In general, it does. But there are some fluctuations: if a research is too unusual and an author isn't famous, some high-IF journals can refuse the articles with very interesting new results. But these events are very rare. 

English is a language of the science now. It is a self-evident fact. But just 20-30 years ago it wasn't so obvious and there are a lot of very good articles in different languages (German, Russian, etc.).

In general, it does. But there are some fluctuations: if a research is too unusual and an author isn't famous, some high-IF journals can refuse the articles with very interesting new results. But these events are very rare. 

English is a language of the science now. It is a self-evident fact. But just 20-30 years ago it wasn't so obvious and there are a lot of very good articles in different languages (German, Russian, etc.).

Mariano:

I concur with Denis on this one.

Debra

I agree in general with Denis. While JCR is informative, there are many reasons why JCR may be a wrong indicator:

a)      Innovative article is not published, because either the author is little known (then rejection rate is higher), because he/she is misunderstood (ideas come too early) or for “political” reasons (including being not mainstream),

b)      Article may be published but not noticed, because it is published in a wrong journal or because too few people are interested, or because author is misunderstood.

I know some scientists who invest a lot in marketing their articles by more presentations, self citing and other methods. It may happen that an article of the same quality has 5-10 times more citing comparing with an article without marketing.

Dear Denis and Debra,

I believe it is a business effect to think that the better science needs to be published in English and in IF journals. I think in Spanish articles which resolve problems of 69 years ago in first American journals, and they have not got any cite until now even cited several times. I think that Thomson Reuters, Google Scholar, etc. follow their own market objectives, but they are not very objective in their procedures and conducts. Have a good idea does not mean to manipulate the product in own benefit without fair play with all ones.

Dear Mariano, the language of publishing may matter, but I disagree with strong disadvantage of Spanish. Denis is right that 30 years ago the importance of  German and Russian has been higher. But there are more people speaking Spanish across the globe and some of them do not read English. Of course, the most popular journals are in English. But there are also closed networks; I mean some Spaniards who read the literature mostly in Spanish will also cite more people from their Spanish-speaking network. But only in the case if the topic is hot, like Spanish housing bubble or unemployment. Those who write about some complex math tools and whose audience is just 10-20 people across the globe (out of them maybe just 2-3 from Spain and Latin America) will have a disadvantage.

I would say 'no' given that a publication can induce many discussions/citations about how things might work/be explained?

Marcel, do you mean that an article with low value added can generate more discussions (and hence citings) comparing to an article with a proper result but few potential elaborations?

P.S. I was also referring more to citing index of an author (like google scholar) and did not pay attention that we are talking about journal citing index. Then there is a trade off for any author: to bid for a journal with high citing index (and lower probability to get there) or to publish in less cited journals (with lower entry cost) but with a chance of getting more citings due to higher quantity of publications.

Dear Yuri,

If 20-30 Spanish people read articles in English, 1-2 English people read articles in Spanish. This difference is being exploited by businessmen without scruples. The local politicians have its part of responsability in the exploitation of other language talents.

I never feel so. I always emphasis the qualitative research rather than quantitative. 

I just want to elaborate on Mariano’s asymmetry between Spanish who know English and vis a versa.

There is also Spanglish spoken by many people in the USA. They should not have asymmetry, they know both. The question is whether the share of scientists from this circle is high enough.

And here is an example of Spanglish poem by Tato Laviera (source: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/250546 )

“pues estoy creando spanglish bi-cultural systems

scientific lexicographical inter-textual integrations

two expressions existentially wired

two dominant languages continentally abrazándose

en colloquial combate en las aceras del soil…”

Ricky Martin also sings songs in Spanglish; like this one: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rickymartin/jaleospanglish.html

JCR covers only a fraction of the world's research journals. If a journal is not in the JCR database, not only all the citations to it are lost, but all the citations articles in that journal give to journals in the database are lost as well. Another coverage problem is that having been created in the US, the JCR has an American and English-language bias...

In the attached article, there is fine description and explanation on manipulating the impact factor!!!

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/understanding-the-journal-impact-factor-part-one/

Dear colleagues,

I think, the problem is more complex. Obviously, everyone has own interests - Google, publishers, etc. It is just business which is around the science. The scientometrics with indexes and ratings, are not objective science as a physics - we can't measure IF with an "IF-meter". It is just a statistical manipulation.

