Review Policy Moderates the Correlation Between CiteScore and JIF For BMC Journals
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This article examines the relationship between four review policies (RP) run by different
BioMed Central (BMC) journals, namely single-blind peer review (SBPR), double-blind
peer review (DBPR), open peer review (OPR), and transparent peer review (TPR), and
CiteScore and Journal impact factor (JIF). As of December 12, 2021, BMC publishes
306 journals, of which 14 were discontinued. The final data set was 213 journals with
data on CiteScore and JIF. Descriptive statistics and the use of violin and mosaic plots
were used. Normality tests were conducted and non-parametric correlation and analysis
of variance and Mann Whitney tests were used. Moderation analysis was used to
assess the extent of the relationship between CiteScore and JIF. 14 (4.8%) are run with
DBPR, and 22 (7.5%), 211 (72.3%) and 45 (15.4%) are run with OPR, SBPR and TPR
respectively. Analysis of the final dataset shows that the mean, median, and standard
deviation of the CiteScore of the 213 journals are 5.64, 4.80, and 3.65, respectively,
while the mean, median, and standard deviation of the JIF of the 213 journals are 4.27,
3.36 and 2.90. In descending order, the CiteScore and JIF across the four RP are
highest in DBPR, SBPR, OPR, and TPR. There is a strong positive correlation (Spearman rho = 0.87318, p-value < 8.7e-68) between the CiteScore and JIF of the 213
BMC journals. Mann Whitney test (U = 14771.5, Wilcoxon W = 37562.5, Z = −6.228, pvalue
< 0.000) shows that there is an evidence of significance median differences
between the CiteScore and JIF of the 213 journals. There are significant median
differences in the CiteScore in JIF across the four review policies. Finally, the RP
moderates the relationship between CiteScore and JIF and between JIF and CiteScore,
respectively. This article reveals that the review policies adopted by BMC journals are
somewhat related to the journal metrics that measure the impact, prestige, relevance,
and acceptability of the respective journals.
Keywords
QA Mathematics, QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science