Editorial 28(2)
Bibliometrics revisited
A number of previous Editorials have reported upon bibliometric data for AJET and its peer journals. In earlier times, the emphasis was upon getting AJET into important bibliometrics, especially the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor [1], and into important databases, especially ERIC [2]. More recently, it became important to inform readers and authors about bibliometric data that challenged the ARC's 'Four Tiers' ranking of AJET as merely a 'Tier B' journal [3]. Going forward (to borrow a hackneyed phrase from the business world) after Tiers [4], it is now important to monitor all of the bibliometrics available to us, to help fade the collective memory of Tiers, and avoid the scenario identified in Editorial 27(6): "Is AJET forever locked into an 'underground' Tier B?" [5]. Table 1 contributes to this monitoring.
Table 1: SJR rankings for some educational technology journals
Rank order by SJR (covering 525 education journals). Data retrieval: 15 March 2012 [6].
SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) rankings [7], produced by Scimago Lab, are calculated from citation data contained in Elsevier's Scopus database [8]. The key feature of SJR is summarised as follows by its originators, González-Pereira, Guerrero-Bote and Moya-Anegón (2009) [9]:
The essential idea ... is to assign weights to bibliographic citations based on the importance of the journals that issued them, so that citations issued by more important journals will be more valuable than those issued by less important ones. This "importance" will be computed recursively, i.e., the important journals will be those which in turn receive many citations from other important journals. [9]
Comparing AJET with its major peers as ranked by SJR (Table 1 above), by Thomson Reuters Impact Factor [3] and by Tiers [3] shows only relatively minor differences, except in the case of the Tiers rankings for AJET and Research in Learning Technology [10]. AJET, though relatively well ranked according to Impact Factor and SJR, was B ranked in Tiers, whilst Research in Learning Technology, unranked in Impact Factorand SJR, was A ranked in Tiers. Interestingly, recent issues of Research in Learning Technology show a remarkably high proportion of Australian and New Zealand papers, 50%! [based on counts of country of first author, for regular issues 19(2), 19(3), 20(1) and 20(2) (as at 29 March 2012)]. There is a particular preponderance of Australian authors in Research in Learning Technology 20(1) and 20(2), raising the possibility that as a Tier A journal it quite recently became especially attractive to Australian authors.
To explore SJR a little further, consider the first seven journals listed in Table 1. All announce their Thomson-Reuters Impact Factor on their home pages, but none mention SJR, not even Journal of Computer Assisted Learning which ranks higher with SJR than with Impact Factor. One factor that could attract editors and authors to use of SJR is that it is an open access service, whereas Impact Factor is provided through subscription. SJR may have some problems that could be due to imperfections in coverage by Scopus. For example, Table 2, showing changes in AJET's SJR, also shows that Scopus counts of AJET articles differ from the actual counts, especially for 2011, and that SJR lists 525 journals under "Education", whereas Tiers listed 1012. The reasons for this are not known, so further investigation is warranted.
Table 2: SCImago data for AJET, 2008-2011
| Year | SJR | Rank
(out of 525) | Scopus article
count | Actual article
count |
| 2011 | 0.041 | 64 | 36 | 86 |
| 2010 | 0.038 | 89 | 77 | 71 |
| 2009 | 0.032 | 134 | 49 | 45 |
| 2008* | 0.000 | 362 | 47 | 42 |
| * No SJR calculated for AJET in 2008 |
Nevertheless, AJET's "climb" during its years of SJR inclusion is an encouraging bibliometric. At the same time, we have to be sensitive to other performance criteria that are not necessarily well-correlated with citation based bibliometrics, such as number of submissions per year, acceptance rates, numbers of issues and articles per year, measures of internationalisation, review process times, size of reviewer panel and average loads per reviewer. The identification of key peer journals for AJET, i.e. the journals that appear with AJET in ranking tables such as Table 1, is a moot point. If one chooses peer journals astutely, it is possible to always secure a position at the top of a rankings table!
In 2011 AJET received 349 submissions (including 29 full papers for two special issues). This represents a 48% increase over the 236 submissions received in 2010, and an 82% increase over the 186 submissions received in 2009 [11]. More details will be available within about two months, when the retiring Production Editor completes review and author advice processes for 2011's submissions.
Roger Atkinson
AJET Production Editor (retirement pending)
Endnotes
- AJET Editorial 26(5): Idle Moment 40: Impact Factor revisited. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/editorial26-5.html
- AJET Editorial 25(1): ERIC indexing and abstracting. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/editorial25-1.html
- AJET Editorial 27(6): Impact Factor revisited: AJET ranking improved. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet27/editorial27-6.html
- AJET Editorial 27(3): Dawn of a new ERA? http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet27/editorial27-3.html
- AJET Editorial 27(6): Draft ERA 2012 Journal List released. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet27/editorial27-6.html
- SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Search string http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=3300&category=3304&country=all&year=2011&order=sjr&min=0&min_type=cd
- SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Home page. http://www.scimagojr.com/
- Scopus. http://www.scopus.com/
- González-Pereira, B., Guerrero-Bote, V. P. & Moya-Anegón, F. (2009). The SJR indicator: A new indicator of journals' scientific prestige. http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0912/0912.4141.pdf
- Research in Learning Technology. http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/
- AJET Editorial 27(4): AJET review process outcomes: 2010 data. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet27/editorial27-4.html
The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) is a refereed research journal published 7 times per year by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite). AJET retired its printed version (ISSN 1449-3098) at the end of Volume 23, 2007, and from Volume 24, 2008, the journal is open access, online only (ISSN 1449-5554), and does not have paid subscriptions.
© 2012 Authors retain copyright in their individual articles, whilst copyright in AJET as a compilation is retained by the publisher. Except for authors reproducing their own articles, no part of this journal may be reprinted or reproduced without permission. For further details, and for details on submission of manuscripts and open access to all issues of AJET published since the journal's foundation in 1985, please see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/
For editorial inquiries, contact the Editor (retirement pending), Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin, School of Education (ACT), Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia. Email: Catherine.McLoughlin@acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185.
For review process, production and business matters, contact the Production Editor (retirement pending), Dr Roger Atkinson, 5/202 Coode Street, Como WA 6152, Australia. Email: rjatkinson@bigpond.com, Tel: +61 8 9367 1133. Desktop publishing (PDF versions) and HTML by Roger Atkinson.
HTML Editor: Roger Atkinson [
rjatkinson@bigpond.com]
This URL: http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet28/editorial28-2.html
Created 2 Apr 2012. Last correction: 17 May 2012.