But the science in modern world is not a specific elite area only for high motivated intelligent persons, as was 100 years ago. Today it is a mass area with millions of researchers and technicians which have very different competences. And the question: "what is the science and what is just a trash?!" is very important now. There are thousands of journals and it is necessary to have some tools for finding and ranging of publications. Present system has some disadvantages, but it provides an assurance: if this articles was printed in high-IF journal, this research is correct (without falsifications of results, with adequate methods, etc.). Obviously, exceptions happen, but in general, this system works correctly (at least, in natural sciences).

Everyone can create a website and upload own articles just as manuscripts. It was unimaginable before the appearance of Internet. But journals are still very important for the science. The main point is a reviewing  - it provides a confidence for a reader.

I don't see a problem with English. It is just a global process: we all have studied English in the school as one of foreign languages, for a lot of areas (physics, life science, etc.) it is very difficult or impossible to be a scientist without English. If I want to share my results for whole world, I must write the articles in English. International conferences are in English, documentation for chemicals, software and devices are in English, etc.

I like languages and I want to study Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, etc. But I'm afraid in this case I won't have a time for my main areas - biophysics and microscopy :)                  

Thanks for sharing.

I have doubts whether higher JCR impact means better science, but no doubts in the case of better recognizable science, which is widely accepted.

Under the given circumstances, English language remains ‘a self-evident fact’ as pointed out by Mr. Korneev.

It seems that no alternatives exist until now.

If allowed I would say: JCR does not mean better science, it just entails that good science is underway.

Unfortunately, in many cases a publication in Science, Nature or Cell is more worth for the last author than a publication elsewhere. But since there are rankings within different groups of science, a publication in a discipline, where 5 is already one of the top journal of that disicpline may be better than a publication in another discipline using many tricks to increase the citations. I can just assume that some editors favourize good science first - and others are happier to attract highly cited and self-citing authors, like in some medical fields - where some authors can reach hundreds of publications with not too much "real science" behind. Of course, such authors appear to be welcome for many editors - no matter how low the science is, as long as their students and colleagues will cite them. Unfortunately, it seems that citation of original articles in book chapters do not count at all (or are not measured). Some players know the game better and publish any negative result, like in some medical fields - one can not compare that to progress in basic science, like physics.

Dear Khan,

Quality is to respect to others and do not expect to receive always from others. For example, that all ones talk my language, that all ones pay to me for my work... but I do not talk in the language of others different to the mine, I do not pay to anyone... This is not quality of person or business.

Thank you, dear Mariano, for sharing.

Fortunately, we all seam to agree...

Better science may be different for people belonging to different regions. Landing on star may be better for USA, NATO, but better yield crop will be certainly better for Ethopia and hunger fighting regions whether included in JCR or not

Some of this becomes a bit of a game, like increasing the RG score. I would not assume that just because a research article is not referenced widely, it's not significant. It may not be referenced because it's too advanced for many people to comprehend. It may not be referenced because it was not translated in a language that many or most researchers know. It may not be referenced because for some reason, it cannot made widely available. (I can't post the vast majority of my own work, for instance.) Or, maybe it's unique, and very few people are working in that field. What's wrong with that? It might still be the research that saves mankind from itself.

I generally dislike the idea that everything has to be based on someone's "metrics." It's a bit of a fad in management, but to me, it always sounds like clueless managers trying to grab at something they might maybe understand. Some simplistic number. So, here we are talking about some other "metric."

As to the use of English, I guess we have addressed this question before. A lingua franca of some kind is definitely an advantage, no matter what language one picks. English became the dominant language in scientific research, for various reasons, following WWII certainly. At this point, arbitrarily choosing another lingua franca would most likely disadvantage more people that it advantages.

Plus, things being as they are, use of English technical terms has found its way into other languages. So even if one picks some other language to publish a technical article, watch the English creep in! It's difficult to prevent this from happening. And, as we have discussed previously, English has relatively simple grammar, is spoken and written much the same way (unlike many other languages), and uses convenient alphabetical characters that need no accent (suitable for 7-bit ASCII). It's a pretty good choice, all told.

As long as we are doing research which is useful for people at large, no metrics of any kind( including JCR) is required. Knowledge should be deciphered in a seamless way. A researcher should be unmindful of this.

The researcher cannot think in science and in the own marketing because one of them would be in detriment. But for a profane of science, he needs of the help of external measures of importance of research. And, in this point there are much enterprises that have competence and sometimes they act without ethics, with unright conducts. Base the decisions of promotion of teachers in these measures would be nefast because they do not act cleanly always.

