Ascertaining the standard of journal using quality indices.

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.

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.[234] 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.[45] 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.[678] However, impact factor has its own shortcomings which mainly occur because of problems like self citation, thematic issues, more number of review articles, etc.[791011] 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.[68913]

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.[89]

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.[1415]

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.[91617] 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.[91518]

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.