JGLS Sonepat’s flagship faculty-edited journal, the Jindal Global Law Review (JGLR), has been accepted into Elsevier’s online journals citation database Scopus.
This makes JGLR one of 846 law journals part of Scopus (which has indexed more than 36,000 titles across all subjects) and also probably India’s first pureplay law journal to do so (or at least one published by a law school, see provisos below).
Scopus is a commercial enterprise from publishing and information conglomerate Elsevier, but is significant in part because it is used as a metric by many university rankings, including India’s own National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and the international QS university rankings.
JGLS has not participated in the former, to date, but did make it into the 101-150 tier of QS’ global law schools after a concerted push by its “Office of Ranking, Benchmarking and Institutional Transformation” (NLSIU Bengaluru has consistently ranked first in the NIRF, and 151-200 in the QS for the first time this year).
In QS, JGLS had scored 45.4 out of 100 in “H-index citations” and 55.4 in “citations per paper”; H Index is weighted to make up 15% of the total Scopus score and citations per paper makes up 5% (NLSIU had scored 32.3 and 27.3 respectively in those categories).
The JGLR had been founded in 2009 before JGLS had begun its first classes, and to date has completed 17 issues, via 10 volumes of usually two issues per year, across seven themes.
In 2015, it began being published by international publishers Springer (which has also meant that the content of the journals’ content and articles are currently locked away behind a paywall, though we understand that JGU is working on making more content openly accessible).
How to Scopus
JGLS dean Prof Raj Kumar, who is also editor in chief of JGLR, explained the process for inclusion in Scopus: “Your publisher has to apply on your behalf. Our [JGLR’s] publisher is Springer, and Springer applies for you and they ask us to submit all the issues that have been ever published.
“And then they [Scopus] evaluate the citation index, they evaluate the whole board and authors and their reputation.”
Kumar confirmed that inclusion in Scopus should have a positive effect for JGLS in the law school rankings game, besides fuelling other virtuous cycles.
“There are several advantages of this: all international rankings are driven by Scopus and citations as well,” he said. “What will happen now, the good journals around the world are always finding people to publish in it and good people don’t publish in non-Scopus [journals] because they don’t get cited.”
“So this is a ripple effect,” he noted. “Where more and more renowned scholars will want to publish in our journal, whatever they publish will be cited more, and also our faculty will get published and get cited more in Scopus recognition.”
Around 20% of contributions to JGLR currently came from JGLS’ and Jindal Global University’s own faculty members. “It is a huge breakthrough, and the first time an Indian law journal has been indexed,” Kumar added.
India’s Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), which sometimes includes contributions from lawyers, is already indexed by Scopus, but we are not aware of any other Indian pureplay law journals that are.
Update 2 November: Thanks to readers for pointing out that the Journal of Intellectual Property Rights by the government’s National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) is also included in Scopus already, which we have confirmed. The journal is listed in the law category by Scopus, though it also appears to cover technical and policy issues besides just law, though of course there is not a distinct line between those in subjects such as IP.
Due disclosure: JGLS is an advertiser on Legally India.
Comments
1. Indian Law Review (I am counting it as Indian because the professors running it are NLSIU alumni based abroad)
2. NLSIU Socio-Legal Review
3. Indian Journal of International Law
4. NLSIU IJLT
5. EPW (counting it as a law journal)
6. Journal of the Indian Law Institute
7. NLUJ Trade, Law and Development
8. Jindal Law Review
9. NUJS Law Review
10. Journal of Intellectual Property Rights
It is NOT at all a law journal by any metric if evaluation
We hope this will be rectified soon.
https://idea-en.cerge-ei.cz/news/46-predatory-journals-in-scopus
Kian, you can also register in the UGC CARE and SCOPUS websites for free and access the discontinued journals list from both (I'm sure your friends in the academia can also help you get those). SCOPUS has had to issue as many as 3 lists in 2020 alone (February, June, September) to remove over hundred journals that were indexed since long. They keep doing it based on complaints received, but can't really keep up. Which is why UGC, which calls all SCOPUS and Web of Science indexed journals as part of Part 2 or Part B of its CARE list automatically, has also released a list of journals recently that are still part of SCOPUS but won't be used for UGC purposes since complaints have been received about them. The entire thing is up on the respective websites. If only people would actually read more and troll less, the world would be a much better place.
Is this a paid post?
In any case, the article is surely of wider relevance than just for JGLS.
