An assessment of South Africa’s research journals: Impact factors, Eigenfactors and structure of editorial boards

Anastassios Pouris,Androniki E.M Pouris

doi:10.17159/sajs.2015/20130358

Abstract

Scientific journals play an important role in academic information exchange and their assessment is of interest to science authorities, editors and researchers. The assessment of journals is of particular interest to South African authorities as the country’s universities are partially funded according to the number of publications they produce in accredited journals, such as the Thomson Reuters indexed journals. Scientific publishing in South Africa has experienced a revolution during the last 10 years. Our objective here is to report the performance of the country’s journals during 2009 and 2010 according to a number of metrics (i.e. impact factors, Eigenfactors® and the international character of editorial boards); to identify and compare the impact of the South African journals that have been recently added to the Thomson Reuters' Journal Citation Reports®; and to elaborate on issues related to science policy.

Highlights

Journals are the main vehicle for scholarly communication within the academic community
We identify whether the newly added South African journals in the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) are of similar quality as the pre-existing journals
The impact factor of a journal is defined as the quotient between the number of times an article published in the journal in the previous 2 years is cited in the year of observation and the number of articles this journal has published in these previous 2 years

Summary

Introduction

Journals are the main vehicle for scholarly communication within the academic community. Assessments of journals are of interest to a number of stakeholders from scientists and librarians to research administrators, editors, policy analysts and policymakers and for a variety of reasons. Researchers would like to know where to publish in order to maximise the exposure of their research, and what to read in order to keep abreast of developments in their fields within the time constraints they face. Librarians would like to keep available the most reputed journals within their budget constraints. Research administrators use journal assessments in their evaluations of academics for recruitment, promotion and funding reasons.

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Methods

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Conclusion