h-index statistic of the journal(s)

Affiliation Search

Search by affiliation Search for affiliations Display /sort options Display and sort according affiliation, country, publication /citation count, h-index,

ascending/descending order Affiliations listing Lists affiliations according to country, total publications, total citations, h-index

View articles by the author affiliated to the institution that is cited Affiliation publication report

Displays the publication statistic of the affiliation Display the publication or citations statistic according to selected year option View citing articles and cited articles of the affiliation under respective years

Affiliation’ h-index Displays the h-index statistic of the affiliation(s)

8

Table 5: Advanced Search Module in MyCite

Menu Items

Sub-Menu Items Description

Advanced Search

Advanced search function With display and sorting options

Combined searches by all search fields provided

Refine search results by title, abstract, keyword, source, author, institution and year Support Boolean searches (AND / OR / AND NOT)

Sort articles Sort articles by relevance, article title, citation count, publication year, ascending/descending Articles listing Lists articles and the citation count for articles

Links articles to MyJurnal View citing articles

Article Citation Report Displays the citation report of selected article(s) User can display the citation statistic according to selected year option, by selected year

Table 6: Journal Citation Reports Module in MyCite

Menu Items

Sub-Menu Items

Description

MyCite Citation Report

Journals listing with bibliometric indices

MyCite Citation Report for year 2010– Sorted by 5-year Impact Factor. Shows bibliometric performance of the 75 journals currently indexed in MyCite calculated for issues published between 2006 and 2010.

Journal Individual Citation Report

Individual journal citation report including visualization graphs and tables. User can save citation report in pdf format

9

Malaysian Journal Citation Report

Journals listing with sorting options

Malaysian Citation Report sorted by Total citations. Shows basic performance of all journals in MyJurnal including those whose journals are not completely indexed in MyCite. Also generate individual journals report and the results can be visualized in graphs and tables and user can save results in pdf formatLists all Malaysian published journals

Aggregated Journal Citation Report

Journals by Subject (Selection) with sorting options Provide individual journal citation report

Listing of joutrnals under subject options. Below is an example of titles listed under subject : ”Agricultural sciences”. Note that listing is confine to 75 titles indexed in MyCite.

Journals by Publishers (Selection)

Display citation report of journals under selected publisher by selected year

Displays : Journal name, 5-year impact factor, yearly impact factor, immediacy index, cited half-life and h-index Display option

Display the journals according to selected display option

Sort journals Sort journals by journal name, yearly impact factor, 5-year impact factor, immediacy index, cited half-life or h-index. Sort journals arranged in selected ascending / descending order

4. The Added Value: Performance Reports Generated by MyCite

For Authors

Users can search for any author’s name and MyCite display authors’ names with affiliation, country, total

publications authored, total citaions received and his h index (Table 7). The inclusion of affliation and country

information help users identify the correct individual(s) searched for. MyCite generate reports of the top

authors by their total publication as indicated in Table 8. The results indicate that authors from Universiti

Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) are active contributors to national.

Table 7: Display Format for an Author Search in MyCite

Authors Affiliation Country Publications Citations H-index

1 Masjuki, H.H.

University of Malaya Malaysia 18 3 1

10

Table 8: Report Generated on theTop 20 Authors Ranked by Total Publications in MyCite

No. Authors Total Publications Total Citations h-Index Affiliation

1 Son, R. 50 29 4 UPM 2 Zainab, A.N. 40 19 3 UM 3 Lee, H.L. 35 9 2 IMR 4 Sherina, M.S. 30 18 2 UPM 5 Nazni, W.A. 30 8 1 IMR 6 Jamaluddin Md. Jahi 30 2 1 UKM 7 Zaini Hamzah 27 3 1 UiTM 8 Abdul Samad Hadi 27 2 1 UKM 9 Abdul Hadi Harman Shah 25 3 1 UKM

10 Abdullah, S. 25 3 1 UKM 11 Mohd. Ekhwan Toriman 23 10 1 UKM 12 Abdullah, B.J.J. 22 5 1 UKM 13 Saidur, R. 21 3 1 UM 14 Yap, C.K. 20 5 1 UPM 15 Harwant, S. 20 3 1 - 16 Katiman Rosman 20 3 1 UKM 17 Salmiah Ahmad 20 3 1 MPOB 18 Gasim, Muhammad Barzani 19 4 1 UKM 19 Ahmad Saat 19 3 1 UiTM 20 Masjuki, H.H. 18 3 1 UM

