Comparisons of Bibliometric Indices to Gauge the Quality of Virology Journals

The study proposed identifying and assessing virology journals’ quality by virtue of internationally accepted bibliometric indicators, namely, JIF, CS, SJR, and h5-index. The data collected from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google metrics for the year 2018 under the category ‘Virology’. Thirty-six journals retrieved, then ranks and values of journals compared with each indicator’s metrics. To assess the compatibility, the bivariate correlation coefficient calculated using SPSS. Microsoft Excel and Microsoft access 2010 used to analyze and visualize the journal’s ranking with each indicator. The results exclaim except Cell Host and Microbe, none of the journals shows a similar ranking in all four indicators. Only seven journals are open access, and the rest of the 29 closed access—the USA leading ‘Virology’ researches. The calculation of the correlation coefficient indicates that all the indicators are compatible and can be used as an alternative to others to assess the journals’ quality. Mainstream researchers in virology can securely utilize the SJR and h5-index indices as feasible options to JIF.


INTRODUCTION
The word virus originates from the Latin, which means poison or foul issue, appeared in English to indicate an infectious disease. Studies on viruses and infectious diseases are called virology. [1] Virology is a scientific discipline which deals with the biology, ecology, evolution, interaction, and cooperation of viruses. Also, it deals with viral diseases, different microorganisms, and the capacity of infections to convey their own and heterologous hereditary information into cells. Virus and viral ailments have been at the focuses of science, agriculture, and medication for centuries. [2] The bibliometric indicators are crucial in assessing the quality of a journal; these indicators increasingly used to measure researchers' and educators' success and prestige. [3] The significance of publishing articles in high impact journals increased gradually. It is compulsory in most academic organizations for the promotion and hence gained the attention of virologists, policymakers, researchers, and librarians. Simultaneously, publishing research articles in high impact journal helps to attract more audiences, and it might lead a researcher to be famous and well-read. [4] Identifying a quality journal is one of the significant tasks of the researchers. However, scientometric analysis of 'virology' has been conducted occasionally, [5] but the bibliometric analysis to check Virology journals' quality never been undertaken so far. Therefore, this study conducted to evaluate the quality of virology journals by using bibliometric indicators, such as Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Cite Score (CS), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), and h5 index.
Eugen Garfield first introduced the concept of impact factor in 1955. The JIF is included in the JCR from 1975 forward. [6] The Journal impact factor calculation is based on a previous two year period. It involves dividing the number of times articles cited by the number of citable articles. Estimation of 2018 Journal impact factor as: However, JIF criticized the incorporation of references of articles that excluded from the calculation formula's denominator (editorial, letters, etc.). Just a 2-year time frame for analysis, the consideration of self-citations, English language bias, and absence of an evaluation of the quality of the Journal of Scientometric Research, Vol 10, Issue 1, Jan-Apr 2021 origin of the citation or the risk of manipulation. [7] CiteScore is another bibliometric indicator to measure the quality of academic Journals. [8] It comprises of three-years citation window. CiteScore incorporates all types of documents, such as articles, reviews, letters, notes, editorials, conference papers, etc., indexed in Scopus. Subsequently, the numerator and the denominator utilized in the CiteScore calculation are reliable. [9] An example of the CiteScore calculation of 2019 given below [10] No of Citations (2018,2017,2016) CS 2019 (2) Documents published in 2016-2018 CiteScore praised for including all types of publications to evaluate but criticized as problematic to 'penalize' titles like Nature and The Lancet. These titles publish a significant volume of front matter content (editorials, notes, letters to the editor, etc.), which typically not all around cited (if at all), which may function a key in scholarly communication or professional practice. [11] SCImago is another bibliometric indicator that supported calculation as Google PageRank. This indicator shows the visibility of the journal contained in the Scopus database from 1996. [12] The websites of the SCImago is https:// www.scimagojr.com/index.php. SJR utilizes a 3-year citation window. [13] Calculation of SCImago Journal rank as mentioned in the equation below Average # of weighted citations received in a year CS 2019 (3) # of documents published in the previous three years h5-index is the product of Google scholar metrics, https:// scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en. [14] h5-index defined as "It is the largest number of h such that h articles published in the last five (5) years have at least h citation each". Therefore, the h5 index of 100 means that the journal published 100 articles in the past five (5) years, with at least 100 or more citations each. [14] Objectives of the study This research's main objective is to evaluate the journals' quality that publishes the research in the virology field. The assessment carried out by employing various globally accepted bibliometric indicators (employed by many databases), namely JIF, CS, SJR, and h5-index. Also, this study compared the indictor's compatibility with each other to employ one indicator with respect to another without compromising the quality by using bivariate correlation coefficient analysis in SPSS software to ensure the error-free result.

