Ten years of progress: Analytic review of the first decade of journal functioning

Abstract

The analytic review of work of the scientific journal «Environmental Dynamics and Global Climate Change» (EDGCC) over the 10 years since the first publishing is presented here. Statistical (science metrical) data were summarized to reveal what papers were most interesting and useful for readers.Two-year impact factor (IF) of the journal increases persistently. During last five years it shows five-fold increase reaching a certain level among other Russian journals of the respective category. Number of EDGCC authors (special issues were not considered) does not vary substantially: 10-16 authors are published in EDGCC each year (among the first authors – from 4 to 10). The Hirsch index also increases stably during all years of publication showing that authors with higher qualification start to submit their papers to the journal. 26 scientific journals were selected randomly among those where authors of EDGCC publish their papers to compare science metrics of EDGCC with other journals (based on 2016 data). Two-year IF based on Russian Science Citation Index of 70% of these journals was lower than IF of EDGCC. The half-live of EDGCC papers is close to the average value for our ensemble. The EDGCC mean Hirsch index was higher than Hirsch index of 63% of all journals selected for our study. The value of probability of citation after reading was the highest for the test sample. Bibliometric parameters of ten most cited EDGCC papers were also analyzed here. Based on provided analysis following recommendations on improving EDGCC as scientific journals have been formulated: translation of papers into English, selection of manuscripts relevant to the journal topic, increasing the number of theoretical papers, improving the quality of experimental papers. Discussion section reviewed in a usual manner seems to be optimal decision to provide future development of the journal. New referee questionnaire modified according to the recommendations above for improvement of manuscripts quality is attached in appendix.