Classification of scholarly journals based on journal indexes coverage

Abstract

Scholarly journals can be classified according to many different criteria. Unfortunately, the classification of scientific journals is not a subject on which experts agree. Although some researchers have made suggestions on the subject, it is far from clear how to classify scientific journals. For these reasons, the aim of this study is to propose criteria for the classification of scientific journals and to make the subject more clear and understandable. Undoubtedly, the subject is controversial and open to criticism. We attempt to classify scholarly journals according to the indexes they are covered in. By using various databases and literatures and a lso b y a dding m y o wn t houghts a nd i nterpretations, s o t his t ext h as emerged. The scholarly journals were summed under four groups, viz., 1. Journals covered by Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Database such as SCI-Expanded, SSCI, AHCI; 2. Journals covered by ESCI (Part of the Web of Science), SCImago SCOPUS and PubMed Medline; 3. Journals covered in other international or local indexes and 4. Journals that are not covered by any index. The indexes they are covered can give an idea about the performance of the journal. The results of this study have provided clearer, understandable and measurable criteria for the classification of scientific journals