Document,Informaiton & Knowledge ›› 2020, Vol. 0 ›› Issue (3): 128-136.doi: 10.13366/j.dik.2020.03.128

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Correlation Analysis on Peer Review and Impact Factor of Journal Evaluation in Humanities and Social Science

  

  • Online:2020-05-10 Published:2020-05-21

Abstract: [Purpose/Significance]Since there are controversies between peer review and impact factor in journal evaluation, this paper intends to analyze the correlation of evaluation results of the two methods. It aims to identify the correlation and difference between the two methods so as to develop evaluation indicators and conduct journal evaluation in a better way.[Design/Methodology]1,291 journals in the field of humanities and social science were selected as the sample, and they were categorized into 33 disciplines. Experts performed peer reviews on these journals through questionnaires. Then comparison was made between peer review results and journal impact factors, including the current year impact factor, comprehensive impact factor and the recent five-year impact factor. Besides, the influence of disciplines, paper amounts, launching time and other related factors on the correlation of the two methods was explored. [Findings/Conclusion]High consistency has been found in the evaluation results of the two methods. And the consistency is higher in social science than in humanities. The consistency of results between peer review and impact factor increases successively in the current year impact factor, impact factor and recent five-year impact factor. At the same time, peer reviewers tend to give high scores to journals of small paper amount while there is no obvious correlation between paper amount and impact factor.[Originality/Value]A quantitative statistical analysis has been conducted on the consistency of journal evaluation results between peer review and impact factor with the use of over 4,500 questionnaires.

Key words: Journal evaluation, Peer review, Impact factor, Humanities and social science, Qualitative assessment, Quantitative assessment