While I personally don't place much stock in rankings, many of our readers seem to care deeply about the law school rankings game. We therefore think it is quite valuable to document the steps that law schools are taking to improve their rankings, especially those that have international rankings performance as a stated strategic aim (and have a track record on that front).
There is no mention of the term law in the official introduction of this CSIR journal:
Journal of Intellectual Property Rights (JIPR)
Introduction
This journal was started in 1996 keeping in view the importance of intellectual property rights and their protection. The objective of the journal is two-fold: firstly, to enhance communication between policy makers, organizational agents, academics, and managers on the critical understanding and research on intellectual property; secondly, to promote the development of the newly cultivated research field.The journal publishes contributed / invited articles, case studies and patent reviews; technical notes on current IPR issues; literature review; world literature on IPR; national and international IPR news, book reviews, and conference reports.
https://www.niscair.res.in/periodicals/researchjournals
1. NLUD
2. NLSIU
3. NALSAR
4. Jio Institute
5.JGLS
6.MNLU
7. NUJS
8. GNLU
9. NLUJ
10. NLIU
1. CLAT ranks of everyone admitted in JGLS.
2. How many CLAT rankers (if any) rejected NLUs for JGLS and the names of the NLUs they rejected.
It is unfortunate that you are not disclosing this very important piece of information.
Jindal Global Law Review (JGLR), the flagship journal of JGLS published by Springer is indexed in the LexisNexis legal database and is among top 200 refereed law journals in the world as per the Washington & Lee Law Review Rankings.
https://jgu.edu.in/jgls/why-jgls/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00038-019-01318-w
https://ideas.repec.org/p/fau/wpaper/wp2019_20.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7520066/
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting that JGLS is a predatory journal. I have published in that journal myself before and was quite impressed with the quality of editorial assistance and peer-review provided.
- Which are the leading Indian journals right now, in terms of citations and impact factor? JGLR may be in the top 10 or even top 5, but I do not think it is in the top 3. Also, how are the newer NLUs doing?
- What is the track record of professors at Indian law schools? For example, it is shocking to note that even the bio of Sudhir Krishnaswamy does not have a single journal of repute, barring EPW. In fact, he lists a Legally India article among his top publications. https://www.nls.ac.in/faculty/sudhir-krishnaswamy/
- What do some NLUs have to say about the practice of sub-standard journals started by certain professors and students, which use the brand name of the NLU? For example, on the one hand the NUJS Law Review is very respected, but the same university publishes some shockingly poor side journals, which LI commentators have written about before.
http://www.tradelawdevelopment.com/index.php/tld
[quote]It is the best Law Journal in India as per the most recent Washington and Lee University Rankings and among the top ten student-edited journals in the field of International Trade Law globally. [/quote]
https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2020/01/13/ipsiata-gupta-on-getting-a-training-contract-from-linklaters-london-and-being-the-editor-in-chief-of-an-internationally-renowned-journal/
https://www.barandbench.com/apprentice-lawyer/jindal-global-law-review-gets-indexed-on-scopus
https://images.assettype.com/barandbench/2020-11/19d68034-4e97-4843-8766-9164f782080d/JGLS___Press_Release.pdf
• Professor (Dr.) Upendra Baxi, Research Professor of Law
and Distinguished Scholar in Public Law and Jurisprudence, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
• Professor (Dr.) Simon Chesterman, Dean and Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, Singapore
• Professor (Dr.) B.S. Chimni, Distinguished Professor of International Law,Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal GlobalUniversity, Sonipat, Haryana, India
• Professor (Dr.) Dev S. Gangjee, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, St. Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
• Professor Sital Kalantry, Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA
• Professor (Dr.) Vikramaditya S. Khanna, William W. Cook Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, USA
• Professor (Dr.) Prabha Kotiswaran, Professor of Law and Social Change, King’s College London, UK
• Professor (Dr.) Jayanth Krishnan, Milt and Judi Stewart Professor of Law, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
• Honourable Ms. Justice Sabrina S. McKenna, Judge, Supreme Court of Hawai’i and Honorary Adjunct Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
• Professor (Dr.) Stephen P. Marks, François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan, School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, USA
• Professor (Dr.) Dianne Otto, Professorial Fellow, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Parkville,
Australia
• Professor (Dr.) Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Law and Development, Department of Urban Studies and Planning and founding Director of the Program on Human Rights and Justice at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA
• Professor (Dr.) Armin Rosencranz, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global
University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
• Professor (Dr.) Lawrence Sherman, Director, Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology and Chair, Cambridge Police Executive Programme, Institute of Criminology, University of
Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
• Professor Peter H. Schuck, Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School, New Haven, USA
• Professor (Dr.) Mahendra Pal Singh, Research Professor of Law, Distinguished Scholar in Public Law & Comparative Law, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
• Honourable Mr. Justice Michael D. Wilson, Judge,
Supreme Court of Hawai’i and Honorary Adjunct Professor, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
Clarifications before I get attacked: 1. I was here to read a few reviews about the college I am going to.
