Scopus-based Indices of Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences Journals: An Analytical Study.

Background: The mandate of journal metrics is to measure the performance of journals indexed in the concerned databases based on their citation impact. Such measurements are essential to understand the quality of research output and assess the quality of the journals in which such research gets reported. There are several such journal metrics in use and include Journal Impact Factors (JIF), CiteScore, Article Influence Factor, Eigenfactor (EF), Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), h-index, i-10 index, Altmetric Attention Score, and PlumX metrics. Journal metrics help decide which journal to choose to publish one's manuscript in. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the Scopus journal metrics of Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences journals and to identify the top Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences journals based on their journal indices in Scopus for the period 2011 to 2020. Method: Data on the Scopus-indexed Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences journals from SCImago Journal and Country Rank databases available at https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php was collected. These journals' metrics were collected from Scopus Source List available at https://www.scopus.com/sources.uri. Results: Indian Earth and Planetary Sciences Journals in Scopus are ranked based on their journal metrics in Scopus for the period 2011 to 2020. Conclusion: Based on the bibliometric parameters used, the Journal of Geological Society of India and the Journal of Earth System Sciences are the most impactful journals in Earth Science published in India. Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing follows. Both journals are published on behalf of the most influential scientific societies in Earth Science in India by Springer. Several Indian Earth and Planetray Science journals have over four decades of publishing records but have impact factors <1.5. When the journal's prestige is considered, these three journals are joined by the Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]