University of Leon
Question
Asked 19 July 2020
What is the top ten scientific journals in the world, and how quality is evaluated?
Do quality is evaluated just depends on the impact factor (IF)? what is the greatest number of the IF?
Most recent answer
In our areas we always seek quality analysis of journals in JCR (Journal Citation Report) and/or in WOS (Web of Science).
The rating is a relationship between the number of times, in a year, that a journal is cited by the number of articles that journal has published in the same year.
Ildefonso Alvear-Ordenes
Popular answers (1)
Al-Furat Al-Awsat Technical University
Dear Colleague,
I think it is better to specify a field of knowledge first, then specify the top ten journals.
for example we can not compare a journal in engineering with another one in agriculture...
Anyway, this site is very good.
Regards,
Emad
14 Recommendations
All Answers (51)
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka
First, I strongly oppose to the idea that IF reflects the quality of a journal (or articles published in it). Second, as Ali says, IF highly depends on the subject domain, in which it is utilized as citation behaviour vary from one subject domain to another. Therefore, it is more appropriate to looking for topmost journals (based on IF) separately for distinct subject domains.
2 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Salih Muhammad Awadh as Ali A. Yousif explained it depends largely on your field of research. The following link e.g. lists a number of IF journals in geology:
2 Recommendations
University of Baghdad - College of Scinece
Dear Frank T Edelmann
Thank you very much for a nice answer
1 Recommendation
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Salih Muhammad Awadh you're welcome. When having a closer look at this, you will find that the impact factors of scientific journals differ significantly between various fields of research. Attached please find an overview of the most important IF journals in our field of research (chemistry).
11 Recommendations
Santa Catarina State University
Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh
Considering the Impact factor from Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of the Web of Science Core Collection, the top ten journals (IF 2019) are:
1. CA-A CANCER JOURNAL FOR CLINICIANS - 292.2
2. NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE - 74.6
3. Nature Reviews Materials - 71.1
4. NATURE REVIEWS DRUG DISCOVERY - 64.7
5. LANCET - 60.3
6. WHO Technical Report Series - 59.0
7. NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY - 55.4
8. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology - 53.2
9. NATURE REVIEWS CANCER - 53.0
10. CHEMICAL REVIEWS - 52.7
Best regards.
4 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Fábio Dominski, yes, that's the best answer to the original question. It's not surprising that medical journals are in first places.
2 Recommendations
Academie Musicale Universitaire des Sciences et des Arts (AMUSARTS)
Fábio Dominski Good answer.
2 Recommendations
Al-Furat Al-Awsat Technical University
Dear Colleague,
I think it is better to specify a field of knowledge first, then specify the top ten journals.
for example we can not compare a journal in engineering with another one in agriculture...
Anyway, this site is very good.
Regards,
Emad
14 Recommendations
Iqra National University
Every research area has their own category of Top Journals, it depends on your research area.
3 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Salih Muhammad Awadh I agree with Gulzar Mehmood in that the Top 10 journals should better be compared within a certain field of research. Between different research areas the differences in impact factors can be very high.
2 Recommendations
University of Baghdad - College of Scinece
Dear Frank T. Edelmann
Dear Gulzar Mehmood
Emad Kamil Hussein
Dear all, Thanks a lot for your nice contribution
3 Recommendations
University of Novi Pazar
TOP 10
1
CA-A CANCER JOURNAL FOR CLINICIANS
IF 292.278
2
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
IF 74.699
3
Nature Reviews Materials
IF 71.189
4
NATURE REVIEWS DRUG DISCOVERY
IF 64.797
5
LANCET
IF 60.392
6
WHO Technical Report Series
IF 59
7
NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
IF 55.47
8
Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology
IF 53.276
9
NATURE REVIEWS CANCER
IF 53.03
10
CHEMICAL REVIEWS
IF 52.758
5 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Muzafer H. Saračević this list had already been posted by Fábio Dominski.
2 Recommendations
Geological Survey of Iran
Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh
There are several tools which enable users to look up and automatically calculate the impact indicators of the most important scientific journals:
- Journal Citation Reports (JCR): It includes publications reviewed by the most widely-cited experts in the world and covers approximately 200 different disciplines. JCR can be accessed online via the Web Of Science platform (WOS) and can be used to run online searches and look up the Impact Factor of a given journal or a group of journals and make comparisons between these. The impact factor is calculated annually by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).
