Brazilian scientific journals indexed in Google Scholar Metrics

Abstract

This work aims to identify how many Brazilian scientific journals are indexed in Google Scholar Metrics and to
describe the characteristics of the publications. The variables analyzed are the subject and impact (h5-index and
h5-median), the Qualis Brazilian journal classification, the languages, the periodicity and the type of publisher.
Data from 1,906 Brazilian scientific journals indexed in UlrichsWeb were retrieved. A script for automated search
and data extraction in Google Scholar Metrics was used. The journals not found were searched manually. As a
result, 1,063 Brazilian journals were identified in Google Scholar Metrics (55% of the total). It was found that
33% of publications are in Human Sciences, 17% in Health Sciences and Medicine and 17% in Social Sciences;
the journals with the highest average of the h5-index are Health Sciences (11.34) and Agrarian and Biological
Sciences (9.11) and approximately 90% of the total publications have an h5-index below 10. It was also found
that approximately 50% of the journals is maintained by public federal or state universities, 54% publishes works
only in Portuguese and 65% is biannual or quarterly. These results suggested that Google Scholar Metrics is a
relevant source of impact analysis for Brazilian journals, mainly academic publications, in the areas Humanities
and Social Sciences and without any other impact indicator. However, the use of this system for official evaluation
purposes should be carried out with caution, owing to the system has inconsistencies and limitations.

Keywords: Google Scholar Metrics. Brazilian scientific journals. H5-index.