2010, Volume 6, Issue 2
Preferences of the employees of the Polish Academies of Physical Education concerning articles published in Polish journals on sports science and sports medicine, included in the ministerial list – contribution to scientometric analyses from the perspective of the educational aim and of the process of creation of the knowledge society
Bartłomiej Jan Barczyński1
1Index Copernicus International S.A., Warsaw, Poland
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Abstract
Background and Study Aim: One of the key elements of evaluation of achievements obtained by scientists and scientific institutions are the scientific articles published in journals included in the ‘ministerial list’. In Poland, the evaluation is conducted in two categories: (A) journals listed in Journal Citation Report (10–30 scores), (B) Polish or foreign journals mentioned in the ‘ministerial list’ (1–6 scores). It is hard to reliably estimate motives crucial for the decision on publication of a selected article in a given scientific journal. It is much easier to establish the preferences of authors concerning their choice of journal to publish the article. Pragmatics requires that the author employed at a university of specific type preferred journals of category (A) and those of the highest score in category (B) and corresponding to the type of university at the same time. As far as Polish Academies of Physical Education are concerned (there are 6 of them), corresponding journals are the ones on sports science and sports medicine. The aim of this paper was to find out whether the employees of the Polish Academies of Physical Education (APE) publish their articles in journals on sports science and sports medicine, included in the ministerial list, primarily of the highest value.
Material and Methods: The study applied the method of documentation analysis. The analysis included original articles, review articles, editorial articles published by the employees of Polish higher schools in 30 Polish journals concerning sports science and sports medicine. The preference criterion was established on the basis of the number of articles published by authors of one kind of Polish higher schools (PHS) in a specific, scored journal from the ‘ministerial list’.
Results: In the year 2008, the employees of 67 Polish higher schools published 751 articles in total (original, review, editorial) in 30 Polish journals on sports science and sports medicine, included in the ‘ministerial list’. Authors published their articles mainly in 4-score journals (55%) and only 2% of all articles were published in 10-score journals.
Conclusions: Possibility of deepen analysis of the preferences of the employees of the Polish APEs and other Polish higher schools concerning publication of the articles in Polish journals on sports science and sports medicine from the ministerial list is limited by the lack of access to basic information on authors (scientific speciality, research field, accomplished and implemented grants, publications etc.). Thus, this relatively high publishing activity of the employees of universities, medical universities, non-public higher schools, universities of technology and pedagogical universities in journals devoted to the aforementioned subjects should be explained by interesting field of research, not only for APEs’ employees. This interest demonstrated by authors is the proof that the subject of articles published in sports science and sports medicine journals is being taken at many Polish APEs. However, there are no empirical arguments allowing for a clear statement that articles are written only or mostly by specialists of sports science and sports medicine.
Key words: evaluation, preferences, scientometrics , sports science