TÜBİTAK Türkiye Adresli Uluslararası Bilimsel Yayınları Teşvik Programınca Desteklenen Dergiler Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme: Yayıncı Ülkeler ve Disiplin Farklılıklarına Yakından Bakış

Abstract

One of the most important actors in the scholarly communication process is scientific journals. Scientific journals are the most important environment, where research findings are presented, and thanks to these environments, it is possible to share scientific information all over the world. However, thousands of scientific journals are published and there are many question marks about the quality of these journals for the last couple of decades. Many countries develop journal classifications with various levels to overcome the quality problem. These lists are used for academic incentives and promotions, as well as to guide the researchers on journals where they can publish. In Turkey, one of the most important journal lists is provided by TUBITAK Incentive Program for International Scientific Publications (UBYT). The main objective of the program is to increase the number of high-quality publications authored by Turkey addressed scholars and to increase the visibility of the publications. The journals are grouped into four basic levels in the UBYT program, and the authors are awarded by the program in terms of the levels of the journals. The main aim of this study is to reveal whether the UBYT journal list considers regional and disciplinary differences. To achieve this aim, statistics and bibliometric data on the journals included in the 2018 and 2019 UBYT journal lists are obtained. The countries of origins of the journals and the subject areas are taken into consideration for the analyses. According to the results, most of the Turkey-addressed publications are published in low-level journals. With the change of the calculation method, significant changes are determined in the positions of the journals in 2018 and 2019 journal lists. In addition, it is concluded that not all disciplines are represented equally in the Program’s levels. It is discovered that almost all the top-tier journals are the journals of North America and Europe. All Turkey-addressed journals are classified into the low-level journals. The results of the research provide findings that may help TUBITAK ULAKBIM to improve the processes in the existing UBYT system.