Proposal of a stochastic model to determine the bibliometric variables influencing the quality of a journal: application to the field of Dentistry

Abstract

On the basis of the Impact Factor of Journal Citation Reports developed by ISI as a journal quality indicator, this paper puts forth an ordinal regression model to estimate the journal’s position by terciles. The set of explanatory variables includes the H-index of its Editor-in-chief, percentage of papers published in the journal that received external funding, average number of papers published yearly, and two factors concerning the scope and structure of the journal. The proposed model was applied to the field of Dentistry, Oral Surgery and Medicine, and led us to the conclusion that the above mentioned covariables alone had a significant input in the model, but not the factors. The essay performed on a sample of 30 Dentistry journals included in JCR provided a confirmatory correct classification rate (CCR) of 80%, with a predictive CCR of 75% on a sample of eight new journals not previously considered in the phase of model estimation.