Evaluation of Iranian Scientific Journals in the Discipline of Agronomy and Plant Breeding

A survey was conducted to evaluate 200 scientific journals published in 2014 in the field of Agronomy and Plant Breeding by Department of Agricultural and Natural resources, Iran Academy of Sciences (IAS) during 2016-2017. Results showed that 40 journals can be categorized in the field of “Agronomy and Plant Breeding” (10 journals in crop ecology, 8 journals in genetics and biotechnology, 22 journals in agronomy and plant breeding). The quantity of 286 scientific papers (from 40 journals) were randomly selected and evaluated by 2-4 academic members using 10 structural and 5 qualitative indices. Each paper were received a separate score from each reviewer. Applying standard statistical methods on data ranked 2 journals (5%) as having high quality, 11 journals (27.5%) as good, 16 journals (40%) as intermediate, 10 journals (25%) as low quality and 1 journal (2.5%) as very low-quality journal. According to 5 qualitative indices, 3 journals were selected for applied utility index, 7 for publication necessity, 6 for update index, 8 for innovation and six for scientific value index. Finally, 3 journals namely Modern Genetics (in Farsi), Agronomy of Seed and Seedling (in Farsi), and Plant Physiology and Breeding were selected as high-quality scientific journals. Twenty-two journals were not considered as high quality in any of the evaluated indices.