2. I gave my CLAT in 2020.
Please be nicer on public forums. Thank you!
-an aspiring lawyer
FYI, I was in Jindal for a year and retook clat and left. It's nice enough, but there's too many people to ever do enough of what you're interested in. After a month of practice and inductions, I was able to get into the debating society at Jindal. But then I was only allowed to pick one debate tournament to attend in the entire semester, based on my rank. My first month at NUJS, I was able to go for 3 different debating tournaments. Haven't regretted my decision to leave since then. Even for moots, it's 4 batches of 400+ students competing to get ranked and make it through inductions to moot. At NUJS, you can do another moot in all the time spent wasted on Jindal inductions and ranking rounds. Not saying you can't be successful at Jindal, it's just that you gamble on that small chance of success while also not gaining enough expertise in any co-curricular activity. The teachers also don't live up to their claims. 9/10 of mine sucked and I didn't bother sticking around till I had the chance to maybe get allotted a good teacher in electives.
If you actually think you're as smart as anyone who got into an NLU, honest advice: retake clat. The year drop might be scary but it was honestly the best decision of my life. So many more opportunities to do co-curricular activities, plus the choice of taking up some external courses (Eg. A&O's IFCC course) that are available just for the top 4 NLUs. You have seniors who have done everything and can guide you in whatever you want to pursue. It's a real blessing. (Ps. only leave if you get into top 4-5 though, otherwise not worth the drop). Just some friendly advice, take it if you'd like.
You can be satisfied with what opportunities you got at Jindal, I personally was not. You can say that you visited the NUJS campus and felt it was not worth dropping jindal for, but that is your opinion. I don't care about living situations, swimming pools, ACs etc., but the fact that I got to debate multiple times within the first month as opposed to only once in the entire semester at Jindal is something I value above all else. As I've said above, I do agree Jindal it's better than most NLUs, but even students who get into lower NLUs retake clat to get into the top 4-5. In the same vein, I'd suggest Jindal students retake it as well.
(Again, not saying you can't be successful at Jindal. Fewer number of students, greater opportunities and courses, alumni and senior support, and better placements at the top 4-5 among other things make the drop worth it for me.)
I do not think that return will be good and this 40 lakhs may just go to waste and i don't what's up with middle class people with these days if they are spending 40L-50L aise hi.
Ofcourse they may be like our child should get best even if we go bankrupt
If this is just an "inferiority complex", honestly compare placement stats, number of vacation schemes, number of moot and debate wins etc. across Jindal, Nujs and nluj (even Nliu to an extent). Jindal can't at all compare to these nlus, and is relatively worse off due to competition among its thousands of law students. Rather than calling envy, engage with these criticisms and try to get your admin to stop taking in bigger and bigger batches so that you can take advantage of everything your college has to offer. I heard you already have 80 people trying to be squeezed into 60-person classrooms. Go do something about that instead of making up conspiracy theories.
Board of Advisors
His Excellency Judge Abdul G. Koroma (Former Judge, The International Court of Justice)
Prof. BS Chimni (Former Chairperson, Centre for International Legal Studies, JNU, New Delhi)
Prof. Amita Dhanda (Professor of Law and Academic Dean, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad)
Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud (Judge, Supreme Court of India)
Mr. Arvind Narrain (Founding Member, Alternate Law Forum, Bangalore)
Mr. Somasekhar Sundaresan (Advocate, Independent Legal Counsel
https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2020/11/03/ebc-signs-mou-with-nalsar-for-publishing-and-distributing-nalsar-student-law-review/
AC hostels and swimming pools?
http://nujslawreview.org/submissions/
Thus, TLD is the clear leader. Hopefully this will shut up the morons commenting here.
I do believe TLD to be a very good journal indeed.