A Qualitative Evaluation of Animal Science Journals Published in Iran

As part of a reaserch project on the evaluation of agricultural journals by the Iranian Academy of Sciences, the objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of animal sciencerelated periodicals and management aspects of the journals in Iran. Ten indices were designed for evaluating the quality of published papers and another 10 indices for evaluation of the editorial quality of the journals. These indices were applied to 11 available journals published in 2014. The data were statistically analyzed using the “normal distribution” procedure to rank the journals into 5 categories from “very good” to “very weak”. The results showed that 27.3% of the journals ranked “very good” or “good”, 54.4% “intermediate”and 27.3% “weak”. The journals were also compared for five important indices related to innovativeness, applicability and up-to-dateness of the articles and practical usefulness and necessity of publication of the journal. Among the journals evaluated, Journal of Livestock Sciences and Technologies (in English), Iranian Journal of Animal Science and Ruminant Research (both in Farsi), achieved the highest scores in 3 indices. Other journals did not rank high in any of the indices. It is recommended that journals put more emphasis on the quality when accepting papers for publication, publication of very weak journals be discontinued, and more support be given to the journals sponsored by the scientific societies.