In the academic publishing environment, which is highly competitive, it is important that one keeps ahead of the metric changes in order to have a chance of progressing the career. At Fast Publications, we create the distinction between transformative research and impactful placement. Our consultancy provides researchers the strategic advantage they require to get through the complicated indexing systems.
And be it a PhD student or a professor in her later years, our professional Journal Selection Advice makes sure that your publication isn’t merely published, but read by the appropriate person in the appropriate quartile.
Frequency of Journal Quartile update? A Guide for Researchers
Months, maybe years, are spent correcting your manuscript. It is a journal with a Q1 that you have submitted your work to and then you sit back and await the completion of the peer review process. However, what will it do to you when that journal slips to the Q2 position and your article is under revision? The timing and mechanics of quartile updates are crucial to every publication strategy of a scholar.
The Annual Cycle of Prestige
The majority of large citation databases are strictly updated annually. The two most powerful programs, namely the Clarivate (Web of Science) and Scopus (SCImago), normally publish their latest metrics in the mid-year season.
- Journal Citation Reports (JCR): Clarivate typically publishes the new Impact Factors and quartile standings in early July. Such rankings are based on the citation data of the last calendar year.
- SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): Scopus-based rankings generally have the same schedule, and are updated in May or June.
Since such updates are done annually, the position of a journal is a snapshot of its performance. When you are writing a paper in January, you are looking at the information in a report from last year. When your paper gets published in August the journal may be in a different quartile.
The calculation of quartiles
In order to know why they change, you have to know how they are built. The journals placed in a certain category are sorted in four equal groups in databases according to their impact measurements:
- Q1 (Top 25%): Best, impactful journals in a discipline.
- Q2 (25% to 50%): Quality journals that have a steady citation rate.
- Q3 (50% to 75%): Adequate journals which may be more specialized or niche.
- Q4 (75% to 100%): Newer journals or journals with fewer citations.
The quartile of a journal is not definite since it is a relative position. Although a journal may get a better individual citation, there is a possibility that the journal may decline a quartile as other journals in the same category may achieve higher improvements.
Why Fluctuations Occur
A journal can skip or fall out of the flow between June updates due to several reasons:
Field Growth: When a given sub-field (such as AI or Virology) is experiencing an enormous influx of citations, then the threshold of Q1 in that category goes up.
- Heightened competition: The lower 25 percent continues to grow with more journals entering a category, and the standards employed to enter the upper levels grow more stringent.
- Editorial Shifts: The increase in a journal scope or a special issue, called mega-issue, of highly cited papers, can increase the rank of a journal, which may subsequently restore itself over the next year.
The Hazards of Periodicals of the Boundary
We usually caution clients against so-called boundary journals at Fast Publications. These are books that are at the very extreme of a quartile (e.g. the 24th or 26th percentile). The most probable ones to change are these journals.
In case your term of service, or funding, is contingent upon a Q1 publication, then publishing in a journal in the top 10 per cent of its field gives you an insurance policy against yearly variations. On the other hand, placing a journal at the bottom of Q1 is a dangerous bet when you are placing it close to the June update window.
Strategic Journal Advice in Choosing
What do you do to guard against these changes in your research? Global Journal Choice tips: Considering more than the present figure.
- Test the Five Year Trend: Do not just look at the quartile of this year. Evaluate the business performance of the journal in the past 5 years. In the event that it continuously occupies Q1 position, it is a non-dangerous target. In case it goes between the Q1 and the Q2, take caution.
- Keep track of CiteScore Tracker: Scopus is offering a monthly CiteScore Tracker. This will enable you to view the performance of a journal real time prior to the annual release.
- Consult the Experts: It is common knowledge that most institutions attach importance to the quartile rank during publication, rather than submission. When your review process takes six months, then you are gambling on the next update.
The ways in which Help Can be obtained from Fast Publications
The algorithm of navigating these windows will take more than just a search engine; it will take data-driven foresight. We are Fast Publications, where we study the tendencies of citations and the upcoming updates so that your manuscript will be published in a stable and high-ranking home. Our reports are complete, and we assess:
- Real-time citation tracking. This is in terms of historical stability in quartiles.
- Competition; This is category competition within a category.
And do not allow an annual update to derail your career objectives. You transform a statistical uncertainty into a calculated benefit by keeping abreast on the frequency of journal quartile updates.
