Due to the concern regarding the future of Brazilian
scientific journals after the adoption of new criteria by the
QUALIS system of CAPES (Brazilian Federal Agency for
the Improvement of Higher Education), The Brazilian
Medical Association (Associação Médica Brasileira -
AMB), has held a series of meetings at its headquarters in
São Paulo. Editors of the main medical journals in the
country, directors of ABEC (Brazilian Scientific Editors
Association) and coordinators of the areas Medicine II and
Medicine III of CAPES exchanged information and,
essentially, elaborated proposals to improve the process
of evaluation of the Brazilian scientific publications by the
new QUALIS system of CAPES. The scientific production
classified by QUALIS will consist one of the main items of
evaluation of postgraduate programs in the last triennium.
Considering that the main source of scientific articles for
Brazilian journals come from postgraduate programs related
to CAPES, it was vital to accurate the discourse in order to
facilitate communication to all involved parties. The Editors
are afraid that the new criteria of CAPES may create a
subclass of journals based exclusively in the ISI Impact
Factor. The previous criterion indicated, as cutting point,
impact factor equal to 1. Recently, Brazilian journals
managed, with difficulty, to reach this level. Nevertheless,
the new criteria, besides considering only the impact factor,
have established higher cutting points. By adopting this
resolution, it would cause the Brazilian journals to be
despised by professors and postgraduate students – the
main producers of Brazilian science– thus, creating a vicious
circle which will make difficult the survival of our
publications.
In behalf of CAPES, Professor João Pereira Leite stated
that, besides coordinator of the Medicine II area, it is also
a present representative of the health area in the Scientific
Technical Council– major bureau of CAPES. The latter,
during one of our meetings, explained in detail about the
criteria adopted in the previous trienniums and their impact
over Postgraduate Programs in Brazil. It also explained that,
due to the evident improve in the level of programs, it was
necessary to increase the cutting point in order to better
classify and rate these programs regarding their quality.
Based on the data proceeding from these programs –
collected by the CAPES system – it was observed that
many had more than 50% – some more than 80% –of their scientific production published in high-profile journals.
CAPES, on the other hand, decided decided to create a
higher number of ratings in order to reclassify the
publications. It was proposed a descending scale according
to the value of the impact factor: A1, A2, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5
and C. In addition, it created an equivalence factor
according to which, the total amount of publications in
lower rating journals would be equivalent to a lower amount
in higher rating publications. Hence, for a certain area, 2
articles B1 would be equivalent to 1.2 article A1; 1 article B1
+ 1 article A2 would be equivalent to 1.4 article A1; 3 articles
B2 would be equivalent to 1.2 A1. According Professor
João Leite, "
Such equivalence would benefit journals with
different qualification levels levels". Professor Leite also
informed that the new classification was developed with a
base on the median impact factor of journals, acquired from
the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and calculated annually
by the ISI Web of Knowledge. For the calculation of the
median it was developed a list of journals in each area
published by CAPES. After completing the list, as well as
the respective impact factors, the median was calculated
for each area and the new rating built, ranging from A1, A2,
B1 to B5 and C.
The Editors contradicted Professor Leite, reminding that
the triennial characteristic of the evaluation process of
CAPES would cause a relative discordance for the
reclassification of publications, i.e: several Brazilian journals
will have their impact factor increased or published for the
first time along 2010, especially those who recently joined
the ISI. Furthermore, they would have to wait for 3 years in
order to change their category within the new QUALIS!
The Editors also wonder regarding the choice of an impact
factor published by the
Journal Citation Reports (JCR) as being a UNIQUE and universal characteristic index to
estimate the quality of publications. The standard deviation
is far from the impact factor values of the publications.
Undoubtedly that is the reason why CAPES used the
median of these indexes to analyze the behavior of
production of the Postgraduate Programs. In fact, according
this criterion, medical specialties such as surgeries, have
their best journals with a lower impact factor, which could
infer a drawback that would be extremely detrimental.
Both parties agreed that the improvement of Brazilian
journals is vital for the national scientific progress and
development. In order to guarantee and stimulate this
virtuous circle it is necessary to stimulate and promote the
reference of articles by national authors and intensify the
efforts of Editors, reviewers, translators and authors of
publications in order to increase the quality of articles and,
on the other hand, receive larger sponsorship from
government bureaus, mainly from CAPES and CNPq,
concerning, respectively, the administration of financial
resources and qualitative rating.
The results of these discussions were presented in
several meetings of Editors, Postgraduate Program
coordinators and researchers being complemented by new
suggestions. May the ideas, described below, serve as a
conclusion of this editorial and may they represent,
altogether, an important tool for the change of classification
criteria of publications in the QUALIS system of CAPES
by the responsible bureaus. The proposals are the
following:
The qualitative analysis of Brazilian publications
must be re-evaluated and not only involving the Impact
Factor published by the Journal Citation Reports (JCR); The particularities of each area of interest or each
specialty must be considered and respected; The Brazilian editorial area, apart from the rest of
the world is supported basically by private initiative, it is
run on the expense of Public and Private Universities and
high-profile Scientific Associations; The Brazilian publications need more support and
incentive, that could come as: scholarship for Editors,
financial support for publication, publicity for national
publications overseas, more objective and wide-ranging
criteria for qualitative classification, and differentiated and correspondent support according to the performance
of each publication; Support for the internationalization of scientific
journals by professionalizing the editorial process and
advertising of the journals in other countries; Continuous update in the classification of
publications by QUALIS disregarding the period of
evaluation every three years ; Participation of class representatives (ABEC,
AMB, among others) in the decision-making process of
the CAPES' QUALIS system; Strong support to postgraduate programs, i.e.,
by determining that Postgraduate Programs grades 6 and
7, in addition to obligatorily having a percentage of
publications in high impact journals, must also have a
percentage amount of publications national journals.
Hence, both extremes of scientific production will benefit,
for young and gonna-be researchers start their career
publishing in national journals under the supervision of
experienced researchers.
In conclusion, in order to support all these actions and
looking forward to the effect of the new QUALIS of CAPES
and other publication evaluations, ABEC (Brazilian
Scientific Editors Association) dedicated in its last National
Meeting of Scientific Editors, held in November, 2009; three
days to the Forum of areas; where representatives of CAPES
and Editors of all scientific areas discussed broadly the
issue, and finally, proposed the
Guidelines for the Forum
of Areas of the 12th National Meeting of Scientific Editors
– 2009, that will be eventually sent to all Brazilian
advertising agencies, and it should occur on a regular basis,
for the process is permanent.
* Assinam este Editorial: