Editorial 

The Palawan Scientist, the official scientific journal of the Western Philippines University, started out by mainly publishing the research outputs of the university. It then progressed as a regional journal by publishing papers that are related to Palawan and its neighboring provinces. Now, even if it has still retained its name, the journal has a global reach. It currently publishes articles that dealt not only with research studies done in Palawan but also reviews and accepts papers from researchers all over the Philippines and overseas. This is clearly an indication that The Palawan Scientist is gaining momentum and establishing its reputation as a journal that publishes high quality research papers. As Palawan Scientist become more visible and widely accessed by majority of the population because of internet, scientific information covering wide range of topics practically reaches almost everyone in the scientific community.

Despite of the current pandemic, this volume contains eleven scientific articles composed of ten original research articles and a research note. These papers cover topics from fisheries and aquaculture, to environmental sciences and biodiversity to educational and social sciences. There are two papers that focused on aquaculture, seven papers on environmental science, conservation and biodiversity, and two papers on education and social sciences. Seven articles came from Filipino researchers, and four articles were outputs of collaborative studies between Filipino and foreign authors.

This year also marks the second year that The Palawan Scientist got included in the Clarivate Analytics database. This indexing body contains all journals under the Web of Science Core Collection. The journals that are included in this collection demonstrate high levels of editorial rigor and best practice. Currently, there are 24 Philippine-based journals in this database, and the country ranked fifth among the ASEAN countries, with Singapore as the highest with 128 journals. The Palawan Scientist is aiming to be at par with other ASEAN journals by increasing its scientific impact. Hence, the goal of the journal should now be geared towards increasing citations of its published papers and by encouraging submissions from authors based abroad.

We are encouraging authors to submit papers that are multidisciplinary in nature and papers that are outputs of collaborative research. Review articles that discuss timely and relevant topics and are within the scope of the journal can be solicited from well-published authors. This strategy can contribute towards increasing the impact and citations of the journal as well as gaining a positive reputation among researchers.

I am looking forward to continue working with the Editorial Board and together with the author-contributors, we can make The Palawan Scientist become a reputable journal that publishes high quality and high-impact scientific articles.

Christopher Marlowe A. Caipang
University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69721/TPS.J.2020.12.1.x

Published: July 1, 2020