Physical chemistry research articles published in the bulletin of the Korean chemical society: 2003-2007

Abstract

The physical chemistry (PC) articles published in the Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society (BKCS) from 2003 to 2007 are surveyed, and in-depth content analysis was conducted to classify the PC articles into 12 topics used in The Journal of Physical Chemistry (JPC). The PC articles published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) in 2007 are also surveyed. The extensive summary of all PC articles in BKCS for the last five years reveals the current trend of physical chemistry research in Korea. The comparison study with the JACS shows that the proportion of PC articles among all articles published in BKCS (16%) is slightly higher than that of JACS (11%), and the non-Korean authorship ratio of BKCS (12%) is very low compared with the non-US authorship of JACS (52%). From the comparison study with articles published in JPC in 2007, it is found that BKCS disseminates various topics of physical chemistry researches adequately. In particular, BKCS most frequently published PC articles in molecular structure and spectroscopy topics, whereas JPC published surface chemistry and nano-chemistry articles most frequently. It is concluded that BKCS should publish more articles to be a leading journal, and it is suggested that the SCI impact factor of BKCS must be increased by improving the electronic version of BKCS.