JCR zoning refers to dividing journals into different grades or regions according to their influence and citation frequency. This zoning system aims to help scholars and researchers evaluate the quality and importance of journals, so as to better choose the appropriate journals to publish their research results.
The JCR zoning system divides journals into four main areas: Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Arts & amp； Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) and Emerging Source Citation Index (ESCI). Among them, SCI and SSCI are the two most famous and important regions, covering the top journals of various disciplines.
SCI mainly covers natural science fields, including physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. SSCI covers social sciences, such as economics, psychology, sociology and political science. AHCI focuses on arts and humanities, such as literature, history and philosophy. ESCI is a new index, which contains some potential and innovative journals.
JCR zoning system evaluates the influence of periodicals by calculating the influence factors of periodicals. The impact factor refers to the ratio of the number of citations in a particular year to the number of articles published in the previous two years. The higher the impact factor, the greater the influence of the journal.
The JCR zoning system divides journals into four grades according to the size of influencing factors: Q 1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. Q 1 indicates the top 25% of the impact factors, that is, the journals with the highest impact; Q2 stands for ranking 25%-50%; Q3 stands for ranking 50%-75%; Q4 means ranking 75%- 100%. Generally speaking, the journals of Q 1 and Q2 are considered as high-quality journals, while the journals of Q3 and Q4 are relatively low.
JCR zoning is very important for scholars and researchers. First of all, it can help them choose appropriate journals to publish their research results and improve the popularity and influence of the papers. Secondly, JCR zoning is also one of the important indicators to evaluate the performance of scholars and research institutions. Many universities and scientific research institutions will evaluate their academic level and scientific research ability according to the number of papers published by researchers and the influencing factors.
However, there are some disputes about JCR division. Some people think that it is one-sided to evaluate the quality of journals and research results only by influencing factors, ignoring other important factors. In addition, journals of some disciplines may not be included in the JCR partition, which also limits the scope of application of the system.
In a word, JCR is a tool to evaluate the influence of periodicals, and JCR zoning is a system to divide periodicals into different grades according to their influencing factors. It is of great significance to scholars and researchers, but we should also pay attention to its limitations when using it. When choosing journals to publish papers, we should not only refer to JCR branch, but also consider the academic reputation, peer review cycle, field coverage and other factors to ensure the best dissemination and influence of research results.