Evaluating and Comparing the Quality of the Agronomy and Crop Science Journals Using Bibliometric Indicators

Abstract

ABSTRACT The field of agronomy and crop science plays a crucial role in ensuring global food security and sustainable agricultural practices. In the realm of scholarly publications, bibliometric indicators have emerged as invaluable tools for quantifying and comparing the impact, reach, and significance of such contributions. Various bibliometric indicators were employed for the study, including Impact Factor, Eigenfactor Score, Cite Score, and h-index. To accomplish this, we compiled a roster of 90 agronomy and crop science journals using the Journal Citation Report (JCR) within the Web of Science (WOS), journal metrics from the Scopus database (Cite Score and SNIP), and h5-index from Google Scholar. The SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR) was obtained from its official website. Subsequently, we conducted Bivariate Pearson’s (r) and Spearman’s (ρ) correlation coefficient tests to assess ranking correlations. The study revealed notable positive correlations particularly, a strong Pearson’s (r) correlation evident between the Impact Factor (JIF) and both the Cite Score (CS) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicators, yielding values of (r = 0.962) and (r = 0.932), respectively. Interestingly, despite the distinct mathematical foundations underpinning the various citation-based bibliometric indices scrutinized, our findings underscored their robust correlations when it comes to ranking agronomy and crop science journals.