Methodology & data sources

PubScope is built on a single rule: every signal is a verifiable fact drawn from a third-party record — never our own opinion, and never a guess. This page explains exactly how the Trust Score is computed, where each fact comes from, and how to correct anything you believe is wrong.

The Trust Score (0–100)

The Trust Score is a credibility signal, not a prestige or impact ranking. A journal is placed by its strongest verifiable indexing / vetting credential; holding several credentials adds a little more. Two principles keep it fair:

• Absence is never a penalty. Not being in a selective index is neutral, not negative — the major indexes systematically under-cover open-access, non-English and regional journals, so absence tracks access model and scope, not quality. (This follows the methodology of the OECD/JRC composite-indicator handbook and national registers such as Finland's JUFO and Norway's Kanalregisteret.)
• Access model is never scored. A paywalled flagship and an open-access journal with the same credentials score the same. Being open access is neither rewarded nor penalised.

Only integrity flags subtract. The bands:

Every journal page shows the full breakdown — the exact credential that set the score, the corroboration, and any penalty — so you can see precisely how the number was reached.

Where the facts come from

We aggregate open and third-party scholarly data. We do not maintain our own blacklist, and we do not invent metrics. Coverage and freshness by source:

The Journal Impact Factor is Clarivate's licensed metric; we link to the official Journal Citation Reports rather than reprinting a number that can be out of date. Metrics can lag their source — always confirm a career-critical fact against the journal's official record.

Integrity signals — facts, not verdicts

We surface a DOAJ withdrawal(with DOAJ's own stated reason and date) and retractionrecords as neutral, sourced facts. A withdrawal is not a predatory verdict, and we do not label any journal "predatory" from our own judgement — where the word appears it is a quoted attribution to a third-party record. There is no PubScope blacklist.

The no-fabrication rule (AI features)

The AI Publication Advisor, the Journal Finder explanations, and the Review-Readiness report are built so they cannot state a fact that isn't in a tool or database result.When the evidence isn't there, they say "not found" rather than inventing an impact factor, an editor, or a citation. The free Citation Check verifies each reference against Crossref, OpenAlex, DataCite and Semantic Scholar, catches retractions and wrong/AI-hallucinated DOIs, and reports a reference it cannot match as "not found" — never as "verified".

Found something wrong? Corrections & appeals

Because every signal is sourced, an error usually means an upstream record is stale or a match is wrong — and we want to fix it. Every journal page has a "Report an error" link that opens a pre-filled form, or write to [email protected]. We correct verifiable mistakes.

Honest limitations

• The AI Journal Finder is strongest for distinctive-domain clinical and STEM abstracts; recommendations for humanities and interdisciplinary work are less reliable, and a very short abstract gives it less to work with. Treat its list as a starting point, not a verdict.
• Index coverage is never complete — a "Limited verification" score means we found no signal, not that a journal is illegitimate.
• Metrics carry the freshness of their source; we show as-of context where we can and link to the authoritative record for career-critical checks.