IMR: Institute of Medical Research, MPOB: Malaysian Palm Oil Board, UiTM: Universiti Teknologi Mara, UKM: Universiti Kebangsaan

Malaysia, UM: Universiti Malaya, UPM: Universiti Putra Malaysia

For Journals

MyCite extracts from MyJurnal bibliographic data on journals, the articles published as well as the references in

each article to calculate total publications and citation scores. Value is added to each journal indexed by

providing information about its article productivity, total citations received and its h index (Table 9). Besides

this, MyCite, through its journal citation report module provides bibliometric indices, such as 2-year and 5-year

impact factors, immediacy index (how soon articles are cited in a the year of calculation) and cited half-life (the

average span of years that articles receive citations before it tapers off) (Table 10). Noted that the results are

generated from journals that are indexed in MyCite only. This means that not all journals indexed in MyJurnal

are reported in MyCite. The results indicate that journals that are covered for longer number of years in MyCite

tended to perform better with their h-index scores. Also, journals in the AHSS fields are performing well within

Malaysia obtaining scores on most indices.

Table 9: Display of Titles under Search for “Medical” journal

Journals Publications Citations H-index

1 Medical Journal of Malaysia 1080 404 4

2 Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences 350 36 2

3 Biomedical Imaging and Intervention Journal 244 22 1

4 Journal of the University of Malaya Medical Centre 256 17 1

5 International Medical Journal Malaysia 174 2 1

6

Medical Health Reviews 22 0 0

11

Table 10: Journals Indexed in MyCite Ranked by Yearly Impact Factor (2010)

No. Journals Total

Articles

(5 yrs)

Total

Articles

(2 yrs)

Total

Citation

s (5 yrs)

Total

Citations

(2 yrs)

5 Year

Impact

Factor

Impact

Factor

2010

Immediacy

Index

Cited

Half-

life

h-

Index

1 Jurnal Komunikasi, Malaysian Journal

of Communication

33 15 7 5 0.212 0.333 0.000 0.9 1

2 GEMA Online Journal of Language

Studies

56 34 19 11 0.339 0.324 0.000 0.8 3

3 International Food Research Journal 240 180 48 38 0.200 0.211 0.050 0.7 5

4 Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 42 20 3 3 0.071 0.150 0.000 1.7 3

5 Malaysian Journal of Nutrition 115 62 20 6 0.174 0.097 0.029 4.8 5

6 English Teacher 46 22 8 2 0.174 0.091 0.000 1.6 2

7 International Journal of Mechanical and

Materials Engineering

141 90 10 8 0.071 0.089 0.050 0.8 2

8 Journal of Tropical Forest Science 214 99 14 8 0.065 0.081 0.032 2.0 2

9 Journal of Engineering Science and

Technology (JESTEC)

