Hi, do your work. If you have data, you can publish. I think there is no need for such questions because you can only publish if you have data. If your work is good enough you can publish in high impact factor journals! Pretty easy. Cheers, Nadine

Hi, do your work. If you have data, you can publish. I think there is no need for such questions because you can only publish if you have data. If your work is good enough you can publish in high impact factor journals! Pretty easy. Cheers, Nadine

As recently demonstrated by Science, in the world there are a huge number of scientific journals that require a fee and without peer review. These journals have obviously not IF. The fundamental problem is to discard them. As a result it is obvious that all researchers seek to publish to the best in prestigious journals. There are, however, old and prestigious journals that do not have very high IF but always ensure an excellent dissemination of scientific activities that take place in the various universities. The problem is that IF does not evaluate directly the quality of scientific works but the journal. In addition, journals of large scientific areas have often IF fairly high. This will improperly reward items that fall into these general areas of science rather than the ultra-specialistc articles, also of an excellent standard, but published in excellent journals with few readers. The necessary thing is to publish data that are appreciated by the scientific community of reference and allow the advancement of knowledge. This does not need IF.

There are many different factors that are added towards university ranking. For example the academic reputation (in terms of high impact research), employer reputation, students to faculty ratio, citations per faculty and bla bla. You can go through these two links for better understanding. One is for QS world university ranking, and other is for Times higher education world university ranking.

1. http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/qs-world-university-rankings-methodology

2. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013-14/world-ranking/methodology

I hope these two links will help you a lot. At the end I will like to add the high impact research is evaluated through citations either the published paper is a journal or conference paper.

This is an interesting question. High Impact Journals tend to have method or subject trends and/or bias which in itself stifles creativity.

The best way to get published in a high ranking journal is by taking a recent article, from said journal, deconstruct it, then put your own twist on it. I have noticed, particularly in behaviour studies (a non precise subject) that many frameworks and models are only used because they are "popular". In many cases as soon as someone comes along with a new technique that is easier to understand/use, the previous "popular" model is dropped. Sometimes these newer/updated models were published in lower ranked journals first. There is also the case of impact factor manipulation. For example if a group of highly regarded academics (including editors) got together and started a new journal they could vote themselves and their own work (in the new journal) up, creating a higher impact factor. The work included could be complete rubbish but how long would it take anyone to work this out? Impact Factor should be reviewed cautiously. In relation to specialist and general publications I agree with Giovanni above. If you want your work to be as highly disseminated as possible it needs to be as general as possible. This does not leave much room for highly specialist research journals to have high impact factors.

If said group of researchers and academics contributing to /running a Journal want as high an impact factor as possible it can be achieved by writing as general research as possible then presenting it at as many conferences as possible and making it essential learning for MSc/PhD students. My point here, again, is that IF can be manipulated.

Also the comments above by Nadine are fine if you have many months to wait for your article to be published (not forgetting after waiting for 3/4/5 months it could be returned as not suitable). If you are in a rush to be published it is better to find a journal that is covering topics as close to your own studies as possible. In this case the impact factor is irrelevant. In relation to University ranking I think the inconsistencies in the current evaluation systems have been pointed out by Giovanni. I believe that Academics who are seeking prestige or funding are corruptible, this also applies to Journal Editors. Hence they will publish research that is beneficial to them rather than the wider scientific community or subject.

Impact factor is, by definition, a measure of the frequency with which on average, an article in a journal has been cited in a given period of time (usually 3 years). So again by definition, a zero impact factor would mean nobody is citing that journal's articles in further research.

Why would you even consider publishing in a journal where apparently, nobody else working in the field ever goes to find useful and cite-able information for their own papers?

Most people I know generally try to pick journals based on where they feel their peers will be likely to see the results, not by impact factor per se. If people are not finding your publications, reading them and using them as contributions to the field, then there really was no point in publishing in the first place. So, if you are publishing in appropriate journals for your area of research and your peers, then you will inherently be publishing in journals with significant average article citations and hence a good impact factor.

Obviously in any field there will be a hierarchy of impact factors based on scope of journals, prestige of journals, number of issues per year and so forth. Often the choice of a journal includes a number of factors, including the lead time to publication. Some journals may publish many more papers than others in the same field, and have significantly shorter time from submission to acceptance. Their impact factor may be lower simply because of the volume of articles they publish relative to other journals. But those very facts may make them a preferable journal over one with a higher impact factor but a much longer time to publication.

So often it comes down to a decision based largely on the targeted audience (who do you, as the author, primarily want to ensure sees your work), time to publication and perhaps cost (if page charges are prohibitive). A lot of the times, the impact factor or ISI ranking really do not come into mind when deciding on a journal, in my experience. Also, the longer you've working in a field, the decision may also be influenced by who you know (editors of a particular journal, for example, who you know well, and who are already familiar with your previous work, or a society journal where you are a prominent member of the society).

Ultimately, reputation is based on how many people actually read your work and are familiar with it, and how many cited it in their own publications as a valuable and useful contribution to the field of study. So getting your work cited is just as important as getting it published in the first place. But if you publish, and nobody ever acknowledges your contribution by citing it in further work, then it just sort of disappears into the archives of oblivion.