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SPI-Hub

SPI-Hub™ is designed as a one-stop site to inform responsible publishing decisions by providing prospective authors with information on journals' quality, rigor, and transparency. The portal was developed by the Center for Knowledge Management (CKM) in 2019 to address growing concerns regarding "questionable" journals and facilitate identifying journals appropriate for an author's manuscript. CKM has since expanded SPI-Hub™ coverage to include preprint servers and data repositories, in addition to housing CKM-developed educational content tailored to researchers in the health sciences. Notably, the portal embeds CKM information scientists' expertise in the publishing industry and journal appraisal, keeping pace with new developments in scholarly publishing. Publicly available, SPI-Hub™ was accessed in 117 countries in FY26. 

The Knowledge Management Journal RecordKM record

  • Core unit of SPI-Hub™, providing a standardized framework for collecting, organizing, and presenting journal information
  • Presents objective and impartial data to aid prospective authors with the selection of journals in which to publish
  • Based on a comprehensive review of publication guidelines and standards. Twenty-five metadata fields are populated using structured and semi-automated mechanisms. 
  • Organized in five sections: "General Information," "Metrics & Indexing," "Publication Policies," "Open Access," and "Retractions"

SPI-Hub™ has evolved to include a range of new features that help users better understand publishing practices: 

  • Publishing Services allow authors to identify journals, preprint servers, and data repositories in which to publish their research based on an analysis of quality metrics. 
  • Learn More about... brings together training material on research profiles (including ORCiD and creating a Common Form-compliant NIH biosketch), open access policy changes for federally-funded research, and a comprehensive video series overview of systematic reviews. 
  • Retraction Search allows users to identify publications retracted (withdrawn) from the published literature. 
  • iThenticate homepage provides access and training for the iThenticate academic integrity tool to VUMC faculty. 

For more information, see the SPI-Hub™ Overview. 

Publications/Presentations