Understanding policy and practice of peripheral journal publishing in Indonesian higher education context
Authors: Ramadhana Muhammad Affan 
Published: July 2021

In a 2014 paper, Salager-Meyer defined two main categories of academic journals, center and peripheral. Peripheral journals are mostly written in the national language of where the journals are located, although some of them start using English as a secondary language (Salager-Meyer, 2014). On the other hand, center journals - in some cases referred to as prestigious international journals - are written in English as the default communication among established scholars. It has been a common fact nowadays that to gain tenure or promotion, scholars in many parts of the world have to publish their research in a so-called higher-ranking/center journals, even if they are from the ‘periphery’ of the academic community. Given the pressure situation to publish in those center journals, some scholars are even more familiar with the structure and organization of a research paper in English rather than their own local languages (Bocanegra-Valle, 2014).

However, not every scholar is able to publish in higher-ranking/center journals. Some of them are novice scholars who have never written journal articles before. Therefore, they need to publish in lower-ranking journals with their own local languages. Some scholars may also prefer to publish in English and to be reviewed by international referees. The suitable journals for that might be ‘international’ in certain senses, but essentially, they are published by national institutions. For novice or beginner scholars, it might be a good first step toward publishing in more prestigious journals. Those journals have an important role for early stage researchers who need to practice their academic writing (Kulczycki, Rozkosz, & Drabek, 2019).

That situation transformed many long-established peripheral journals, including those published by Indonesian universities, towards internationalization in many aspects. For journals from non-English-speaking countries, internationalization means publishing articles in English by local scholars, encouraging authors from foreign countries to publish in local journals, and reviewing articles by international scholars (Kulczycki, Rozkosz, & Drabek, 2019).

Regarding the main language in those journals, some authors positively perceived the use of English for research publication purposes, yet, there still exists some resistance to the hegemony of English (Bocanegra-Valle, 2014). Therefore, instead of full transformation into English, Salager-Meyer (2014) suggested a multilingual publishing model of national peripheral journals by presenting English abstracts and keywords for every article published. This model would still allow the international scientific community to be aware of worthwhile peripheral insights and research results yet does not throw the national language away.

However, national peripheral journals are frequently perceived as having a low-level quality. One of the key problems of local journals is that their readership is very small and hardly ever transcends national boundaries. In Indonesian context, for example, most authors who publish in national journals still fall into parochialism traps, where the description and discussion of their topic is only for localized context, and therefore the assumed audience consists of readers in the same country or cultural group (Adnan, 2014). This means that such journals are read only by those who publish in them. In this situation, internationalization would certainly face huge constraints.

Another thing to consider is the article submission flow. Ideally a journal needs a stable number of submissions to maintain the quality of articles published. Yet, Bocanegra-Valle’s (2019) study on journals in Spain revealed that the excessive number of emerging journals makes them compete among themselves to become excellent journals, but the low inflow rate of submissions is one of the major obstacles to applying strict selection of quality.

Therefore, peripheral journals need to reformulate their vision if they wish to become one of high-rank reputable journals. In their study about internationalization of journals in social sciences and humanities, Kulczycki, Rozkosz, & Drabek (2019) noted two kinds of journals: 1) journals that are actually prestigious and internationally oriented and 2) journals that are actually locally oriented yet have implemented the highest standards of editorial practices. In addition to that, one interesting case is the development of a Colombian-based journal, which has gone a substantial development over two decades in terms of review quality and international indexing recognition, yet still claiming to be a peripheral journal (See Cárdenas & Nieto Cruz, 2018).

Journal accreditation system in Indonesia allows journals to gradually improve their qualities, while on the other hand actively encourage long established journals to become one of center-journals in their respective fields. By May 2020, there are 4985 accredited journals in Indonesia listed in Sinta database with six levels of accreditation. Moreover, Indonesia has the most open access journals listed in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) with 1,660 titles. Those numbers are counting and are likely to reach additional hundreds more by the end of this year.

For the past five years, Indonesian government have actively encouraged the improvement of journal management by reissuing sets of regulation related to journal accreditation (e.g. MoRTHE Regulation No. 9/2018 on Scientific Journal Accreditation). Furthermore, on a 2019 circular, the ministry requires students of undergraduates, masters, and doctorates to publish their research in journals before completing their studies. Research articles from students in different levels should create a stable supply for the journals in different level of accreditation.

In line with previously mentioned situation, Salager-Meyer (2015) stated that peripheral journals have strong reasons to exist. In Indonesian context, it is worth questioning if peripheral journals only exist to accommodate local or national publishing demand. Therefore, it is important to explore the position and status of academic journals in Indonesia and how it contributes to the improvement of higher education.