Comparison among Selected Journal Quality Indicators of Mechanical Engineering Journals

Abstract

Objective: This paper investigated the possibility of advocating usage of SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), Eigenfactor Score and H5 index indicators as alternative to the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) for quality assessment in the field of mechanical engineering. Researchers and librarians concerns of methods of scientific journal ranking regarding publication language, analysis time and self-citation impact amongst other factors are addressed through suggested alternatives. Method: The SJR, ES, H5 index and JIF scores and ranking order of mechanical engineering journals were downloaded from the relevant websites. Pearson and Spear man’s correlation coefficients were calculated to test linear and monotonic hypotheses for association between different journal quality metrics. Selected coefficients were adopted for assessing linear and monotonic relationships of chosen variables and ranking values, respectively. Result: A very strong positive correlation was found between the scores and ranking order based on the SJR, ES, H5 and JIF of selected journals. Hence, academics and researchers in mechanical engineering are encouraged to use the SJR, ES and H5 indicator as an alternative to JIF for evaluation and judgment of scientific journals in the area.