The Impact Factor (IF) of the Plant & Soil Journal has considerably increased from 2.638 in 2012 to 3.235 in 2013. For those researchers who are familiar with IF, it is a great deal and achievement that implies different issues.
1) In recent years several journals have gained an "Unreal" IF through manipulation such as publishing a large number of Review Papers or asking the authors to cite the published papers of those journals even where not that relevant. I myself have experienced such suggestion from an Editor of a journal but I did not do it because I believe that it is not ethical since it would mislead the prospective authors about the real value of that journal.
2) IF greater than 3, mainly in agriculture and soil science disciplines, means that the journal has a great impact on developing new science. Therefore, they attract researchers who are seeking for breakthrough studies that have something valuable to say. I have been reading the paper of Plant and Soil and strongly believe that it deserves such great and REAL Impact Factor as the papers are very new and breakthrough as far as I follow those in my field of research. So, I congratulate the Editorial board of this journal and hope for continuous improvement of this prestigious journal.
3) In recent years, some journals that have experienced increased IF claim that they have a higher rate of rejection of manuscripts. Although it is a good practice to just publish those manuscripts that are of high value, the Editors should be more careful to not reject some of those that are worth publishing. Recently a number of journal's editor make a first and quick screen of the manuscript and reject the manuscript without sending them for peer-review processes. It is fine that they want to keep the IF high but it is another kind of manipulation to increase the IF in the expense of rejecting author's paper that might get through publication after getting positive responses from the reviewers.
4) Another journal biometric index that is getting more popular is Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) that measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. Although it is not reported for Plant and Soil, it seems that SNIP would be high for it since this journal is a specific-oriented journal and has its own readers. So, overall, Plant and Soil would be keeping its role as a reliable forum for publishing papers of high value especially in plant root studies.
Article The impact factor of Plant and Soil reached a record of 3.235
Because of that IF, is not important. The importance is the scientific value of the article.
It is hard for me, NOT to respond and contribute to this thread.
I agree with Hector that it is the quality of individual articles that matters, and at Plant and Soil we try hard to publish papers of high value. The number of submissions has increased dramatically, ever since our IF was above 2.5, and another jump is expected now it is above 3.2. Our aim is not to become bigger, it is to become better, and more appealing to our readers. It is therefore inevitable to reject a large proportion of submissions.
Since it is increasingly difficult to find good reviewers, we do reject manuscripts that are unlikely to "make", it without external review. If we did not do that, we would either end up with an enormous backlog, or with very thick and expensive volumes. Neither would be in the interest of of our authors or readers.
SNIP is a new concept for me, and I will look into it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Syed. Where do I find out more about it?
Regards,
Hans Lambers,
Editor in Chief of Plant and Soil
Hello
SNIP is available at http://www.journalmetrics.com
Publication sector is facing a lot of unethical practices together by authors, reviewers and editors. Incidence of paper retractions are increasing and have reports from even top journals.
Still a high percentage of researchers as well as reviewers and editors are working in ethical ways. Some editors do ask to refer/cite papers from same journal but self citations will also increase this way and will hold a significant contribution in deciding the quality of the journals in future.
Thanks, I note a SNIP of 1.451 (2012) and 1.582 (2013) for Plant and Soil. Not bad at all for that discipline, obviously. One learns every day. :-)
SNIP is now getting more popular among journals and publishers and the Elsevier is practicing and reporting these indices since 2013. It shows more in-depth and details about the impact of each paper and is content among the researchers of a specific field. I bring here two examples of two journals. The latest IF and SNIP of Agricultural Water Management is 2.333 and 2.127, while the IF and SNIP of European Journal of Agronomy are 2.918 and 1.852. It is clear that AGWAT has higher SNIP than EURAGR indicating that AGWAT has published papers with more impact and interest in different subject fields. Thus, obviously authors with background in water management would likely prefer to submit to AGWAT due to higher impact of water management discipline. It is expected that journals and authors will be more interested in a combination of SNIP and IF in later years.
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