Comparisons of bibliometric indices to gauge the quality of virology journals

Abstract

The study proposed identifying and assessing virology journals’ quality by virtue of internationally accepted bibliometric indicators, namely, JIF, CS, SJR, and h5-index. The data collected from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google metrics for the year 2018 under the category ‘Virology’. Thirty-six journals retrieved, then ranks and values of journals compared with each indicator’s metrics. To assess the compatibility, the bivariate correlation coefficient calculated using SPSS. Microsoft Excel and Microsoft access 2010 used to analyze and visualize the journal’s ranking with each indicator. The results exclaim except Cell Host and Microbe, none of the journals shows a similar ranking in all four indicators. Only seven journals are open access, and the rest of the 29 closed access—the USA leading ‘Virology’ researches. The calculation of the correlation coefficient indicates that all the indicators are compatible and can be used as an alternative to others to assess the journals’ quality. Mainstream researchers in virology can securely utilize the SJR and h5-index indices as feasible options to JIF.