Monitoring, evaluation, and promotion of journals

Purpose

The basic function of this programme is to provide rankings and categorization of journals. The results also serve as a ground for evaluation of performance of related research entities, including authors and projects. The purpose is also to assist journal sponsors and financing instituions, to decide on the support and amount of the support.

A special purpose of the programme is to provide journal publishers and editorial boards with bibliometric indicators of journal impact and quality. These are intended to help journal publishers and editors to shape their publishing policies and to receive feedback on the effects of the policies. An important part of this feedback are the results telling stakeholders to what extent their journals meet international standards and criteria for indexation in the prestigious international databases and global citation indexes.

Intended effect of journal evaluation is creating an ambiance in which journals compete for:

• official recognition by national evaluation bodies;
• financial support by funding institutions and sponsors;
• commitment of researchers as contributors, reviewers and users; and
• acceptance for indexing in the most prominent international databases and indexes.

The ultimate goal of the programme is to raise impact and quality of all evaluated journals.

Activities

Within this programme the following activities are conducted:

• Preparation and regular publication of journal bibliometric reports;
• Studying and updating methods and procedures for measuring journals impact;
• Developing and updating indicators of journals bibliometric quality;
• Developing utilities for monitoring publishing timeliness and usability of journals in electronic form based on user statistics; and
• Comparative analyses of changes and trends in periodical publishing.