A method for measuring journal discriminative capacity and its application in WOS

Abstract

Journal discriminative capacity refers to the degree of difference between the journals in research subjects, and is of great significance for detecting the level of journal differentiation. Current research on journal discrepancies is predominantly focused on the quantitative analysis of journal content, and rarely measures the degree of journal difference. To address this lapse in research, a method from the perspective of difference is proposed in this paper to quantitatively measure and analyze the discriminative capacity of journals. Using the bibliographic of Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) journals from 2015–2017 as the data source, the contents differences of 23 Library and Information Science (LIS) journals are analyzed through hierarchical clustering and journal discriminative capacity (JDC) measurement. The discriminative capacity of disciplines is then calculated and combined with multidimensional scaling analysis to detect the difference characteristics of journals in ten disciplines, and the mean JDC is used to explore the overall differences of disciplines. Results show that the discriminative capacity of LIS journals is obviously stratified, the journals of library science are the most discriminating, and the journals of evaluation and review are the weakest. In addition, the journals of different disciplines have distinct disciplinary characteristics, with the discriminative capacity of SCI journals as the most notable, followed by SSCI journals, and with A&HCI journals displaying the weakest discriminative capacity.