VSU’s newest journal now cataloged in 29 university libraries in United Kingdom

VSU’s newest academic journal called the Review of Socio-Economic Research and Development Studies (ReSERDS) is now getting more international attention as 29 universities in the United Kingdom have cataloged it in their library collection of peer-reviewed publications.

ReSERDS is a joint publication of Visayas Socio-Economic Research and Data Analytics Center (ViSERDAC) and the VSU Department of Economics (DOE) under the College of Management and Economics (CME).

With the goal of addressing socio-economic and development issues and advocating for free exchange of scholarly information and ideas, this publication is an open-access and applied multidisciplinary journal that features scientific articles and contemporary research findings of high scholarly merit in socio-economics and development studies in the Philippines with particular focus in the Visayas region.   

ViSERDAC is one of the three newly established data analytics centers in the Philippines funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) through the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD).

Dr. Moises Neil V. Seriño is the Editor-in-Chief of ReSERDS who concurrently serves as the Dean of CME and the Founding Director of ViSERDAC. According to him, ReSERDS was one of the target outputs of the 2016 Strategic Planning Workshop of his home department with its maiden issue finally released in 2017.

"It is the department that planned to come up with a journal that would highlight socio-economics and related development studies here in the Visayas. Our intent was to capture in our journal the progress including development related to socio-economic status, perspectives in our super region while also covering research on natural sciences that employs socio-economic perspectives in their analysis," Dr. Seriño recalled.

ReSERDS is an unrestrained avenue for local and international researchers, students, and policymakers to get relevant information and scientific findings on socio-economic and development studies as the articles published in this journal do not entail annual subscription.

"We are open access. So it's opening borders for science and we are not a subscription-type of journal. It's open for everyone to access and use the information. That's also one of our major contributions, to facilitate open borders for science because there are journals that have access barriers. It requires you to pay some subscription fees which are quite high. Well, that's also their revenue model because keeping a journal is also costly. You have to maintain the printing cost, the website management. But in this case, we are mainly subsidized by ViSERDAC so at least we can keep some of the funds going," the CME Dean explained.

ReSERDS is a site that does not charge for the publication of research articles and this is open to those budding researchers who wish to publish their current and ongoing research for free.

It is open to contributions from all fields of economics and applied social sciences. Moreover, it also welcomes submissions from natural sciences and other related disciplines as long as it highlights socio-economic concerns in their research findings that are deemed to be important contributors to the general welfare of the society.

Joining Dr. Seriño in reviewing articles for ReSERDS are 14 editorial advisory board members that include home-grown economists like Dr. Antonio P. Abamo, Dr. Ma. Salome B. Bulayog, and Dr. Fe M. Gabunada. Other members of the editorial board are coming from different international universities with strong programs in socio-economic research.

Ms. Wendy C. Enerlen and Mr. Ian Dave B. Custodio both serve as editorial assistants who do the layout and design of the journal while also taking care of local and international circulation of this publication.

When asked about the contribution of ReSERDS to the research productivity of VSU, Dr. Seriño highlighted that their research journal generates knowledge that provides inputs that would help policymakers, decision makers, and managers in making development plans and policies for the communities.

"It's science-based data driven evidence that we are providing that managers, researchers, administrators can use as input for planning, and input for programs that can help alleviate or change societal outcomes and economic outcomes that we want in our community," he said.

ReSERDS is currently being evaluated by a journal indexing platform called the Web of Science. It has also passed through the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for it to be cataloged in various university libraries here and abroad.

Aside from UK-based university libraries, ReSERDS is also now accessible to other countries like the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia, and Belgium, among others.

Part of the journal’s future plan is to get indexed by well-recognized bodies like Scopus, Elsevier's largest database of peer-reviewed literature. 

"Hopefully in the future we will be able to get an index by major indexing bodies. It's difficult because it requires more history from our site, maybe good papers to review and publish in the future. So we have to intensify our review process and make the lead time quicker. But we are currently moving in that direction," Dr. Seriño concluded.

Here are some of the university libraries that cataloged ReSERDS since it released its maiden issue in 2017:

Aberystwyth University Library
Bangor University Library
University of Bath Library
Brunel University London Library
Cardiff Metropolitan University
City, University of London
Coventry University
Directory of Open Access Journals
Edinburgh Napier University
Glasgow Caledonian University
University of Glasgow Library
Imperial College London University
Keele University
LSE Library
Lancaster University
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
University of Manchester Library
National Library of Wales/Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru
Northumbria University Library
University of Nottingham Libraries
Open University Library
Robert Gordon University
Royal Holloway, University of London
Sheffield Hallam University Library
Solent University
University of Strathclyde Library
UCL Library Services
University of Westminster
University of York Libraries

You can track the list of university libraries that cataloged the ReSERDS in this link: https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/search?ti=Review%20of%20Economic%20Studies&fbclid=IwAR31FTXdrgopHpa7xMrFU2023EhSz_Uq3zFVPj8nptbd79LBWvy-L3_g5W0

The editorial team of ReSERDS hopes to produce two issues annually and publish a total of 10 articles per year.

Aside from ReSERDS, other academic journals of VSU include the Annals of Tropical Research (ATR), which is the oldest peer-reviewed publication of the university, and the Science and Humanities Journal under the VSU Graduate School.

• Prev
• Next