- This is an essential tool for investigating the level of influence and impact that a journal has had on the international research community.
- It does not measure the quality of an article but rather that of the journal in which the article was published.
- Not every journal has a JCR impact factor and journals that do have one do not have this permanently.
- The impact factor of a journal is updated every year and may vary from one year to another.
- One single journal can be associated with several subject areas and it is likely that the journal will have a different level of impact within each of these subject areas.
- The impact index of a journal title in any given year is a fixed index in JCR.
- Each subject category of journals is divided into four quartiles: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Q1 is occupied by the top 25% of journals in the list; Q2 is occupied by journals in the 25 to 50% group; Q3 is occupied by journals in the 50 to 75% group and Q4 is occupied by journals in the 75 to 100% group. The most prestigious journals within a subject area are those which occupy the first quartile, Q1
Best regards.
1 Recommendation
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Dear Enaiat Haghfarshy when you copy-and paste answers from the internet, it is advisable that you cite the source. Otherwise it would be plagiarism. In this case the source is the following link:
For more information about plagiarism on RG, please refer to the following thread:
5 Recommendations
Concept Research Foundation
Dear Researcher,
This is a very good question that you have raised. I am being benefited immensely by your question and the answers provided by the great scientists and researchers from around the world.
In this context, there is a question in my mind. I am a researcher with limited abilities. After pursuing a research, how do I understand whether my research has reached the level to get published in one of the best journals or not. I mean to say that, should I approach the journal editors directly for publication and let them decide or is there any other way.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Anamitra.
2 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Dear Faraed Salman when you copy-and-paste your answers from the internet (in this case Wikipedia) you should cite the source. Otherwise it's plagiarism!
This is the Wikipedia entry which you plagiarized:
4 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Dear Anamitra Roy "how do I understand whether my research has reached the level to get published in one of the best journals or not." This is of course a vey important question and not an easy decision. To judge this, you need to have a good overview of your field of research. Once you have envisaged a certain journal for submission of your work, it also helps to read the current issue of this journal to get an impression what the published papers are like. In my opinion it is not advisable to contact the Editor prior to submission.
It might also be of interest to you to check out the following RG thread:
4 Recommendations
Concept Research Foundation
Dear Professor,
Thank you very much for your guidance. I shall surely keep those in mind. I shall also go through the link.
Best regards,
Anamitra.
2 Recommendations
University of Central Lancashire
Top 10 Scientific Journals [and how to check for quality] and some details available at https://imotions.com/blog/top-science-journals/
Maitama Sule University Kano
It is preferable to mention the field of research for the ranking because journal citation report (JCR) is based on subject area/specialization.
JCR in web of science gives list of ranking of journals according to their impact factor. Authors can view from 1-100 or more ranking of the journals.
Bangladesh University of Textiles
I think Scientific Journal Ranking (SJR) site is the best site of journal ranking www.scimagojr.com
1 Recommendation
ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region
Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh
Top 20 journals as per journal citation report (2019) are given below:
1. CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians: 292.278
2. New England Journal of Medicine: 74.699
3. Nature Reviews Materials: 71.189
4 . Nature Reviews Drug Discovery: 64.797
5. LANCET: 60.392
6. WHO Technical Report Series: 59.000
7. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology: 55.470
8 Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology: 53.276
9 Nature Reviews CANCER: 53.030
10 Chemical Reviews: 52.758
11. Nature Energy: 46.495
12. Journal of American Medical Association: 45.540
13. Reviews of Modern Physics: 45.037
14. Chemical Society Reviews: 42.846
15. Nature: 42.778
16. Science: 41.845
17. Nature Reviews Disease Primers: 40.689
18. World Psychiatry: 40.595
19. World Psychiatry: 40.595
20. Nature Reviews Immunology: 40.358
I think citation is the major factor that accounts for impact factor of journals. However, other factors of journals such as timeliness of publication, review process, visibility, accessibility, and the like also contribute to impact factor of journals. To my opinion, impact factor by and large reflects quality of journals; however, there may be exceptions, and it should not be considered an absolute parameter.
Thanks!
4 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Dear Aijaz Panhwar please see this potentially useful link. It lists the top journals in Environmental Science.
5 Recommendations
Technical College Požarevac
Journal Citation Reports ranks journals based on their impact factor within their disciplinary category...
