Scientometrics
Volume/Issue:
Volume 93: Issue 2
Relative measure index: a metric to measure the quality of journals
Authors:
R. G. Raj Department of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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A. N. Zainab Department of Library & Information Science, Malaysian Citation Centre, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; zainab@um.edu.my

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Pages:
305–317
Online Publication Date:
29 Feb 2012
Publication Date:
01 Nov 2012
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0675-z
Keywords:
Journal quality measure; Bibliometrics; Relative measurement index; Journal impact
Restricted access

Abstract

Journal impact factors (JIF) have been an accepted indicator of ranking journals. However, there has been increasing arguments against the fairness of using the JIF as the sole ranking criteria. This resulted in the creation of many other quality metric indices such as the h-index, g-index, immediacy index, Citation Half-Life, as well as SCIMago journal rank (SJR) to name a few. All these metrics have their merits, but none include any great degree of normalization in their computations. Every citation and every publication is taken as having the same importance and therefore weight. The wealth of available data results in multiple different rankings and indexes existing. This paper proposes the use of statistical standard scores or z-scores. The calculation of the z-scores can be performed to normalize the impact factors given to different journals, the average of z-scores can be used across various criteria to create a unified relative measurement (RM) index score. We use the 2008 JCR provided by Thompson Reuters to demonstrate the differences in rankings that would be affected if the RM-index was adopted discuss the fairness that this index would provide to the journal quality ranking.

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Cover Scientometrics
Scientometrics
Print ISSN:
0138-9130
Online ISSN:
1588-2861

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Scientometrics
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1978
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 12
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0138-9130 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2861 (Online)

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