Information science journals in Brazil: comparative analysis between quality indices and indices of academic and social impact

Abstract

This paper aims to profile Brazilian Information Science journals and compare their quality and impact indicators, be these traditional or altmetrics indicators. It is an exploratory and descriptive research, with quantitative analysis of 23 journals, analysed in accordance with their Qualis (2013-6) assessment, their h and g indices from Google Scholar Metrics and their altmetrics data from Facebook for the period 2011 to 2016. The Qualis assessment was obtained from the Sucupira Platform, the indices from Harzing’s Publish or Perish, and the altmetrics through the Facebook Application Programming Interface (API). The results show that the journals were created between 1972 and 2011, that they are edited by universities and that the most adopted frequency of publication is biannual (52%), followed by quarterly (39%). Regarding the national quality indicator Qualis, 73% of the journals fall within the higher stratum of B1 to A1. Regarding impact, 30.4% of the journals have an h-index greater than 10, and only 13% have a g-index greater than 20. Regarding their altmetrics, 34.7% have a Facebook altmetric value greater than 1,000 interactions. It can be concluded that the position of the journals vary if applied to the Qualis assessment system, the h and g indices and Facebook altmetrics. The journal that displays the greatest coincidence between the national index, and those of Google Scholar Metrics and the Facebook altmetrics was Encontros Bibli which is classed as Qualis A2, h-index 11 and g-index 17, and 2,261 interactions on Facebook.