153 79 14 6 0.092 0.076 0.049 0.5 2

10 Malaysian Journal of Microbiology 104 54 6 4 0.058 0.074 0.029 1.3 2

11 Journal of Information and

Communication Technology

32 14 1 1 0.031 0.071 0.000 0.5 1

12 Geografia: Malaysian Journal of Society

and Space

67 43 4 3 0.060 0.070 0.000 0.6 1

13 Engineering e-Transaction 42 29 2 2 0.048 0.069 0.000 0.8 1

14 International Journal of Asia-Pacific

Studies

37 16 1 1 0.027 0.063 0.000 0.5 1

15 Asian Journal of Business and

Accounting

32 17 2 1 0.063 0.059 0.000 1.2 1

16 Malaysian Journal of Soil Science 34 17 2 1 0.059 0.059 0.000 0.8 1

17 3L The Southeast Asian Journal of

English Language Studies

54 21 4 1 0.074 0.048 0.050 1.0 1

18 Journal of Fundamental Sciences 83 43 2 2 0.024 0.047 0.000 0.8 1

19 Asian Academy of Management Journal

of Accounting and Finance

55 23 2 1 0.036 0.043 0.000 1.5 1

20 Medical Journal of Malaysia 506 163 21 7 0.042 0.043 0.008 4.3 4

21 Sains Malaysiana 409 281 13 12 0.032 0.043 0.005 1.5 2

22 Bulletin of the Malaysian Mathematical

Sciences Society

144 77 4 3 0.028 0.039 0.000 3.7 1

23 Tropical Biomedicine 230 127 11 4 0.048 0.031 0.000 2.5 3

24 e-BANGI Journal of Social Sciences and

Humanities

89 32 8 1 0.090 0.031 0.000 1.3 2

25 Medicine & Health 90 34 1 1 0.011 0.029 0.000 0.5 1

26 Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences &

Humanities

122 70 3 2 0.025 0.029 0.016 0.5 1

27 Journal of Oil Palm Research 132 38 5 1 0.038 0.026 0.000 2.9 3

28 Asia-Pacific Journal of Molecular

Biology and Biotechnology

117 80 2 2 0.017 0.025 0.000 1.5 1

29 Malaysian Journal of Library &

Information Science

86 42 1 1 0.012 0.024 0.000 3.8 3

30 ASM Science Journal 84 43 1 1 0.012 0.023 0.000 0.5 1

31 Akademika Jurnal Sains

Kemasyarakatan dan Kemanusiaan

85 50 1 1 0.012 0.020 0.000 2.6 1

32 International Medical Journal Malaysia 155 50 1 1 0.006 0.020 0.000 1.0 1

33 International Journal of Management

Studies

136 56 1 1 0.007 0.018 0.000 1.5 1

34 Journal of Nuclear and Related

Technologies

130 68 1 1 0.008 0.015 0.000 1.0 1

35 Solid State Science and Technology 255 133 1 1 0.004 0.008 0.000 0.5 1

36 International e-Journal of Science,

Medicine & Education

42 20 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 3.0 1

37 Journal of the University of Malaya

Medical Centre

87 35 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 3.2 1

12

38 Malaysian Orthopaedic Journal 112 67 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

39 Jurnal Pengajian Media Malaysia 61 29 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.0 1

40 JATI - Journal of Southeast Asian

Studies

71 27 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.5 1

41 Jurnal Syariah 120 52 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.9 1

42 International Journal of Institutions and

Economies

23 23 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

43 Malaysian Journal of Computer Science 67 24 1 1 0.015 0.000 0.000 >10 1

44 Journal of Al-Tamaddun 33 22 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

45 Kemanusiaan The Asian Journal of

Humanities (formerly Jurnal Ilmu

Kemanusian)

28 11 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.0 0

46 Malaysian Journal of Pathology 100 46 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 5.4 2

47 Malaysian Journal of Mathematical

Sciences

80 36 2 0 0.025 0.000 0.059 0.8 1

48 Malaysian Family Physician 90 42 2 0 0.022 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

49 Journal of Sustainability Science And

Management

68 55 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

50 Biomedical Imaging and Intervention

Journal

206 64 3 0 0.015 0.000 0.000 4.0 1

51 Sari: Jurnal Alam dan Tamaddun

Melayu

95 51 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 5.0 1

52 Archives of Orofacial Sciences 59 24 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

53 Asian Academy of Management Journal 58 23 1 0 0.017 0.000 0.000 0.5 1

54 Malaysian Journal of Community

Health

88 56 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.0 1

55 ELEKTRIKA: Journal of Electrical

Engineering

67 18 3 0 0.045 0.000 0.000 2.6 1

56 Jebat: Malaysian Journal of History,

Politics and Strategic Studies

30 12 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

57 Journal of Construction in Developing

Countries

50 20 4 0 0.080 0.000 0.000 0.5 1

58 Journal of Physical Science 84 33 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.063 2.5 1

59 Malaysian Journal of Pharmaceutical

Science

48 24 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

60 Malaysian Journal of Learning &

Instruction

34 14 1 0 0.029 0.000 0.000 0.5 1

61 Kajian Malaysia (Journal of Malaysian

Studies)

37 16 1 0 0.027 0.000 0.000 2.0 0

62 Jurnal Pendidikan Malaysia (Malaysian

Journal of Education) (formerly Jurnal

Pendidikan)

