Journal quality
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to
- determine journal impact factors according to Thomson-ISI
- discover a journal's ranking according to Journal Citation Reports
- assess journal quality using a range of measures.
Why worry about academic journal standards?
Journal standards, even among peer-reviewed titles, vary widely. The best academic journals practice rigorous peer-review and have exacting standards. The worst are vanity publications, existing only to minister to the self-importance of their editors and those who contribute to them. Learning to tell the difference, and identifying the premier journals in your field, are essential research skills.
Impact Factor
The most commonly used measure of journal quality is Impact Factor. This is a number which attempts to measure the impact of a journal in terms of its influence on the academic community. Impact Factors are published by Thomson-ISI.
In simple terms, a journal's impact factor is the ratio between the number of citations and the number of recent citable articles in Thomson-ISI's database. A journal's impact factor is defined by a simple calculation: "The impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of current citations to articles published in the two previous years by the total number of articles published in the two previous years."
Thomson-ISI's Journal Citation Reports (JCR) provides quick access to the impact factors for thousands of academic journals. In general, the higher the impact factor, the more important and prestigious the journal.
Unfortunately, Thomson-ISI provides impact factors for only a small proportion of the total number of peer-reviewed titles. Although Thomson-ISI claims to provide figures for the leading international journals, coverage is heavily weighed towards English-language titles in the fields of science and medicine. Except in the case of titles from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, reporting of journals published outside the United States of America is extremely patchy. For example, there are few Australian titles in ISI-Thomson's database compared to the total number of peer-reviewed journals published in Australia.
Although JCR claims to cover 200 separate disciplines, coverage within these disciplines is far from even. The Science Edition of JCR covers over 5,900 titles, whereas the Social Sciences Edition covers only 1,700.
 | Choose an international peer-reviewed journal with which you are familiar. See if you can discover the journal's impact factor using Journal Citation Reports. Follow these steps:
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Journal Ranking
Even Thomson ISI admits that impact factors are not the whole story. The range and type of articles published in a journal can have a direct effect on a journal's impact factor. An average-quality title which publishes on topics of wide interest will have an advantage in terms of impact factor over a higher quality title which deals with a more specialised area.
Relative impact factors are often a better guide to the importance of a journal than raw numbers. JCR allows you to compare the impact factors of different journals in the same subject area
The Economic History Review has an impact factor of 1.051. At first glance, it would appear that this journal is relatively unimportant. In fact, it is arguably the premier English-language journal in its field (its major competitor, the Journal of Economic History Review, has an even lower impact factor: a mere 0.529!). Far more illuminating is the journal's relatively high impact factor compared to other journals in the history of the social sciences.Economic History Review ranks first out of 15 journals in the Thomson-ISI's list of journals in this sub-discipline. In these terms it is clear why Economic History Review can have an impact factor less than fortieth of some science titles and still be widely regarded as a premier journal with world standing.
The example of the Economic History Review also reveals some of the limitations of Thomson-ISI's system of journal ranking. There is no separate category for the discipline of economic history. Missing from the Thomson-ISI database are other major titles in European and British economic history, such as the Agricultural History Review.
| If you were successful in finding the impact factor of your selected journal, you can go further and discover its relative ranking in its field according to JCR. Follow these steps:
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Sponsorship by learned societies
Another guide to journal quality is the general reputation of the association, society, or organisation publishing the journal.
Leading professional associations such as American Psychological Association (APA) or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) publish a range of journals that are highly regarded.
The American Medical Association publishes JAMA, and the Medical Association of Australia is responsible for the MJA. These journals are very important medical titles in the United States and Australia respectively. JAMA in particular is known by its reputation world-wide.
Editorial Board
The reputation of the journal editor or editorial board is a good indication of the title's prestige. Once again, the Economic History Review provides a good example. The journal has been edited by a succession of some of the most famous names in British economic history: including M M Postan, D C Coleman, H J Habakkuk, F M L Thompson, and E A Wrigley.
Membership of a journal's editorial board is often available on the journal's site or the inside cover of a paper issue.
Rejection rates
A further indicator of journal quality is a high rejection rates. If a journal rejects all but a small percentage of the articles submitted for publication, it is likely that the journal's standards are higher than those of a journal with a higher acceptance rate. A premier journal, like Nature might reject 95% of the articles submitted. Rejection/acceptance rates are often available on the journal's site or the inside cover of a paper issue.
Circulation figures
Circulation figures are sometimes used as a clue to the quality of a journal. However, these depend on a range of factors. If a journal is published by a professional society, it might have a large quoted circulation, even if most of the members never bother to read it. Specialised journals with small circulations can also have higher standards of peer-review than titles which reach a broader academic readership.
Circulation figures for many journals are available from UlrichsWeb.
Frequency of inclusion in indexes
Another guide to the quality of a journal is the number of journal databases which index or abstract articles from the journal. This information is often on the inside cover of a journal, on the Web or available through UlrichsWeb. Again, the number of databases which index or abstract a particular journal depends on a range of factors, including journal coverage, place of publication and linguistic factors, as well as journal quality.
| Choose another peer-reviewed journal with which you are familiar. To discover how many databases index and abstract this journal, follow these steps:
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ERA journal ranking
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is working on a comprehensive journal ranking list for academic titles, as part of the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) project. A draft list of 21,000 titles has already been released and is available from the ERA Journal Rankings List page.
Journals are ranked into four tiers (A*, A, B and C) on the basis of overall quality. The highest quality journals are the A* and A journals. The lowest quality are C journals. Research published in C journals is not necessarily bad research, and research published in A* journals is not necessarily of highest quality. However, the ERA journal rankings is a useful quick guide to journal quality.
Summary
This module dealt with the following topics:
- differences between academic journals in terms of quality
- how to find journal impact factors
- how to find journal ranking according to Thomson-ISI
- assessing journal quality using a range of measures.
 | Self-test Try these quick self-test questions to assess what you have learnt from this module. |