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BRIEF COMMUNICATION |
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| Year : 2015 | Volume
: 19
| Issue : 2 | Page : 119-120 |
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Ascertaining the standard of journal using quality indices
Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava, Jegadeesh Ramasamy
Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
| Date of Web Publication | 14-Sep-2015 |
Correspondence Address:
Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava
Department of Community Medicine, 3rd Floor, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute, Ammapettai Village, Thiruporur-Guduvancherry Main Road, Sembakkam Post, Kancheepuram -603 108, Tamil Nadu
India
 Source of Support: Nil, Conflict of Interest: None declared.  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/0019-5278.165327
In the modern era, most of the researchers want to share their work on a global platform so that they not only receive the due recognition but even their findings can be utilized by other professionals working in the same arena. In order to achieve this, the most common approach is to publish the research findings in an appropriate journal. However, the indicators which eventually determine the overall quality of a journal are variable and there is a great need that the contributors should understand the meaning and scope of each of these indicators. In conclusion, in order to establish the journal's quality, the researchers should obtain the information about the various indices from the journals' website or editorial board and then only submit their research work for publishing.
Keywords: H-index, impact factor, journal
How to cite this article:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS, Ramasamy J. Ascertaining the standard of journal using quality indices. Indian J Occup Environ Med 2015;19:119-20 |
How to cite this URL:
Shrivastava SR, Shrivastava PS, Ramasamy J. Ascertaining the standard of journal using quality indices. Indian J Occup Environ Med [serial online] 2015 [cited 2022 Jan 18];19:119-20. Available from: https://www.ijoem.com/text.asp?2015/19/2/119/165327 |
| Introduction | |  |
In the modern era, most of the researchers want to share their work on a global platform so that they not only receive the due recognition but even their findings can be utilized by other professionals working in the same arena.[1] In order to achieve this, the most common approach is to publish the research findings in an appropriate journal (viz. covers the scope of the article, good quality, wider reach and accessibility, etc.).[1] However, the factors / indicators which eventually determine the overall quality of a journal are variable and there is a great need that the contributors should understand the meaning and scope of each of these indicators.[1]
Till the last decade, rough indices like number of issues copies sold in a defined span of time, or the number of hits or number of downloads for a specific article, etc. were being employed, all of which had its own limitations and never provided a holistic picture of the journal probably because of the potential scope of bias associated with each of them.[2],[3],[4] In this article, an attempt has been made to simplify the meaning of some of these indicators which are widely used by international journals. This will help the researchers to understand the significance of each of them and thus will help them to make an informed choice while selecting a journal for publishing the findings of their precious work. Some of the widely acclaimed indices are as follows:
Impact factor
Globally, impact factor remains the most commonly used indicator which can enable the researchers as well as the scientific community to judge the journal quality.[4],[5] Technically, impact factor for a particular journal is computed by obtaining the ratio of total number of citations in the current year to articles in the last two years and the total number of articles published in last two years.[6],[7],[8] However, impact factor has its own shortcomings which mainly occur because of problems like self citation, thematic issues, more number of review articles, etc.[7],[9],[10],[11] Nevertheless, impact factor still finds wide utility and is being used for sanction of funds for research work, selection of candidate for job, improves the image of institute, lack of other indicators to comprehensively evaluate the journal, etc.[12]
Eigenfactor score
This score estimates the total number of times in the last five years articles from a specific journal have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports. However, the Eigenfactor Score considers citations to journals in the field of science as well as social science, and even negates the concern of self-citations, which is a very common problem associated with impact factor.[6],[8],[9],[13]
Article influence score
As the name suggests, the article influence score indicates the importance of the journal on a per-article basis. It is estimated by obtaining the ratio between the journal's Eigenfactor score and the fraction of articles published by the journal.[8],[9]
SCImago journal rank indicator
SCImago Journal Rank Indicator is obtained by using a similar method as used for estimation of the ES and AIS. However, the basic difference is that in SJR, the period of assessment is last three years The basic limitation for this indicator is that it can be employed only for those journals which are indexed in Scopus.[14],[15]
H-index
Over the last decade, h-index has gained wide utility and has become a useful tool which can assess the scientific output of a researcher. This indicator considers various factors before giving the final value such as number of contributors in an article, average number of citations, etc.[9],[16],[17] Most of the scientific community has advocated that h-index should be used to complement the impact factor so that shortcomings of the same can be neutralized.[3]
Immediacy index
It refers to the number of times a specific article is cited in the same year in which it is published. However, it is an extremely biased indicator and can be easily influenced by multiple factors like self-citation, articles published on similar topic, etc.[9],[15],[18]
Quality of references
Indicators like Citation Density (viz. total number of references cited in an article) and Half-life (viz. number of past years required to find at least 50% of the cited references) are being used to assess the quality of a reference.[19]
| Conclusion | | |
In order to establish the journal's quality, the researchers should obtain the information about the various indices from the journals' website or editorial board and then only submit their research work for publishing.
| References | | |
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| 2. | Pan RK, Fortunato S. Author impact factor: Tracking the dynamics of individual scientific impact. Sci Rep 2014;4:4880. |
| 3. | Yang ZG, Zhang CT. A proposal for a novel impact factor as an alternative to the JCR impact factor. Sci Rep 2013;3:3410. |
| 4. | Kodumuri P, Ollivere B, Holley J, Moran CG. The impact factor of a journal is a poor measure of the clinical relevance of its papers. Bone Joint J 2014;96-B: 414-9. |
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| 9. | Brown T. Journal quality metrics: Options to consider other than impact factors. Am J Occup Ther 2011;65:346-50. |
| 10. | Smith R. Commentary: The power of the unrelenting impact factor: Is it a force for good or harm? Int J Epidemiol 2006;35:1129-30. |
| 11. | Rawat S. How is impact factor impacting our research? Biomed J 2014;37:415-6. [ PUBMED] |
| 12. | Casadevall A, Fang FC. Causes for the persistence of impact factor mania. MBio 2014;5:e00064-14. |
| 13. | Bergstrom CT, West JD. Assessing citations with the Eigenfactor metrics. Neurology 2008;71:1850-1. |
| 14. | Ramin S, Sarraf Shirazi A. Comparison between Impact factor, SCImago journal rank indicator and Eigenfactor score of nuclear medicine journals. Nucl Med Rev Cent East Eur 2012;15:132-6. |
| 15. | Oosthuizen JC, Fenton JE. Alternatives to the impact factor. Surgeon 2014;12:239-43. |
| 16. | Hirsch JE. An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2005;102:16569-72. |
| 17. | Bornmann L, Daniel HD. The state of h index research. Is the h index the ideal way to measure research performance? EMBO Rep 2009;10:2-6. |
| 18. | Luciano M. The new impact factor and immediacy index of World Psychiatry. World Psychiatry 2012;11:207-8. |
| 19. | Venable GT, Shepherd BA, Roberts ML, Taylor DR, Khan NR, Klimo P Jr. An application of Bradford's law: Identification of the core journals of pediatric neurosurgery and a regional comparison of citation density. Childs Nerv Syst 2014;30:1717-27. |
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