I agree with everyone's comments 

Dear Mariano,

Dear All,

It would be interesting and useful to carry out an objective study on the JCR engineered publishing and science evaluating relations. I think that the JCR activity must have many money and science as well as society manipulation consequences. As to the permanent use of English as the only scientific lingua franca, it is an obvious imperialistic and money making approach. The general natural rule is the diversity!   

The problem is that we need a measurement of a researcher's success (for example, for promotion and competition for an employment). But it seems that grading a student in a university by an honest professor is more objective than JCR and similar. The problem is that in social activity there is always a competition of self-interests. Scientific competition and valuation (although sometimes unfair) is still much more objective than valuation of politicians who use all types of dirty tricks for success.

There are two approaches.

First, most  high impact journals, perhaps the majority, has no publication fees.   

Second, it is a matter of selection. High impact journals receives three to four times more manuscripts than they can publish. This means that hey can select the best ones and on the average they will publish better researches, 

Sure, I could discuss the use of English, but how much percent of the researchers can read Portuguese?     

Dear Dennis,

Dear All,

“But the science in modern world is not a specific elite area only for high motivated intelligent persons, as was 100 years ago. Today it is a mass area with millions of researchers and technicians…”

Your phrase seems to suggest that high motivation and quality in science and research are not necessary. And really, both have decreased enormously. However, the obvious acceptance of this phenomenon contradicts the mission of science: to find the most objectively the truth. Yes, this duty belongs to able and spirituous elite.     

Please have look at   https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_responsibility_of_a_brain_worker_and_are_you_satisfied_with_the_role_of_scientists_on_shaping_our_world

and https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_a_PhD_a_PhD

Dear Yuri,

Yes, the self-interest could be called also egoism, is an elementary and always victorious relationship.  

Der José,

The status quo implemented by economic and political force can be accepted but not applauded.  

I agree with Yuri.

Dear Dr Broginoli

No, I don't think that high JCR means better science. Many valuable research article are published in other impact factor machines depending on many variables as language, Journal aims, and before all the costs.

Regards

Here are some good resources that are related to JCR issue!

Can scientific journals be classified in terms of aggregated journal-journal citation relations using the Journal Citation Reports?

Beyond impact factors: understanding the data in the journal citation reports!

Ranking journals: Could Google Scholar Metrics be an alternative to Journal Citation Reports and Scimago Journal Rank?

https://www.academia.edu/871606/Can_scientific_journals_be_classified_in_terms_of_aggregated_journal-journal_citation_relations_using_the_Journal_Citation_Reports

https://www.academia.edu/17380376/Beyond_impact_factors_understanding_the_data_in_the_journal_citation_reports

https://www.academia.edu/22611008/Ranking_journals_could_Google_Scholar_Metrics_be_an_alternative_to_Journal_Citation_Reports_and_Scimago_Journal_Rank

It is just a way to quantify to make comparison easy. However, it is difficult to understand the research quality though this way of quantification. 

In my opinion JCR impact factror do not mean better science, since there are may Journals in many fields, read more or less by scentists or non scientists..

Dear Espejo 

Higher JCR impact does not mean better science always., but sometimes better luck.

Regards

Interestingly, even the major journal publishers now apparently call for limiting the improper use of impact factor:

http://www.nature.com/news/beat-it-impact-factor-publishing-elite-turns-against-controversial-metric-1.20224

https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_future_of_impact_factor_will_its_role_diminish

ANNUAL REVIEWS RANKINGS IN THOMSON REUTERS JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS®

2016 Release of  Journal Citation Reports® (Source: 2015 Web of Science Data)

"The 2016 Edition of the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) published by Thomson Reuters provides a combination of impact and influence metrics from 2015 data. The report includes 11,365 journals in 234 disciplines, from 81countries. The Impact Factor ranking system is based upon the number of times an average article is cited during the previous two years..."

There is no guarantee that better science suppose higher JCR and IF! I think that many of us could comment on this list and articles published in. Also, possible manipulation with self-citations and false citations (me to you and vice versa)... and many other possible manipulations may bring higher JCR, but no better science!

http://www.annualreviews.org/page/about/isi-rankings

Dear Espejo 

Good scientific research and right science are not reflected by the impact factor and it does not  put an end to him . But the impact factor may sign the research, especially as its requirements are high. There are many countries have a wonderful researchers but could not publishing in journals with Thomson Reuters impact factor because the its charges as much higher than the annual salary of the researcher. Therefore they publish their research in high-level transactions with other impact factors and this does not flawed the research nor it is wrong action from the researchers .

