Qualitative Evaluation of Iranian Scientific Journals in Agriculture and Natural Resources

In a research project in the I.R. Iran, Academy of Sciences, 200 Iranian scientific journals in 13 fields of agriculture and natural resources were qualitatively evaluated and scored. The journals were ranked “very high”, “high”, “medial”, “low” or “very low” on the basis of total score using a common statistical method. Accordingly, the distribution rank of the journals among the five above categories was as follows: very high, 5%; high, 27%; medial, 38.5%; low, 22% and very low, 7.5%. In addition to the total score, the journals were also ranked for five indices of “practical usefulness”, “necessity of publication”, and quality of their articles including “up-to datedness”, “innovativeness”, and “scientific/applied merits”. The journals which attained a score equal or higher than mean plus 1 standard deviation were regarded as “high” ranking. The percentages of journals which ranked “high” by various indices were as follows: 10% in “practical usefulness”, 16.5 % in “necessity of publication”, 15% in “up-to-datedness”, 15.5% in “innovativeness”, and 14.5% in “scientific/applied merits”. Percentages of “high” journals in one or more indices were: 36.5% at least in one index, 20.5% in two indices, 10.5% in three indices, 3.5% in four indices and only 1.5% in all five indices. Thus, these indices, in addition to total score, may be considered when evaluating the journals for their scientific rank.