The editorial boards of scientific journals as a subject of scientometric research: A literature Review

Abstract

This paper presents a review of publications that explore the role of editorial boards for scholarly journals. Such studies are rather limited as the role of editorial boards of scientific periodicals has not yet been fully gauged by information experts as a subject of scientometric research. However, the study of the publication activities, as well as the geographic, linguistic, and gender distribution of editorial-board members offers a new perspective on several issues of relevance to scientometrics. Such issues include the assessment of research performance at the country, organizational, or research-group level; research and publication ethics; journal quality; and internationalization of a scientific discipline.