Journal Readiness Check
Type your journal's ISSN or its web address. In about half a minute: a score from the public record, the three biggest gaps in plain words, and the next step.
What the check reads
DOIs at Crossref
How many DOIs the journal has registered, since when, and year by year — a gap year shows.
Record completeness
The share of DOIs carrying references, abstracts, licences, ORCID iDs, affiliations, ROR ids and funders, scored out of 100 — the same score as the Metadata completeness page.
Crossmark
Whether the DOIs carry Crossmark, which tells a reader on the article itself that it has since been corrected or retracted.
DOAJ
Whether DOAJ lists the journal, read from DOAJ's own API, and since when.
The ISSN record
Each ISSN the journal's DOIs carry at Crossref, linked to its record on the ISSN Portal.
OpenAlex
Works, citations and h-index as OpenAlex counts them, and whether it reads the journal as open access.
What you get
A score and the three biggest gaps
The gaps that cost the journal most come first, each with what it is for and how it is fixed. The rest are listed under them.
The next step, if you want one
A 15-minute call on Google Meet to go through the gaps with a person, or the full Journal Audit, which reads every criterion including the ones only a person can judge.
Questions people ask
How long does the check take?
About half a minute. It reads Crossref, DOAJ, OpenAlex and the journal's own site at the moment you ask, and every figure names the source it came from.
What does the score mean?
It is the metadata completeness score: how much of what indexes read is in the journal's Crossref records, weighted by how much each part matters, out of 100. A figure no source gave is shown as "—", never as a zero.
Does a good score mean the journal will be indexed?
No. Indexes decide for themselves, and peer review, ethics and the editorial board are judged by people. The check shows what the public record says; nobody can promise a listing or a date.
What if I give the journal's website instead of the ISSN?
The check reads the ISSN printed on that page and uses the one Crossref knows. If the page prints none, it asks for the ISSN.
What happens after the check?
You can book a 15-minute call to go through the gaps with a person, or order the full Journal Audit of 121 criteria. Three short questions under the result reach us if you want a reply about your journal.
Check a journal nowMetadata completeness score →Is this journal genuine? →
