The indexing of scientific journals in international databases such as Scopus is considered as one of the policies of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology for reasons such as being effective in increasing the visibility of scientific journals and also improving the scientific ranking of the country at world level. A policy that starts with the determination of evaluation indicators and rankings of journals and continues with the holding of indexing workshops and finally ends with the indexing of journals in reliable databases. In this direction, paying attention to financial support for the indexing of journals is an issue that has not been addressed much, and perhaps it can be mentioned as one of the main and necessary elements in the issue of indexing of journals.
In this research, 347 journals rated ‘A’ and ‘International’ by the Scientific Journals Commission of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, 9th June 2024, were examined while examining the indicators used in the evaluation of journals as well as the main criteria required by reliable databases for indexing journals. According to the review of the criteria for the acceptance of journals in order to index journals in reliable databases, finally 20 quality indicators were determined and based on the weighted value of the indicators, these journals were evaluated. The results of the surveys showed that between 2021 and 2022, the number of A-rated and international journals has grown significantly. The evaluation results based on educational groups also showed that most of the journals with ‘international’ rating were in the basic sciences group and most of the journals with ‘A’ rating were in the humanities group.
Also, the overall range of scores of journals was between 0.44 and 1.21. Meanwhile, the range of points obtained for journals with the Scopus index was between 0.5 and 1.21, and for other journals between 0.44 and 1.06. From the point of view of publication indexing in specialized databases, the results indicated that 161 journals have no index and 231 journals have an index in a specialized database. The results of the investigations indicated that in 253 journals the articles had DOI code, but the articles of 94 journals did not have this code.
In general, not having an international editorial board member, not having a membership in specialized databases and DOAJ database, not having a membership in COPE database, not completing the information of the editorial board members, delay in publication, articles not having diversity authors distribution and not having complete descriptions of the authors’ guides have been among the major problems of Group A journals. Targeted financial support for journals along with monitoring the standardization of journals and finally holding continuous educational workshops can provide motivation for indexing journals in international reliable databases and provide the basis for improving the scientific status of the country at the global level.