Index Copernicus (IC) is an online
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...
of user-contributed information, including
profiles of scientists, as well as of scientific
institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s,
publication
To publish is to make content available to the general public.[Berne Conve ...](_blank)
s and
project
A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular goal.
An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of even ...
s established in 1999 in Poland, and operated by Index Copernicus International. The database, named after
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulat ...
(who triggered the
Copernican Revolution
The Copernican Revolution was the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar Syst ...
), has several assessment tools to track the impact of scientific works and publications, individual scientists, or research institutions. In addition to the productivity aspects, IC also offers the traditional
abstracting
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always ...
and
indexing of scientific publications.
Origins
The Index Copernicus aimed to offer an alternative to the English language dominance of publication indexing systems. The enterprise was co-financed by the
European Regional Development Fund
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is one of the European Structural and Investment Funds allocated by the European Union. Its purpose is to transfer money from richer regions (not countries), and invest it in the infrastructure and s ...
under the name: "Electronic Publishing House of Scientific Journals system of Index Copernicus Ltd."
Controversy
IC's journal ranking system was criticized in 2013 by
Jeffrey Beall
Jeffrey Beall is an American librarian and library scientist, best known for drawing attention to " predatory open access publishing", a term he coined, and for creating what is now widely known as Beall's list, a list of potentially predatory ...
because of the alleged high proportion of
predatory journals included in it and its suspect evaluation methodology; he characterized the resulting "IC Value" as "a pretty worthless measure".
Index Copernicus remains on the list of misleading metrics.
Index Copernicus has been repeatedly accused of unethical practices.
[
At the time of partnership between Index Copernicus and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education in the project of evaluating Polish universities, Index Copernicus was offering a paid option to speed up the process of indexing journals]
See also
*List of academic databases and search engines
This article contains a representative list of notable databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and ...
References
External links
*
Scientific databases
Online databases
Polish science websites
1999 establishments in Poland
Citation indices
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