BackgroundCabells’ customers have for many years been able to take advantage of its two journal databases – Journalytics and Predatory Reports – to optimise decision-making.
The product allows journal comparisons so users can shortlist journals they are interested in side-by-side to allow for detailed profiling.
This helped to provide even more targeted results for users when CompassAI had its full launch in Septemer 2027.
“Or, within a publisher’s tool, I would worry that it would advantage it’s high-APC titles over other options because publication in those would earn more profit.
This and other recommendations from users are now being investigated by the Cabells development team, with other tools soon to be launched using similar technology.
Tool helps researchers navigate increasingly complex landscape and identify the right publication for their work, writes Simon Linacre
From Cabells
One of the most consequential decision any author has to make is which journal they will submit their completed article to for publication.
After months or even years of meticulous research, choosing which journal is the right vehicle to present their work can be a stressful, arduous task. At Cabells, for nearly 50 years it has developed its database products to support researchers at this critical juncture, and the rapid development of AI technology has now enabled a new phase in support tools to be developed, including its first AI-based tool CompassAI.
Background
Cabells’ customers have for many years been able to take advantage of its two journal databases – Journalytics and Predatory Reports – to optimise decision-making. Journalytics has three versions (Academic, Medicine and STEM) focusing coverage on different subject groups, while its Predatory Reports database now has over 20,000 deceptive journals listed.
With the database products, its users can access Journalytics to identify good journals using a range of relevant data from citations to acceptance rates, while being able to rule out predatory journals from any shortlist of titles. The product allows journal comparisons so users can shortlist journals they are interested in side-by-side to allow for detailed profiling.
The challenge
However, undertaking such analysis can be time consuming, and often relies on the user to either have an intimate knowledge of the scope of each journal they identify, or that they undertake the somewhat laborious exercise of checking information about the journal to understand if it is relevant for them or not.
This process is also complicated by the fact that research by its very nature may be new to a field, or increasingly it will include interdisciplinary elements that make journal choices even more difficult. While the explosion in journal publishing since the 1950s has given authors far more choice than they have ever had before, it also means that that choice is much more difficult given the sheer range of options available.
The question for Cabells, then, was how to develop a new tool that took advantage of AI technology, but most importantly used it safely to optimise further the big journal decision all researchers are finding increasingly hard to make?
The solution
In 2026, and after much development, Cabells took the opportunity to for the first time launch a new feature with a ‘beta’ phase. CompassAI was made available to all Journalytics customers as a free upgrade to their subscription, allowing authors to use Cabells’ databases in the same way, but interrogate them more comprehensively using an AI tool.
The beta version was quite simple – users copied an abstract, introduction or summary of their paper into the CompassAI field and hit ‘Find journals’. The tool then took the information provided and used it in two ways:
Using AI-based text matching, it compared the text provided with the huge amount of data in the Journalytics database
Further matching then looks at numerous data points for the journals to produce a shortlist of titles
Following feedback from customers, further development was then undertaken to allow users to choose which data points were most important to them in their search, such as affordability of APCs or speed of publication. This helped to provide even more targeted results for users when CompassAI had its full launch in Septemer 2027.
Outcomes
As well as constructive suggestions, feedback from librarians who worked with faculty to use the tool was extremely positive. Erin Owens (Professor and Associate Director of Library Public Services; Scholarly Communications Librarian) at Sam Houston State University, said that the independent nature of the information Cabells holds across hundreds of publishers and thousands of journals was a real plus point.
“I don’t know whether our researchers think about the independence factor, but it’s definitely important to us as librarians. Even if a journal recommendation tool advertises the inclusion of multiple publishers, if it is operated by or beholden to a specific publisher, I’m always going to suspect it of advantaging that publisher’s titles in the results,” she said.
“Or, within a publisher’s tool, I would worry that it would advantage it’s high-APC titles over other options because publication in those would earn more profit. I prefer to prioritize the use of scholarly communication tools which have no monetary, publication-related conflicts of interest.”
This point was backed up by Sanna Toivola, Information Specialist at the Open Science Centre (OSC), University of Jyväskylä: “Many publishers offer their own journal recommendation tools, but we generally prefer to recommend independent services because they provide a broader and more diverse range of results. This also makes it easier for researchers to discover non-commercial publishing channels, such as diamond open access journals.”
Looking ahead
Many customers were kind enough to offer further suggestions relating to different use cases and developments which Cabells has gratefully taken on board. Erin Owens said that she had also used the tool to check her own work in compiling journal lists, and suggested the links established by CompassAI and research could help authors in drafting cover letters to editors explaining why they chose that particular journal.
This and other recommendations from users are now being investigated by the Cabells development team, with other tools soon to be launched using similar technology. With trust in journals under threat from issues such as paper mills, predatory journals and the proliferation of AI slop, providing independent and robust solutions has to be the way forward for the industry, and CompassAI hopefully points users in this direction.
