Responsible research assessment
Evaluate the work, not the venue.
Panorama Scholarly Group Ltd is an organizational signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). We are developing publishing practices that recognise quality, integrity, openness, and contribution beyond journal-based metrics.
Purpose and scope
Research is communicated through many forms: articles, books, data, software, methods, reviews, public scholarship, and contributions to policy and practice. Responsible assessment should be able to see that range rather than reducing quality to the identity or rank of a publication venue.
This group-level commitment applies to the editorial and publishing practices maintained by Panorama Scholarly Group and its imprints. It complements our Editorial Standards and Publication Ethics policy; it does not replace the scope or decision criteria of an individual journal or book project.
Three principles guide our approach
We use DORA as a practical framework for improving how scholarly work is described, assessed, and presented to authors, editors, reviewers, readers, and partners.
Assess the work on its merits.
Editorial and publishing decisions should attend to the work’s question, evidence, method, reasoning, originality, clarity, and contribution, not to the reputation of the venue alone.
Use indicators responsibly.
Quantitative information can provide useful context, but it is not a substitute for expert judgement. Indicators should be clear, transparent, specific, contextual, and fair.
Recognise diverse contributions.
Research quality and influence may be expressed through data, software, methods, review, teaching, policy, practice, community engagement, and other contributions alongside publications.
Indicators belong in context
We do not use Journal Impact Factor, journal rank, citation counts, or similar indicators as stand-alone proxies for the quality of an individual article, author, or researcher. A journal-level measure describes a journal-level pattern; it does not determine the value of every work published there.
Where quantitative indicators are relevant, we will explain what they measure, identify their limitations, and interpret them alongside the content and context of the work. We will avoid presenting a single number as a complete account of scholarly quality or impact.
What this means for our publications
We will continue to make article-level information, contributor roles, research outputs, licensing, corrections, and other signals of scholarly value easier to understand and discover. The relevant information may differ by journal, discipline, and publication type.
Our promotional and editorial communications should describe the work itself and its contribution. We will not present a journal-based metric as a guarantee of the quality, importance, or likely reception of a particular submission or publication.
Implementation and review
As a DORA signatory, we treat this statement as an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, not a certification or claim that every practice is complete. We will review relevant author guidance, journal information, metadata, promotional language, and editorial workflows as the publishing programme develops.
Questions about this commitment can be directed to Panorama Scholarly Group. We welcome constructive feedback from authors, editors, reviewers, librarians, researchers, and readers about how responsible assessment can be made clearer and more useful.