Radiologia Brasileira: good news for Brazilian researchers

Abstract

The indexation of Radiologia Brasileira (RB) at internationally recognized databases is a priority for the members of Colégio Brasileiro de Radiologia e Diagnóstico por Imagem board of directors. This has also been the objective of practically all the most important Brazilian and international medical journals (1) . Radiologia Brasileira has benefited from two recent events, namely, its indexation at the Scimago database, and the adoption by Capes of such a database as a journal evaluation criterion.The recent changes implemented in the Capes' system of postgraduate programmes assessment have brought to the Brazilian scene what is already a reality in the international scientific environment: the increasing role of Scopus/Scimago, a database created by Elsevier which is comparable to the most traditional and, until recently, the unique and widely used Thomson Reuter' s ISI-Web of Science database (1)(2)(3) . The Scimago database has gained recognition for covering a greater number of scientific publications, including all those journals indexed at ISI-Web. It covers about more than twice the number of journals included in the ISI-Web coming from a three times greater number of countries. A range of studies comparing both databases have not clearly demonstrated which is the best, considering that each of these databases presents advantages and disadvantages (1)(2)(3) . It is important to highlight that both databases belong to business enterprises, and that ISI-Web operates on a paid-access basis, and Scimago, on a free-access basis.The journals are basically classified on the basis of their impact factor (IF -Thomson Reuter impact factor, calculated by ISI-Web) or of the equivalent factor calculated by Scimago, the Cites per Doc (C/D). Both factors present similar calculation formulas: they are calculated from the number of citations, over a determined year, of articles published by the journal in the two previous years, i.e., the impact is directly proportional to the number of citations received by the journal. By means of the Webqualis system, Capes classifies the journals as follows: A1 -IF or C/D ≥ 4; A2 -IF or C/D between 2.8 and 4; B1 -IF or C/D between 1.6 and 2.8; B2 -IF or C/D between 0.8 and 2.6; B3 -IF or C/D between 0.2 and 0.8; B4

Farewell

“…That is the objective of practically all major national and international medical journals ( 2 ) . After RB came to be indexed in the Scopus/Scimago database, it began to be classified according to its impact ( 3 ) . PubMed Central subsequently approved the journal on the basis of scientific merit, paving the way for its final indexing in PubMed ( 4 ) .…”

Despedida

“…Este é o objetivo de praticamente todas as revistas médicas mais importantes, nacionais e internacionais (2) . Com a indexação da RB na base de dados Scopus/Scimago, a revista passou a ser classificada de acordo com o seu impacto (3) . Em seguida, o PubMed Central aprovou o mérito científico da revista, abrindo caminho para a sua indexação final no PubMed (4) .…”

The importance of the reviewers

“…Finally, the journal articles are listed in the PubMed databank, the greatest worldwide reference source in medical literature, thus gaining international visibility. Researchers in the field of Radiology, especially those participating in stricto sensu post-graduation programs evaluated by the Brazilian Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (CAPES), will benefit greatly from such indexing, not only with the evaluation of the programs which they belong to, but also with their personal evaluation as they apply for research scholarships to funding bodies ( 1 ) . This progressive evolution of the journal has been discussed in several editorials over the last years ( 1 - 5 ) .…”