Responsible Use Notice
POSI is an open journal indexing and transparency-assessment platform that also publishes open citation indicators (PCI/PCS) — see What POSI Is → for the full positioning. Understanding what POSI is — and is not — is essential for responsible use of its data.
What POSI Is
- ✓An open metadata platform aggregating journal records from Crossref, OpenAlex, OpenCitations, and DOAJ sources.
- ✓A transparency assessment tool measuring publicly verifiable journal policies and metadata quality.
- ✓A tool for editors and publishers to identify gaps in metadata completeness and technical discoverability.
- ✓A research resource for studying open access journal infrastructure and policy transparency.
- ✓A publisher of open citation indicators (PCI/PCS), clearly distinguished from Journal Impact Factor or CiteScore.
- ✓A conflict-of-interest-disclosed platform operated by Panorama Scholarly Group.
What POSI Is Not
- ✗An indexing service. Being listed in POSI does not mean a journal is indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, DOAJ, or any other database.
- ✗A peer review quality evaluator. PQF does not assess the rigour or independence of peer review conducted at a journal.
- ✗A citation impact metric. PQF and CVI do not measure how often a journal is cited.
- ✗An official accreditation body. POSI has no authority over journal recognition, institutional policy, or academic evaluation systems.
- ✗An independent third-party evaluator for PSG journals. POSI is operated by Panorama Scholarly Group, which also publishes journals listed in POSI.
- ✗A replacement for librarian judgment. POSI data should supplement, not replace, professional library and information science evaluation.
Permitted Uses
Journal metadata lookup and verification
Use POSI to look up ISSN, publisher, DOI registration status, and OA license for any listed journal.
Metadata quality benchmarking
Use MQS to identify gaps in DOI, ORCID, reference lists, and license metadata for improvement purposes.
Technical discoverability assessment
Use IRS to identify OAI-PMH, sitemap, or Schema.org gaps that prevent aggregator indexing.
Policy transparency review
Use the Policy Coverage Estimate and Evidence Registry to identify which journals likely have publicly stated policies on peer review, APC, retraction, and ethics — as a starting point for manual verification, not a substitute for it.
Open citation infrastructure check
Use CVI to check whether a journal participates in open citation standards (I4OC, Crossref deposit, OpenAlex matching).
Research on journal transparency
POSI data may be used under CC BY 4.0 for academic research into journal metadata quality and policy transparency.
Prohibited Uses
Researcher evaluation or hiring decisions
PQF scores indicate journal metadata infrastructure, not research quality. Never use PQF to evaluate individual researchers, assign publication points, or make hiring decisions.
Promotion or tenure criteria
PQF is not an accreditation or prestige metric. It must not be used as a proxy for journal standing in academic evaluation contexts.
Funding allocation
PQF scores must not be used as criteria for awarding grants, fellowships, or research funding.
Institutional ranking
POSI does not rank institutions. Using POSI journal lists to rank universities, departments, or research groups is not an intended or supported use.
Replacement for DOAJ, Web of Science, or Scopus
POSI is not an indexing service. A high PQF score does not mean a journal is indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, or DOAJ. Check those services directly.
Endorsement of scholarly quality
PQF assesses transparency and metadata readiness, not peer review rigour, editorial quality, or academic prestige. Do not interpret PQF as an endorsement of article-level quality.
Citing POSI Data
POSI metadata is available under CC BY 4.0. When citing POSI data, please attribute the original data sources (Crossref, OpenAlex, DOAJ) as shown in each record's provenance fields.