Quality of scientific journals: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract

The evaluation of scientific activity is a fact that has grown and been well evidenced in the academic community in recent decades. Scientific journals, the main sources of information at the present time and responsible for the diffusion of knowledge through scientific publications, are the means of evaluating the scientific activity most viewed. During the digital age and the need for publication for the validation of studies, the increase in scientific production is imminent, which consequently entails the appearance of new journal titles. The emergence of these new titles spreads in the need of the evaluation of scientific journals. It is believed that it is necessary to propose parameters and quality indicators to assist in this evaluation. As is known, quality indicators already exist that aid in the evaluation of scientific journals, of which the impact factor and the Qualis Capes are the most used and emphasized in the literature. But to what extent can we consider the impact factor and the Qualis Capes as the main quality indicators of scientific journals and use them in large majority to classify the quality of a scientific journal. Based on the points, the research in question intends to carry out an analysis of the literature, more specifically a systematic review of the literature in order to answer the following question: what characterizes a scientific journal of quality according to the scientific literature? In advance, it can be concluded that the literature is still very restricted to the quality of scientific journals, using as main indicator the impact factor, but other indicators not less important are also gaining space. It is also perceived as an incipient subject, despite the great concern of authors of articles in publishing their manuscripts in renowned journals.