Journal Rankings

[ajb]

There are now several numerical ways to rank science journals, for example we have Impact Factor and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR).

 

I am not exactly sure how serious one should take these rankings. For sure you cannot use them to compare journals in different fields.

 

The main factors I take into account when choosing a journal to submit a paper are

i) Subject appropriate

ii) Editors I know of

 

Journal ranking seems less important to me at this stage, but that may change as bureaucrats take more and more notice of rankings.

 

So my question/subject for discussion is 'how important are journal rankings to you?'

[CharonY]

It depends on the field quite a bit. High-ranked journals have the advantage of recognizability even from people not entirely within your field, which is especially an issue if you are multi-disciplinary. Also, getting in to hard-to-get-into journals (e.g. Science or Nature) is often seen as a badge of sorts and also boost recognition. As a side-effect your article is more likely to be found and cited if presented in one of those journals.

 

That being said, it also depends on the context whether the journal rankings are taking into consideration. For example, for hiring purposes people tend to look at your actual citations, so an article with few citations even in a high-ranked journal is not very beneficial. On the flipside for grant reviews people often take less time and may be swayed by the journal's name.

 

With regard to bureaucrats it may also depend on the system and country. In some countries they try to create scores to evaluate tenure and in these cases sometimes the Journal IF is included. Even if it isn't during tenure evaluation being able to say that one publishes regularly in prestigious journals is definitely a plus.

 

Whether the prestige is based on IF or just being the top journal in a particular field does not matter that much, though for obscure fields it may require more explanation.

 

That being said, I generally have an idea where my articles fit well and I do start looking at IF to see where my stuff roughly falls into.

[ajb]

Thanks for your reply CharonY.

 

I am wondering if some nearly finished work should be submitted to a very high IF journal (high by relative standards). The trouble seems to be that the higher ranked the journal the slower they are. Science or Nature are ruled out I think.

[Arete]

I spent 4 years as a postdoc in a biological sciences department at an Ivy school and I saw early career candidates interviewed for junior faculty positions based on a single publication in a top tier journal, and I've seen others looked over for not having enough papers in top field specific journals ( in my case Evolution, American Naturalist, Systematic Biology, Molecular Biology and Evolution, etc).

 

So it matters in my field - in physics/math with the advent of arxiv it probably matters less.

[ajb]

So it matters in my field - in physics/math with the advent of arxiv it probably matters less.

Researchers tend to read the arXiv versions first and maybe chase up the published versions later. They should of course cite the published version even if they only read the preprint. Typically there is not much difference between these versions.

 

However, when it comes to being evaluated for whatever, peer-review publications are what count.

[CharonY]

To add to Arete's point, for early researchers a high IF paper can be indeed career-defining, especially if you apply shortly after the paper is out. At that point citations are not expected to rack up. However, if it is a few years out and no one cites it, it won't help you much (usually).

 

I cannot say much about publication times, as they vary wildly. However, in my field things accelerated considerably over the last five years or so. From what I heard it is not the same in theoretical physics or mathematics (but honestly, I have only hearsay).

 

That being said, if it is not ridiculously long, and there is not a high chance of getting scooped, submitting it into a high IF and letting it sit in review for a bit may not hurt you too much.

Edited July 13, 2015 by CharonY