METHODS AND MATERIALS
The journals metric retrieved from the web of science (JIF), from SCImago (SJR), from the Scopus database (CiteScore and SJR), and from the Google scholar metrics (h5-index) as of 13th May 2020. The data strategically filtered as JCR year '2018', edition 'SCIE,' categories' virology', selected category scheme 'Web of Science.' Thirty-six journals have retrieved and analyzed by using different indicators and parameters. JIF considered a principle indicator to compare with other indicators (CS, SJR, and h5-Index). To assess the compatibility of the indicators as an alternative to each other for assessment of virology journals, Pearson's (r) and Spearman's (ρ) correlation coefficient calculated by using IBM SPSS (version 21.0). Microsoft Access (2010) and Microsoft Excel (2010) used for data visualization and representation. Country-wise distribution: The USA is leading in virology publications, i.e., 13 out of 36 journals. The UK ranks second (8 journals), followed by Netherland (6 journals), Switzerland and Germany (2 journals) each. France, China, South Africa, UAE, and Slovakia publish 1 journal out of 36.

Data analysis and interpretations
Quartile: The journals are already arranged in JIF by their quartile and hence ranked accordingly. The first nine (9) journals are Q1, and the next nine (9) journals are Q2, Q3, Q4, respectively (Table 1).

The top ten journals in comparison to JIF with other indicators
The top ten journals in all indicators compared with the help of bump chat. JIF considered as a primary indicator to compare with others, namely, CS, SJR, and h5-index. Figure 1 and 2 shows a bump charts for the top ten JIF ranked virology journals in comparison to CS and SJR ranking. For CS the graph indicates an excellent correlation between the two indices (JIF&CS) except Virus Evolution, which suffers very strappingly. In SJR three journals shows a tremendous correlation between the indices. In contrast, Journals Advances in Virus Research and Virus Evolution shows maximum changes, the remaining five journals exhibited a rational correlation between the two JIF and SJR ranking. This finding is with a similar agreement of. [15] In the H-5 index (refer to Figure 3), the journals Cell Host and Microbe exposed a superb correlation between the two indices. All other journals are fluctuating between the indices and having a reasonable correlation among them, except the journals Advances in Virus Research and Virus Evolution facing the most substantial changes. This result is with the agreement with the quality assessment of Nuclear physics journals. [16] Bivariate correlation: Bivariate correlation (Table 2) between the indices, namely JIF, CS, SJR, and H5, for ranking of the selected virology journals. The highest Pearson's (r) correlation noted between JIF and CS (r = 0.895), moderate correlation between JIF and SJR (r = 0.883), while the least correlation between JIF and h5 index (r = 0.701). In the case of Spearman's ρ statistical correlation, an excellent correlation found between JIF and CS ranks of virology journals (ρ =0.841), the reasonable correlation between JIF and SJR (ρ =0.702) and low correlation noted between JIF and h5 index (ρ =0.614). Figure 4 specifies the linear correlation between the value rank of JIF and CS indices. In case of the Figure 5, reasonable correlation found between the values and rank of JIF and SJR indices. While Figure 6, indicating a similar (as JIF vs. CS and JIF vs. SJR) correlation between value and rank of JIF and h5-index. The linearity of the relationship is recognizable between the rank of JIF vs. CS, JIF vs. SJR, and JIF vs. h5 index.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
The assessment of 36 virology journals, based on JCR year 2018, shows that not a single journals demonstrate a    other. [17] The above statement leads to the agreement with the suggestion of authors [18] that each indicator can be used as an alternative to other, to assess the journals' quality. The study suggested that the mainstream researchers in Virology can securely utilize the freely accessible SJR and h5-index indices as a feasible option to JIF to evaluate the journals before publishing their research.