In 2020, State Institution "I.S. Lupinovich Belarus Agricultural Library" of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus took the initiative to create the first unified information resource in the Republic of Belarus for scientific publications on agricultural topics "Portal of Periodicals of the Department of Agricultural Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus" (hereinafter referred to as the Portal). According to the decision of Bureau of the Department of Agricultural Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus on June 5, 2020, the Library was appointed the executor of work on the creation and filling of this information resource.
Today, in addition to coordinating the work of the Portal, the Library is actively engaged in issues of systematization and adaptation of materials published in journals included in the Portal to international requirements put forward by international scientific citation databases.
The Portal consists of two elements.
The first element is the Portal itself, which provides unified information about new, most cited and viewed articles on agricultural topics, news of agricultural science and has a single search line for all materials posted on the Portal. The Portal is located in the .BY domain zone and is located on the Library servers.
The second element is fully autonomous sites of scientific journals. Each of the journals included in the project received its own separate site, which fully complies with modern scientific publishing practices and the requirements of international scientific databases, including Scopus and Web of Science. The modern interface and functions of the sites allow you to conveniently work with the materials of the journal.
The journal sites have the following properties and functions:
– The correct electronic version of the scientific journal, built in compliance with international publishing standards. This provides the following advantages: increased visibility and citation; full compliance with the requirements of international scientific databases, including Scopus and Web of Science; a qualitatively new level of publications, the ability to most fully demonstrate the work done by the authors by publishing additional materials to the articles (high-quality images, videos, data sets, etc.); a format of full texts HTML, XML adapted for work in electronic form and a format PDF adapted for the same presentation on different devices; more complete information on the demand for various articles and sections due to the collection of statistics on views of metadata, full texts and service pages of the site; automated uploading of articles and their metadata to Russian and foreign databases (RSCI, Crossref, DOAJ, etc.); the ability to apply for and pay for a subscription on the website both to the entire journal and to individual issues and articles; saving the working time of the editorial board due to complete outsourcing of the execution of all tasks related to the site, its support, publication of materials, archive and new issues; increasing the prestige and popularity of the journal.
– Promotion of the journal in international scientometric and subject databases. The presence of the journal in international catalogs is necessary to increase the prestige of the publication, expand the readership, including foreign, and make the journal more attractive to new highly cited authors and leading experts as reviewers.
– Use of electronic editing, which simplifies and streamlines communication with authors and reviewers. There is no need to constantly monitor stages and deadlines, the system will send a notification by email. All information on articles, including the history of reviewing, editing and correspondence history, is collected in one place and is accessible from anywhere in the world. The automated step-by-step process of submitting an article is carried out by the system, not by an editorial employee. More efficient work of the editorial board, saving their time and reducing the likelihood of errors. Formation of reports on editorial statistics (by articles, by reviewers, by authors, etc.). Built-in verification of articles in the Antiplagiat system.
– Preparing manuscripts for printing or promotion via electronic platforms. HTML layout increases the availability of the electronic version and the convenience of working with it. XML layout makes it possible to upload articles to electronic systems. PDF layout for printing and uniform presentation on any device. A unique recognizable design layout developed specifically for the journal is another point of contact with the audience.
– DOI registration in the Crossref system. This is compliance with the requirements of international databases on the mandatory presence of DOI for articles, availability of articles regardless of their location on the Internet and unlimited in time, additional citations of the article due to unambiguous identification, automatic sending of article data to the author's profile in the ORCID system, the ability to use the CrossMark article relevance control system.
– Consulting on journal development. Always be aware of current trends in scientific publications. Receive answers to your daily questions. Assistance in identifying the weaknesses of the journal and turning them into strengths. Personal recommendations for the development of a specific publication. Free examination of the site and journal for compliance with the requirements of international scientific databases.
The Portal and the journal websites were developed jointly with The Platform of Complex Journal Support and Guidance Elpub of the non-profit partnership "National Electronic Information Consortium" (NEICON).
The result of the work should be the creation of a single full-text database, which will present all periodicals published by scientific and practical centers and institutes of the Department of Agricultural Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
This project was implemented within the framework of the long-term strategy of the NAS of Belarus for the inclusion of Belarusian scientific agricultural journals in international scientific databases and familiarization of the world scientific community with the developments of Belarusian agricultural scientists.