Regards

IF journals change your money for their numbers. Other sources do not coincide with JCR impact factors. Why the differences? Each one compares with the ones it likes. But the desire is not whole descriptive statistics but a priori manipulation.

Hello all

No, I don't think that high JCR impact means better science, because JCR helps to measure research influence and impact at the journal and category levels, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals.

good day

Defense of the truth has not positive correlation necessarily with more cites. Other interests play main role in citations.

Dear Khan,

An example: there are authors with more accepted peer reviewed articles but they have less cites than others. Peer reviews have relation with defense of truth in origin, and the cites have relation with other interests/powers...

If impact is popularity, then the TV programs are the most recognized science, that is to say news, films, programs of all type, etc.

Inmediate citations are not the unique way to recognize a research. In Statistics we know that some important findings were known several decades after its discovering, and cited after that time.

I think that the interest in the recent cites is business marketing only. It is a way to assure the sales of the last editorial products.

See journal citation report will give the citations an article got in that year or so, but when you see some research works they are very good but some people who carry there research work may not be able to extend that previous work so it remains as not cited. So, it cannot be considered as better but it is can be good to some extent, since everything that is used is good and something is not used cannot be treated as bad. So, it depends on the researcher and the work he carries.

Thank you, Nittala.

If it does not serve for all history then, what does an impact factor serve for? I think that for promotionating some products using authors.

High impact journal can choose about 10 to 20% of the manuscripts they receive for publication.

This means, in general, that they will publish high top researches which, in turn will get more citations. 

Better science cannot be constrained to a prioristic restrictions of language.

JCR impact factor is an unsolidary procedure of scientific measure since the moment of accepting English journals alone.

They say that the citation counts for translated and original language versions of the same journal have been combined...

Dear All

It is so important question, and I agreed with Denis.

Regards

This question remembers me the word of Jesus: "You cannot serve to God and to the money". When one puts your attention to the commecial interest, one can forget the truth.

An interesting proposal dear @Mariano. Very new one!

A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions!

Although the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is widely acknowledged to be a poor indicator of the quality of individual papers, it is used routinely to evaluate research and researchers. Here, we present a simple method for generating the citation distributions that underlie JIFs. Application of this straightforward protocol reveals the full extent of the skew of distributions and variation in citations received by published papers that is characteristic of all scientific journals. Although there are differences among journals across the spectrum of JIFs, the citation distributions overlap extensively, demonstrating that the citation performance of individual papers cannot be inferred from the JIF. We propose that this methodology be adopted by all journals as a move to greater transparency, one that should help to refocus attention on individual pieces of work and counter the inappropriate usage of JIFs during the process of research assessment...

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/07/05/062109

Dear Jacic,

Thank you so much in advance. Please tell me, what are the main differences between Impact Factor (IF) and Journal Impact Factor (JIF)?

Regards

Emad

Dear Dr. Khan,

Thanks for your respected answer. I just like to say, when I did a specific survey about IF and JIF in a reputable sites like www.scimagojr.com

I did not found the so called JIF ! just IF, means the poor journals or untrusted journals  depend on JIF as a fake factor, so you can recheck this issue by using search engines.

Regards, emad

http://www.scimagojr.com/

There is no difference between JIF and IF. It is an impact factor of Journal!

Dear @mariano, dear friends, here are some relevant info about SJR.

 Journal Metrics in Scopus: SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)!

https://blog.scopus.com/posts/journal-metrics-in-scopus-scimago-journal-rank-sjr?utm_campaign=2016%20Scopus%20Newsletter&utm_campaignPK=160232092&utm_term=OP18752&utm_content=246786465&utm_source=71&BID=730373898&utm_medium=email&SIS_ID=0

I like Yuri Yegorov answer.   I thing JCR and IF,JIF is just a measure of scientific and general community interest in a point of view that is accepted by an establishment.  It is a basic measure of quality of a paper (not necessarily thoroughly).  I have seen papers with good quality but of little interest because of small community pertaining the topic.   I have seen poor quality paper but lots of citations because of popularity of the topic and popular name of the author.  I have seen work of scientists who has been marginalized or even imprisoned by the scientific, industry and/or government establishment.  Therefore JCR,IF,JIF is a kind of weak or soft indicator of quality of paper but at least there is  something.    Regarding the language, its true that paper in English is a big factor.   I speak two languages only therefore I can read and understand papers written in those two language but English will be the one most read and cited.  Unfortunately or fortunately we live in era when English is popular language in science now.  Hundred years ago, French and German were more popular.  300 years ago, Latin was popular.  I believe English is as other language, transitional.  We live in era of information technology which is build on foundation in English.   But English is not the easiest, comprehensive and most logical language to learn.   