72 44 1 0 0.014 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

63 Malaysian Journal of ELT Research 29 13 1 0 0.034 0.000 0.000 0.5 1

64 Malaysian Journal of Psychiatry 107 48 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 5.8 2

65 Jurnal Kemanusiaan 74 29 1 0 0.014 0.000 0.067 0.8 1

66 Malaysian Journal of Environmental

Management

53 35 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.0 1

67 Asian Journal of University Education 60 18 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.0 1

68 Asiatic IIUM Journal of English

Language and Literature

104 57 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

69 Malaysian Accounting Review 68 29 2 0 0.029 0.000 0.000 2.5 2

70 Asia-pacific Management Accounting

Journal

26 8 2 0 0.077 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

71 Journal of International Studies 42 16 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

72 Malaysian Polymer Journal 59 36 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 1.0 1

73 International Journal of Banking and

Finance

46 22 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

74 IIUM Journal Of Economics &

Management

32 12 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 2.0 1

75 Medical Health Reviews 22 16 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0 0

13

For Institutions

In Malaysia, institutions are often required to show their performance in research and development and this

results in a healthy competition to secure research grants, attract and retain high-performing staff and

outstanding research students, both nationally and internationally. Whilst research productivity in universal

databases such as WoS and Scopus is available, performance at the national levels cannot be gauged.

Performance in terms of publication and citation counts is obtainable from MyCite (Table 11). Note that the

performance displayed in MyCite is based on the journals indexed. Within Malaysia, the universities dominate

with the exception of Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Institute for Medical

Research, Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Malaysian Nuclear Agency which are government-based agencies.

Table 11: Top 20 Institutions Ranked by Total Publications in MyCite

No. Institutions Total Publications Total Citations h-Index

1 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 1715 171 4

2 Universiti Putra Malaysia 1270 122 4

3 University of Malaya 1195 102 3

4 Universiti Sains Malaysia 925 72 4

5 Universiti Teknologi MARA 406 41 3

6 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia 346 13 1

7 International Islamic University Malaysia 279 30 3

8 Universiti Malaysia Terengganu 177 9 1

9 Universiti Malaysia Sabah 175 11 2

10 Universiti Malaysia Sarawak 166 14 2

11 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre 162 3 1

12 International Medical University 131 8 1

13 Universiti Utara Malaysia 128 9 1

14 Malaysian Palm Oil Board 117 29 3

15 University of Malaya Medical Centre 114 2 1

16 Forest Research Institute Malaysia 95 12 1

17 Institute for Medical Research 86 34 3

18 Hospital Kuala Lumpur 86 5 1

19 Malaysian Nuclear Agency 82 4 1

20 Universiti Tun Hussein Onn 81 3 1

For countries

Malaysian authors do collaborate with authors affliated to foreign institutions. Records from MyCite by country

does indicate that foreign-based authors are either publishing in Malaysian journals or are co-authoring with

Malaysian authors (Figure 3). This happens more in the sciences and medical fields. Based on the top ten

country-based authors, the highest came from India, followed by Australia, the United Kingdom and the United

States. It cannot be ascertained as to the nature of contribution or collaboration as it may be the

supervervisee/supervisor relations or genuine institutional collaboration between research groups. Among the

Asean countries, the presence of authors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore is indicated.

14

Figure 3: Top 10 Country-based Works Ranked by Total Publications in 2006 - 2010

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total

Malaysia 981 1195 1391 1526 1603 6696

India 51 61 67 111 161 451

Australia 31 45 65 62 59 262

United Kingdom 35 51 39 61 42 228

United States 20 30 62 50 60 222

Indonesia 19 40 47 32 59 197

Iran 17 15 24 39 35 130

Thailand 18 22 23 30 36 129

Japan 19 19 18 31 40 127

Singapore 17 22 23 23 26 111

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

Malaysia

India

Australia

United Kingdom

United States

Indonesia

Iran

Thailand

Japan

Singapore

Bibliographic Control of Malaysian Scholarly Journals

MyCite is supported by Myjurnal a journal management system that indexes Malaysian journals. Hence, once

the indexing of Malaysian scholarly journals become more comprehensive, complete bibliographic control of

Malaysian scholarly journals becomes possible. The added bonus in this situation is that MyCite, could collate

all journal information as well as provide full-text access to a record when conditions allows for it. This situation

is expected to increase use of the journals’ content as well as their citedness.

