Atıf Dizinlerinden Çıkarılan Dergiler ve Etkileri

Abstract

Journal and publication evaluation data, which citation indexes has provided, increased the popularity and the importance of the citation indexes. With attributed importance, in some countries and institutions, national or institutional incentive programs have been initiated by decision makers on the basis of these evaluation data. In this context, some journal editors and researchers have exhibited some unethical behaviors in order to increase the effectiveness of the journals and publications in the citation indexes. Therefore, citation indexes go to exclude relevant journals from the platform to prevent such behavior and to protect the index from effects of these unethical behavior.

In this study, dropped journals from citation indexes and publications in these journals are examined. In the context of the study, the main hypothesis was identified as “the ratio of Turkey-addressed publications in dropped journals from WoS to all Turkey-addressed publications in WoS is higher than the ratio of publications of other countries in dropped journals from WoS to total number of publication of the other countries in WoS”.

Within the scope of this study, data of the journal and journal-related publications which started to take place in the citation indexes and dropped from WoS for various reasons between the years 2005-2015 have been investigated. The results have revealed that 204 journals contain Turkey-addressed publications between the years 2005-2015 and the count of Turkey-addressed publications are 13,780. In addition, the results have shown that 20 Turkey-addressed journals were dropped from WoS between the years 2005-2015. The number of Turkey-addressed publications in the dropped journals from WoS constitutes 4.6% of all Turkey-addressed publications (299,044) in WoS in the period between the years 2005-2015. This rate is quite high when compared with rates of other countries. At the end, the results are clearly a proof for the hypothesis of our study.

The actions that increase publication production do not only increase the number of publications but also cause adverse conditions. Sometimes, unethical ways used to improve the performance of journals and publications cause unpredictable results as dropping from the citation indexes. Decision makers need to be careful when they use the citation indexes and their performance assessment tools. The findings of the research have a potential to bring different perspectives to journal editors, researchers and decision makers.