Say that higher JCR impact factor is better is as to say that think in English is better than in other language. I think that if this would be said for an English speaker would be understandable, but not for other people language speakers.

All the world knows that the use of money to adquire acknowledgements is a secure way of corruption.

I think no. JCR defends particular interests, no necessarily of the science.

The creators of JCR impact factor supposses that the unique that they could gain money with the science are of the elected by them. The science is free for them, but their product is expensive for all. They do not pay to scientists and they receive money of all scientist who likes to have impact factor. They change your money for their quimeric numbers which do not resolve any necessity of the scientist.

Dear Khan,

All university educator needs promotion, my case is an example. But participate or not in injust methods and procedures is question of ethics.

Popularity in cites does not do science. Frankenstein is very popular but his science is very limited, as of a monster.

There is a lot of hidden science which was not published at all. Such science produce excellent scientific results but it is undercovered by regulations and has no JCR. Army research is good example.

Dear Ljubomir,

I think that a premise of good science is freedom, and army research has some objectives which could be unpresentable, for example, how do more harm to the enemy? This would be an impresentable question and must be hidden always as the sins of a great sinner. Thanks to God a Catholic has the sacrament of the confession for repentancing of the sins and do not go for these ways any more. But how about other persons? I think that isolation of himself or of a group.

What was wrong with my answer. These are just facts that do not deserve downvote. Dear @Mariano, I do believe that you do not downvote as a good Christian! What is your opinion about it, as you are the author of the thread?

JCR is one of the very few credible measure to quantify the quality of research publication. Every person (and journal) get equal opportunity (not economically though) to popularize their work if it is really fascinating. If a researcher ask an author through private mail to share their own publication for authentic academic use I don't think any publisher wish to ban such sharing. Therefore, I feel high JCR is an indication of good research. Though it may not be the sole criteria for evaluating individual research. 

Citation comes through good research in general. If a journal have relatively higher impact factor that certainly mean that they are publishing proportionately high number of good quality research. Publisher of JCR generally evaluate all journals who wish to be indexed by them in order to get Impact Factor. It is also necessary to filter junks from the lot. Though peoples may argue that a few journal may be indulging in unethical practices to get high impact factor but the exclusion from previously indexed journals is also not rare.

Regarding language of choice, nobody can have a perfect answer of it. Everyone likes their own mother tongue, or the language in which he/she is comfortable to express. Therefore, a valid alternative and how it can be more helpful than English need to to be addressed first, keeping in mind the common and larger goal of conducting scientific research. Language, for being it not the primary one, should not become the barrier for quality publication. If anyone has a really fantastic piece of output then why don't they translate them to have higher visibility and larger audience? Now-a-days translating software is also available though for quality check their is still need manual editing. 

Dear Ljubomir,

I do not practice downvoting, I think it is the proof of the limitation in ideas of the downvoter because one can explain with freedom always his ideas without making affrent to anyone. All ones are free but not all behaviour is constructive.

The simple fact of assigning the same impact factor to a set of articles only for having been published in the same issue does not seem to be a good reason of objectivity for the interest of each published article. IF has an effect of clustering to evaluate a concrete article which does not respond uniquely to the merits of such article.

Dear @Mariano, do you find H-factor more objective than impact factor? At least, RG has introduced it recently without any explanation. 

I agree with Dennis that at present the scientific language is currently English. Therefore most papers are published in English and many by people whose second language is English. Researchers who only access literature in English may be missing out on some excellent highly relevant research published in another language.

However, the argument that I have heard in response to that point is researchers will publish their best work in English because they want it to be accessible to most. I am not sure how true that is.

There is a problem with citations is that it may not indicate the true value of the paper. Think about how we select papers (in areas we do not know who are the best researchers) to read when we have a list of papers to choose from. I know that often go to well cited papers in preference to rarely cited ones. Such a strategy simply increases the number of citations that an already heavily cited paper will receive. The paper has become a major node and will continue to grow faster than others. This is how networks develop. 

The question then becomes how did the paper become so well cited in the first place? The author "A"  may have an extensive network of researchers and they cited A's paper, but not a paper by author "B" who may have an equally good paper or even better one. So A's paper builds momentum in the number of citations it receives. 

