Carhus Plus+: A classification of social science and humanities journals on the basis of international visibility standards

Abstract

Cultural, geographical, historical, and linguistic factors are inherent to research in the humanities and social sciences, and largely exclusive to these areas. However, the scientific literature has repeatedly shown that citation analysis does not consider the peculiar features of academic journals of those disciplines. Thus, in 2008 the Autonomous Government of Catalonia presented the classification Carhus Plus+, a simple, objective, and reproducible system to measure the profile of academic journals in the humanities and social sciences at the international, state, and local levels from a European perspective. Carhus Plus+ classifies journals in areas of knowledge and groups them into qualitative levels. The variables used in the classification are: impact factor, preferably, or visibility of the journal in the databases; journal format, type of editorial board, and the article-review system. In addition, it considers the special nature of the areas of economics, law, and Catalan studies.

Keywords: Carhus Plus+ · humanities and social sciences evaluation · scientific journals · article citation analysis