Qualitative Evaluation of Soil Science Journals in Iran

An investigation was carried out for the journals in 13 branches of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at the Department of Agricultural Sciences, IR Academy of Sciences. A total of 200 Iranian scientific journals were qualitatively evaluated. As part of that project, the results of 10 journals in the fields of soil science published in 2014 are reported. Ten indices for evaluating the format of the journals and five indices for the quality of the articles published in the journals were designed and used. The data were statistically analyzed to rank the journals. Results showed that none of the journals received the highest ranking (very good). Twenty percent were good, fifty percent were medium, twenty percent were weak and ten percent were placed in the very weak category. The journals were also compared by the following criteria in relation to published articles: innovativeness, applicability and up-to-datedness of articles and practical usefulness and necessity of publication of the journal. In this regard, Biology Journal scored highest. Journals of Soil and Water Conservation Researches, and Soil Management and Sustainable Production scored highest for the necessity of publication. None of the assessed journals showed any preference in view of practical usefulness.