Abstract

A proposal for a qualitative classification of scientific journals specialized in social sciences and humanities is presented. The main objective of CIRC (in Spanish, Clasificación integrada de revistas científicas) is to become a tool to obtain bibliometrics indicators for different levels of aggregation based on the quality of publications. The ranking is the result of consensus of experts in the field of bibliometrics and research evaluation. The resulting classification consists of four groups of journals (gA, gB, gC, gD) configured according to the visibility of the journals; a fifth group of excellence was created with the most relevant journals (gEx). To create groups and determine quality of the journals, various lists and databases referenced in Cneai and Aneca standards were used. Finally, we illustrate the use of CIRC applying it to the scientific production of the departments of Social Sciences at the University of Granada.

Abstract

Altmetrics measure the impact of research by quantifying its presence on the social web. The use of this tool in research evaluation can supplement citation analysis. However, altmetric data sources suffer from biases similar to those of citation databases. Although altmetrics offer article-level metrics, it is necessary to normalize data collection in order to guarantee the consistency of altmetric indicators and to build a conceptual framework to interpret them. Altmetrics can be a source of information on researchers’ information behaviour and needs.