If you are about to publish a paper or an existing author of a journal research paper then you need to know how to determine the quality of a journal.
We will discuss all the steps and procedures to determine the quality of any journal. Before that, we need to discuss the following points.
Why the quality of a journal is important for researchers?
A better quality journal creates a better impact. Researchers and authors always want to publish their valuable papers in such journal that has larger visibility and followers across the world.
Journal publishers always try to emphasize publishing quality papers to remain their reputation.
Not only the good quality journal has better visibility but also greater trust and authenticity of the data published. A good researcher always refers to a good journal for the literature survey. A good journal has a larger effect than others.
Is the Impact factor important for a journal?
The impact Factor is calculated over a three-year period and represents the average number of times papers are cited up to two years after publication.
The impact factor has been a prominent factor in the evaluation of journal quality. Greater the Impact Factor greater the quality of the journal.
Over the years other paraments like SCImago Journal Rank, Article Influence, H-Index, EigenFactor, Etc. have come out to measure the quality of the journal.
Must read: How to publish in Scopus indexed journal
How do Journal Indexing Databases help?
Journal indexing databases are the list of Quality journals. The Indexing agencies have some set of rules and regulations to index the journal into their database. If the Journal qualifies the rules and regulations then only it is allowed.
Journal Indexing agencies are the source of good quality of Journals. If any journal is indexed it means it’s a good journal.
But most researchers believe that Indexing Itself is not sufficient to determine the quality of the journal.
Must read: How to know if a journal is indexed
If any journal asking for money is a fake or low-quality Journal?
As a researcher/author, you need to understand all journal publishers are running as Non-profit Organizations or Professional Business entities.
Publishing a journal requires a lot of resources and which is depends on money. People believe that if the Journal publisher is asking money for publication then it’s a fake publisher(Pay to publish). Is it true? No, it’s not always.
You need to understand how the journal publisher will publish your paper for free. How the organization will manage the cost for a publication like reviewing, Editing, Human resource, Courier, Licensed Software, office rents, and other fees?
If the Journal is Open access then the paper gets published and is available to the world immediately. If anyone needs to read that paper can read that and refer to that as free.
However, if the journal is closed access then the user/reader needs to pay a little amount to the publisher every time he/she needs to download the paper from the publisher’s website.
Mostly Subscription Based journals do not charge the Article processing fee to the author and publish the paper for free. But in the case of the Open access journal the author may need to pay the APE(depending upon the Publisher)
Also read: Understanding Measures of Journal Quality and Impact
Procedure to determine the quality of a journal.
There is no specific procedure to determine the quality of any journal, however, you can follow tricks to find the quality of any journal.
- Check the ISSN of the journal form here https://portal.issn.org/ .
- The Journal should have a dedicated website.
- Check the Editorial board members and their contact details.
- Check the past issues whether they are published regularly or not.
- Check the Publisher’s address and the Contact details written on the journal’s website.
- Check the social media of the journal/editor regularly updated.
- Check the Journal indexing in all major indexing agencies.
- Check the journal’s Impact factor and other rankings.
- Check the Review about the journal if available on google or social media.
- Verify the Publication policy and Review Policy.
- Check the Publisher’s reorganization at various govt. and the Authority’s portal.
- Collect the information about the journal from your colleagues, professors and the college library.
There are some of the key points about how to determine the quality of a journal. If you are going to submit a paper to any Journal then this will guide you to choose the best journal.
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