Then a researcher in the field finds a paper on the topic and Author A's paper is cited in it, but author B's is not. Naturally the researcher goes to A's paper because he does not know about B's paper on the same subject.

This process is repeated many many times finally turning A's paper into a major node in the network and continues to be cited often. Once I realised that how number of citations can grow, I now look at heavily cited papers and less heavily cited ones on the same topic to check if I have missed important data, ideas etc.

This is why the title and the abstract are so important in attracting potential readers and citers of a work. Also it may also involve some blatant marketing of one's work to increase the number of readers and potential citers of one's work. The point made by Yuri in this regard is very important.

Dear Ljubomir,

I do not descend to mysteries of the science metrics. I suppose they have their interest but I do not judge its utility that very possibly they have got.

I further affirm my position (see my previous comment #78) regarding usefulness of JCR for evaluating the quality standard of journals and indirectly the research as well.

All of you can not deny the necessity of quantification of quality standard of journals vis-a-vis research works by researchers.  Therefore, I think JCR is a good one to measure and follow (Ref: http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/). There is always some scope for improvement. It is still much much better than many of the following misleading metrics (Ref: https://scholarlyoa.com/other-pages/misleading-metrics/). Although Scopus indexing is also a good one to refer as an alternative for free evaluation of quality of journals (Ref: http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php).

Hope I have clarified my point. As I was doubtful by seeing the distribution of up-votes in the last few comments. Though I must admit that some of the answers above are really helpful. 

http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/

http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php

https://scholarlyoa.com/other-pages/misleading-metrics/

I note that the used language as "impact factor" destilates in part violence or the force of impossing the own work. From a Christian perspective the success would be measured for the fruits of the research and not for its impact.

"For the fruits, the tree is known" (Jesus Christ).

No, because there are much restrictions in the selected articles in JCR which do not allow to find a global optimum between all the articles necessarily in JCR. Basic theory of optimization shows that.

An intent of protagonism of a certain culture does not mean to be the unique possible culture. The Catholic Church respects always the original culture and dignifies it. Why is it not possible in other contexts as in the science to valuate all good culture and tradition?

JCR journals, in my opinion, do not have qualities of true charity and hospitality with the authors of other native languages. And the search of economic interest over all is what loss them.

The bad accessibility to the JCR rankings in internet has open the doors to other more accessible and kind rankings as the SJR which serves to all the researchers freely.

Dear Khan,

Yes, there are differences in the forms of obtaining the impact factor for both rankings, they do not use the same means of calculus. But both ones are based on recent cites of articles of the journals that they have accepted in their lists. As they accept different journals and they use different formulae of calculus, there are possible differences in the results.

It would be better science for English readers, but for other native languages it could not be it. This would have more costs and the content would be in other language.

CAN ETHICS TRAINING IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF RESEARCH?

...Clearly, the issue of research integrity is not fully understood throughout the scientific community. Yet, the need for such standard to be adopted by all researchers is even more pregnant today. Research has become increasingly competitive, as scientists are struggling to get funding from the limited available financial resources. For example, in academia, “there’s strong dependence on external [funding] sources and this is a huge risk for a university if you would like to see a more intrinsic culture of ethical rules and standards.”...

http://science.sudhumtech.com/?p=10337

My personal viewpoint is that I prefer to write in Spanish, it is my native language and I wrote in Spanish more than 50 years. In English I write around 30 years but never with the quality of my native language. So, I found more problems to publish in JCR journals than in other latin-derivate good journals of Europe or America.

It seems logic that a native Spanish would be scored by an English criterium. Why would it not be logic that a native English would be scored by a Spanish criterium. It is very easy to hope that others have to be adapted to certain own rules, but these do not accept the same criterium of others. This would not be equitative but seems the false coin of our days.

There are reasons for which some good authors publish in other journals different of the JCR ones. The pretension of giving value only to some controlled journals by politic-business powers and no necessarily of science personalities seems a non-objective procedure.

The SJR rankings are free and of open access in the web. You could find it searching the term sjr. All the statistics and indexes are available for all ones. This ranking is produced by Spanish institutions among others. I find JCR ranking of more difficult access.

From a native language different of English, JCR is an extrange instrument for capitalize foreign interests. It does not respect and promotionate other cultures. These changes have occurred in few decades and it has been traumatic in many places. If at least they would give what they promise...