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I came across a journal which is reputable in terms of not being listed in Beall's list, but which according to scimagojr and clarivate does not have an impact factor. The journal is Journal of Numerical Mathematics and Stochastics.

My question is: are there other examples of such journals? And is it advisable to publish in such journals?

Motivation The motivation behind this question is that a paper of mine has been accepted by the above journal, but I am afraid that it is not a good journal because it does not have an impact factor.

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    $\begingroup$ Just for standard typography: the punctuation precedes the spacing. $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Commented Apr 30, 2021 at 13:31
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    $\begingroup$ That depends on your employer. I have been told that in some countries like Portugal and UK, researchers are evaluated using this kind of thing. $\endgroup$
    – Philippe Gaucher
    Commented Apr 30, 2021 at 13:42
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    $\begingroup$ A good indication that the journal is not boggus is that it is indexed in MathSciNet and zbMATH. It does not to ask for payment from the authors, another good indication. $\endgroup$
    – Benoît Kloeckner
    Commented Apr 30, 2021 at 16:53
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    $\begingroup$ Is this paper similar to A possible approach proof (sic) to proof the Riemann Hypothesis? Publication in an obscure journal does not imply that your proof is correct. $\endgroup$
    – user21820
    Commented May 1, 2021 at 3:08
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    $\begingroup$ This is a question asking for career advice, masquerading as a technical question about research journals. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented May 1, 2021 at 5:20

1 Answer 1

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Newer journals often don't have impact factors because they don't have enough articles. And this can sometimes happen in odd ways. For example, the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society bifurcated into two pieces, where Part A is subscription journal that publishes as both print and electronic and is free to authors, while Part B is an open access electronic only journal that has a one-time author fee (although currently the AMS is waiving that fee for AMS members). However, the rating "agencies" view Part B of the Transactions as a separate new journal, despite the fact that authors don't have to choose until their paper is accepted whether to publish in A or B. That means that the open access Transactions Part B doesn't (or at least didn't last time I checked) have an impact factor, because it hasn't published enough articles yet. That may change soon, but it will also mean that the "open access Transactions Part B" will have an impact factor calculated using only the articles that appear in Part B. Whether that will lead to a larger or smaller impact factor than the regular Part A Transactions remains to be seen.

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    $\begingroup$ I do think Joe's answer is accurate... but/and, wow, all this stuff is so crazy, and not at all strongly connected to actual progress in our collective mathematical understanding. Not that I'm claiming that "the old days" were better... Sigh... $\endgroup$
    – paul garrett
    Commented Apr 30, 2021 at 22:55
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    $\begingroup$ @paulgarrett In the old days, I guess reputation of journals was by some sort of collective consensus of the mathematical community. But ratig new journals was still an issue. I agree the idea of using some sort of metric to quantify "how good is journal X" is problematic, although the biggest issue, I feel, is that at first one gets a reasonable result, and then some people start using the numbers inappropriately (deans, promotion committees, etc), while other people start gaming the system. I feel that impact factor in math has reached this latter stage, so ranges from useless to pernicious. $\endgroup$
    – Joe Silverman
    Commented Apr 30, 2021 at 23:10
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    $\begingroup$ @JoeSilverman The only way to have good metrics is to invalidate them as valid once they get established. In a way a form of "inflation". A metric, when introduced is good and valid, but shrinks exponentially over the years. This means new metrics need to be introduced all the time. Right now, people try to uphold the value of the metric artificially, and that's what's wrong. $\endgroup$
    – Captain Emacs
    Commented Apr 30, 2021 at 23:18
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    $\begingroup$ @zeraouliarafik I can't make that decision for you. I will say that I think it is a bad idea to say that journals without an impact factor should not be allowed for doctoral theses or for promotions. On the other hand, there are more and more journals out there whose standards are very low (or non-existent, they'll publish anything if someone pays the page fees). So some standards are required. Someone mentioned MathSciNet. I know that they do a careful review of which journals to include, and are constantly re-evaluating their list. But I can't convince your country to change it's policy. $\endgroup$
    – Joe Silverman
    Commented May 1, 2021 at 0:09
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    $\begingroup$ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts ♦
    Commented May 1, 2021 at 2:13

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