5. Limitating Situations

The development of MyCite is not without limitations. The main problems arise from the limitation of access to

the contents of the journals themselves. Journal publishers are often unaware of the importance of being indexed

in universal or national indices. Many are still cautious about giving access to full-text. Copyright issues and

plagiarism still bother publishers. This can be reduced with future roadshows to meet publishers, (estimated tobe

over 200) to inform about the functions of MyCite and MyJurnal as a service and the need to collaborate

fruitfully to improve the access and availability of Malaysian contents to the world.

Another problem is in the proper handling of variant names adopted by Malaysian authors and their affiliations.

Some authors adopt several variant forms of their name in their publications and use both the Malay language

and English form of their affiliations. This is very common in Malaysia where articles are sometimes published

in both languages in a single issue. This inconsistency affects the counting of their publication productivity and

citations (Table 12). This situation can be solved by merging the variant authors’ names in the “Author Groups

Management” module and the affiliation in the “Affiliation Management” and Affiliation Alias Management”

modules in MyJurnal before the data is transferred to MyCite. This is especially a problem for Malay women

who sometimes have opted to use both their father’s name and their personal names in their various articles

published in Malaysian Journals (Table 13). The unique situation about Malay names which do not have a family

surname and the problems in authorship identification is highlighted in Zainab (1996). This problems are solved

15

by the “Author groups management” module in MyJurnal. However, this situation may have jeopardized the

correctness of reports returned upon searches.

Table 12: Problems of Inconsistant Adoption of Names by an Author

Authors Affiliation Country Publications Citations H-index

1 Nazni, W.A. Institute for Medical Research Malaysia 20 6 1

2 Nazni Wasi Ahmad Institute for Medical Research Malaysia 1 2 1

3 Nazni, W.A. Institute of Medical Research Malaysia 2 0 0

4 Huq, Naznin Afrose University of Dhaka Bangladesh 1 0 0

5 Nazni, W. Institute for Medical Research Malaysia 1 0 0

6 Nazni Wasi Ahma University of Malaya Malaysia 1 0 0

Table 12: An Example of an Inconsistent Adoption of Name by a Women Author

Authors Affiliation Country Publications Citations H-index

1 Ku Ruhana Ku Mahamud

Ku Mahamud, K.R.

Universiti Utara Malaysia Malaysia 7 1 1

Another limiting situation is the variation of referencing style adopted by authors in a single journal or in some

instantaces within the same article. We estimate there are about 40 referencing styles used by authors publishing

in Malaysian journals.This may be caused by authors disregard of publishers’ instructions or editorials or

publisher being relaxed over the format of submissions. These situations posed problems in the need to

constantly improve the segmentation algorithm in the “Reference editor” module in MyJurnal so that accurate

segmentations all article references is achieved because poor referencing may result in miss counting and citation

lost.

6. Conclusion and Discussion MyCite is a Citation Index system and developed in-house collaboratively between Malaysian Citation Centre

and the Information Technology Centre University of Malaya. Currently, it is available gratis to the global

community in the hope to increase the visibility of Malaysian scholarly journals. In summary, the accessibility of

Malaysian scholarly journals is a problem for researchers who find it difficult to locate and access the contents of

Malaysian-based journals. Problems are also faced by the journal publishers, who cannot sustain the currency

and frequency of their issues and are unaware of the citation performance of articles they publish. Problems are

equally faced by information professionals and librarians who find it difficult to locate complete listing of

Malaysian journals or to bibliographically control the journals that are available or those that have ceased.

MyCite through MyJurnal attempts to control Malaysian scholarly journals bibliographically and at the same

time report on their performance through bibliometric indices which are common to most other citation indices.

In summary MyCite has made it possible to (a) gauge Malaysian publication performance at both author and

institutional levels; (b) motivate Malaysian journal publishers to contribute and request for indexation of their

journals in order to improve the availability and visibility of the journals they publish; (c) contribute to enriching

national research content; (d) provide better knowledge of Malaysian’s research outputs funded by universities

and research institutions; and (e) improve information access to end-users. MyCite empowers the scholarly

community of users and can support utility at the national level. This would provide access to published

Malaysian scholarly works and should trigger collaboration and citations.

Acknowledgement We acknowledge the grant provided by the Ministry of Higher Education to develop the system for the year

2011 and 2012. We also acknowledge the assistance given by the Information Technology Centre, University of

Malaya for giving programming assistance to jumpstart the initiative.

16

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