SJR discipline rankings lists all of the journals in a discipline or subdiscipline based on their SJR. These rankings are available only through SCImago's website, scimagojr.com ...
Google Scholar rankings list all of the journals in a discipline or subdiscipline based on the H5-index or H5-median. These rankings are available through Google Scholar Metrics...
4 Recommendations
Technical College Požarevac
Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh , there is one research question with more than hundred answers which are relevant and related to your research question. Link follows.
4 Recommendations
Technical College Požarevac
Many Journal ranking lists and databases are given here.
3 Recommendations
Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Dear Arbind K. Choudhary "Top 20 journals as per journal citation report (2019) are given below": I hope you don't mind if I mention that this list has already been posted at least two times on this thread. Besides, I seriously doubt if this thread is really helpful of many RG members as most of us will never have the chance to publish in any one of the journals mentioned in this list....
2 Recommendations
ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region
Dear Frank T. Edelmann
As per question, I added the list comprising top 20 journals. The list I posted in modified form under the section "data" in my publication profile more than 3 months ago. Yes, I share your doubt that hardly any of us would be able to utilize these journals to publish our papers.
3 Recommendations
University of Baghdad - College of Scinece
Thanks a lot for all for the valuable information
4 Recommendations
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
This may help: https://journal-if.com/
1 Recommendation
University of Baghdad - College of Scinece
What is the difference between Cite Score and impact Factor for the rebuttable journals?
3 Recommendations
Technical College Požarevac
Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh , you may find necessary information about the difference between Cite Score and impact Factor in following discussion rooms.
3 Recommendations
Technical College Požarevac
How top journals are identified, whether assessments of impacts are accurate and whether high publication charges borne by the research community are justified, bearing in mind that they also collectively provide free peer-review to the publishers...
We review and comment on the advantages and disadvantages of a range of assessment methods and the way in which they are used by researchers, managers, employers and publishers. We argue that new approaches to assessment are required to provide a realistic and comprehensive measure of the value of research and journals and we support open access publishing at a modest, affordable price to benefit research producers and consumers...
2 Recommendations
Universiti of Malaysia Sabah
Top scientific journal ranking as I found in the google and Scopus database, there is some variations. The impact of the journal, h index and interdisciplinary approaches a few journals are there; though most of the journals are very specific fields.
https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php (WOS only)
1. Ca-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 2. MMWR Recommendations and Reports📷 3. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology
4. Quarterly Journal of Economics 5. Nature Reviews Materials 6. Cell 7. Nature Reviews Genetics 8. Reviews of Modern Physics 9. Journal of Political Economy 10. Nature Reviews Immunology
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en (H-index basis)
1.Nature 2.The New England Journal of Medicine 3.Science 4.The Lancet .IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 6.Advanced Materials 7.Nature Communications 9.Chemical Reviews 10.Chemical Society reviews
Both groups have their excellence for the benefit of society and nature as a whole.
Quality evaluation purpose I think most specific journals are most significant because of their review and editorial process and selection of paper for publications but citation aspect interdisciplinary journal are very significant.
Technical College Požarevac
Review of science journals shows strengths and weaknesses
The quality-assurance process is a precursor to the identification of journal titles to be loaded on to the open-access platform SciELO SA ...
Only open-access journals of sufficiently high quality will be included in this fully indexed, free-online, multinational platform, now also directly featured on the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) portal...
2 Recommendations
Technical College Požarevac
Towards a new paradigm for ‘journal quality’ criteria: a scoping review
‘Journal quality’ is by nature, a dynamic and multidimensional concept that is influenced by many factors. So far, no studies have been conducted to examine the architecture of this concept in depth. The aim of this scoping review was to map out the current status of research in this broad area, identify as many ‘journal quality’ criteria as possible from the fragmented literature, and develop a conceptual framework for this concept...
4 Recommendations
University of Baghdad
Dear Dr. Saleh, thank you for this topic, which is useful for all researchers to keep abreast of the most important scientific journals and classify them scientifically for the purpose of publication. Always stand out with your ideas.
1 Recommendation
University of Leon
In our areas we always seek quality analysis of journals in JCR (Journal Citation Report) and/or in WOS (Web of Science).
The rating is a relationship between the number of times, in a year, that a journal is cited by the number of articles that journal has published in the same year.
Ildefonso Alvear-Ordenes
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