Criteria for Evaluating Journals in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and the Life Sciences

The purpose of this paper was to identify existing criteria that may be considered in evaluating journals in the scholarship of teaching and learning in agriculture, natural resources, and the life sciences. This can assist faculty authors and evaluators of promotion and tenure cases to explain indicators of the quality of the publications. The commonly accepted criteria are: peer review; acceptance rate; longevity; open access availability; inclusion in indexing/abstracting services; citation analysis; and expert opinion. These data were collected for a representative set of journals which indicated that: acceptance rates for the journals varied widely; most of the journals existed for at least 10 years; most of the journals did not have an ISI impact factor or Eigenfactor TM Score; the ERIC database was the predominant indexing resource; and there were no published lists of journals in these subjects compiled from expert opinion.

[1]  K. Patricia Cross,et al.  College Teaching , 1961 .

[2]  J. Forest,et al.  The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Contributions of Research Universities , 2006 .

[3]  Randall G. Bowden.  "Scholarship Reconsidered": Reconsidered , 2012 .

[4]  Mary Deane Sorcinelli,et al.  Faculty Priorities Reconsidered: Rewarding Multiple Forms of Scholarship , 2007 .

[5]  Erjen van Nierop.  Why do statistics journals have low impact factors , 2009 .

[6]  Rowena Murray.  The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education , 2008 .

[7]  Antoinette Paris Greider.  An introduction to the literature and general sources. , 2002 .

[8]  Eric L. Dey,et al.  Changing Patterns of Publication Productivity: Accumulative Advantage or Institutional Isomorphism?. , 1997 .

[9]  Nathaniel J. Bray,et al.  Status of Journals in the Field of Higher Education , 2011 .

[10]  Lowell L. Hargens,et al.  Scholarly Consensus and Journal Rejection Rates. , 1988 .

[11]  Alma Swan,et al.  The Open Access citation advantage: Studies and results to date , 2010 .

[12]  Thomas Weissinger,et al.  The Core Journal Concept in Black Studies , 2010 .

[13]  William E. Becker,et al.  Book Review: Review of The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Contributions of Research Universities , 2004 .

[14]  Craig McGarty,et al.  The citation impact factor in social psychology: A bad statistic that encourages bad science? , 2000 .

[15]  Marcy H. Towns,et al.  The 2010 Rankings of Chemical Education and Science Education Journals by Faculty Engaged in Chemical Education Research. , 2012 .

[16]  Laura Bowering Mullen,et al.  Core Journal Lists: Classic Tool, New Relevance , 2010 .

[17]  Victor R. Preedy,et al.  Social Sciences Citation Index , 2010 .

[18]  S. Bradford.  "Sources of information on specific subjects" by S.C. Bradford , 1985 .

[19]  Bruce E. Wampold,et al.  The Intellectual Foundations of Education , 2009 .

[20]  John A. Centra.  How Universities Evaluate Faculty Performance: A Survey of Department Heads. , 1977 .

[21]  Charles Oppenheim,et al.  The citation advantage of open-access articles , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[22]  Virgil L. P. Blake,et al.  The Perceived Prestige of Professional Journals, 1995: A Replication of the Kohl-Davis Study. , 1996 .

[23]  John M. Braxton,et al.  Institutionalizing a Broader View of Scholarship through Boyer's Four Domains. ERIC Digest. , 2002 .

[24]  Loet Leydesdorff,et al.  Caveats for the Use of Citation Indicators in Research and Journal Evaluations , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[25]  Philip M. Davis,et al.  Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial , 2008, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[26]  C. Eliot.  Educational Reform: Essays and Addresses , 2009 .

[27]  Kelly D Blessinger,et al.  Highly Cited Articles in Library and Information Science: An Analysis of Content and Authorship Trends , 2010 .

[28]  Lee S. Shulman,et al.  From Minsk To Pinsk: Why A Scholarship of Teaching and Learning? , 2012 .

[29]  G. E. Gorman,et al.  The Usefulness of Impact Factors in Serial Selection: A Rank and Mean Analysis Using Ecology Journals , 1998 .

[30]  Zelda F. Gamson,et al.  Disciplinary Adaptations to Research Culture in Comprehensive Institutions , 2017 .

[31]  Alexander Serenko,et al.  Comparing the expert survey and citation impact journal ranking methods: Example from the field of Artificial Intelligence , 2011, J. Informetrics.

[32]  Gregory K. Youngen.  Multidisciplinary Journal Usage in Veterinary Medicine: Identifying the Complementary Core , 2011 .

[33]  Tony Stankus,et al.  The Best Original Scientific Research, Review, Methods and Symposia Journals with Their Current Web Addresses Ranked Within Their Primary Subject Category , 1999 .

[34]  John W Lamp.  Journal ranking and the dreams of academics , 2009, Online Inf. Rev..

[35]  Robert K. Toutkoushian,et al.  Changes in the Demand for Public Land-Grant Universities: The Use of Panel Datasets , 2001 .

[36]  Robert Kelly,et al.  Moving Beyond Citation Analysis: How Surveys and Interviews Enhance, Enrich, and Expand Your Research Findings , 2010, Coll. Res. Libr..

[37]  Andrew J. Sommese,et al.  Using Cited Half-life to Adjust Download Statistics , 2005 .

[38]  Kelly D Blessinger,et al.  Analysis of a Decade in Library Literature: 1994-2004 , 2007 .

[39]  J. D. Tardós,et al.  Publish or Perish , 1987 .

[40]  R. Rice,et al.  Faculty priorities reconsidered : rewarding multiple forms of scholarship , 2005 .

[41]  Barnabas M. Dlamini,et al.  Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education , 2011 .

[42]  Arthur P. Young,et al.  Scholarship assessed: Evaluation of the professoriate , 1998 .

[43]  T. E. Nisonger,et al.  The Perception of Library and Information Science Journals by LIS Education Deans and ARL Library Directors: A Replication of the Kohl–Davis Study , 2005 .

[44]  Mary Taylor Huber,et al.  The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered: Institutional Integration and Impact , 2011 .

[45]  E. Garfield.  The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. , 2006, JAMA.

[46]  Kerry Smith,et al.  Australian Library & Information Studies (LIS) Researchers Ranking of LIS Journals. , 2009 .

[47]  Sharon A. Weiner.  Tale of two databases: The history of federally funded information systems for education and medicine , 2009, Gov. Inf. Q..

[48]  P. Hodges,et al.  Acceptance Rates and Journal Quality: An Analysis of Journals in Economics and Finance , 2008 .

[49]  北海道教育大学環境教育情報センター.  環境教育研究 = Journal of environmental education , 1998 .

[50]  J. E. Hirsch,et al.  An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output , 2005, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.

[51]  David F. Kohl,et al.  Ratings of Journals by ARL Library Directors and Deans of Library and Information Science Schools. , 1985 .

[52]  Ana G Ugaz,et al.  Basic list of veterinary medical serials, third edition: using a decision matrix to update the core list of veterinary journals. , 2010, Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA.