Human-Curated Journal Quality Indicators: A Review of the Norwegian Register

Both university students and experienced researchers struggle to evaluate the quality and credibility of academic sources . Many journal quality indicators (JQIs), intended to assist in source evaluation, rely solely on quantitative bibliometrics . Those are currently at a higher risk of being skewed by recent publication trends . Human-curated quality indicators offer a potential advantage . This resource review introduces the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers as an open-access alternative to purely bibliometric indicators . The Norwegian Register is curated by committees of human experts representing specific academic disciplines, and provides the user with an elaborate quality leveling system: standard, credible scholarship (Level 1), the most prestigious channels (Level 2), and non-scientific (Level 0) . The data can be integrated via API into external tools . In this review, Keenious is used as an example of how the data can be used to assist users in evaluating source quality directly in a third-party user interface . Although librarians and researchers should be aware of limitations such as lag time for new journals and a Nordic-driven nomination process, the system provides a universal utility for assessing academic quality