Annual report: 72% of UC research journals have grown in their impact indicators
According to the analysis carried out by UC Libraries, 16 of the 22 of the journals produced at the university that are indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus, have increased in visibility and reach compared to their peers.
The efforts of the editorial teams of UC journals to obtain relevant publications, attract authors, define themes, establish dissemination strategies and obtain indexing on prestigious platforms are bearing good results: The panorama of our journals is auspicious and contributes in a sustained manner to national academic research and its deepening in new layers of knowledge.
This is confirmed by the last UC Magazine Indicators report carried out by the area of Strategic Scientific and Technological Information (ICYT) of UC Libraries. This analysis -corresponding to the year 2022- considers data from UC journals indexed in Web of Science I Scopus analyzed in their respective bibliographic tools: Journal Citation Report (JCR) and CiteScore (CS). The report presented by ICYT also makes a comparison with the data from the previous year in order to observe the performance and evolution of the different magazines.
Among the findings and conclusions that emerge from this analysis, it stands out that, of the total of 22 journals indexed to WoS and/or Scopus, 16 present progress in at least one of their impact indicators, which reflects the prestige and recognition of these publications in their field of study. “It is also important to highlight that – starting this year and for the first time – 8 UC journals present Impact Factor, doubling the number of journals that had this recognized indicator until last year,” adds Patricio Cortés, head of ICYT in UC Libraries. This aspect is important since, as Cortés explains, thanks to a change in the methodology applied by the Journal Citation Report (JCR), the journals belonging to the Arts and Humanities index and “Emerging” category are now considered in these measurements, a process which comes to recognize and make visible the good work that many publications in these areas have been doing for years.
Featured Magazines
Among the several journals that obtained encouraging results in this analysis is Annals of Chilean Literature, publication of UC Center for the Study of Chilean Literature (CELICH), whose main objectives are the study, research, dissemination and conservation of the heritage of national literature. In the 2022 report, this journal is part of the group of publications that debuted with the Impact Factor indicator (Web of Science), a calculation that considers the number of citations obtained by the journal and also advanced from the Q3 to Q2 quartile in the tool. CiteScore measured by Scopus, an indicator that accounts for the position it occupies compared to others in the same disciplinary field.
Rodrigo Cánovas, editor of the magazine since the end of 2022, declares that the team is very happy with this news, which is in line with the strategies that are planned to be implemented for the publication in terms of content and scope. “We hope to concentrate on a dissemination policy, taking as a model other prestigious magazines in the area that are better ranked. In another register, we plan to diversify its sections, according to a spirit of the human sciences (studies, dossiers, but also documents and creation),” he says about the magazine's future plans.
Cuadernos.info, a magazine dedicated to the study of mediated communication in Latin America, is another exponent of the good scenario of UC magazines thanks to the important advances achieved in this latest report. “As an editorial team we are very happy with the impact factor obtained in WoS and with the progress in the Q2 quartile of Scopus, as it means that the articles published in Cuadernos.info are receiving citations in the two most important databases in the world ( …) these indicators reinforce the meaning of the work of the magazine, as well as the trust placed by the authors in it,” say the Cuadernos.info editorial team, which currently has Professor William Porath as editor, replacing Rayén Condeza, who is on sabbatical.
According to the editorial team of the UC Faculty of Communications, the good results respond to a series of editorial strategies promoted by the magazine in recent times, among which the most notable are increasing from two to three issues per year, forming a team of editors associates, modernize the web platform, venture into a social network (Twitter/X) and provide clear information to authors about editorial times and flow.
Other advances
In 2023, the number of UC academic and research journals at our university increased to 33. Of these, 2 journals successfully completed their indexing process in the prestigious Scopus database: Diseña (FADEU) and nursing horizon (Nursing School). Thus, 67% of all UC journals are currently indexed in one of the recognized international databases Scopus or Web of Science.
“Although academic journals have always occupied a predominant place in scientific, technological and social development, this relevance became more evident, I would dare say, as a result of the pandemic that we experienced starting in 2020, where access was a priority. to research that would allow the development of vaccines or demonstrate the impacts of the pandemic on people's well-being. In this sense, having journals indexed in prestigious databases, such as WoS or Scopus, allows us to ensure that they have met the required quality criteria that foster robust and rigorous research,” concludes Patricio Cortés from UC Libraries.
For more information, news and resources for editorial management, visit magazines.uc.cl
For queries, reports and advice on measurement and evaluation of publications, write to icyt@uc.cl
