The Importance of Conference Proceedings in Research Evaluation: a Methodology for Assessing Conference Impact

Abstract

Conferences are an essential tool for scientific communication. In disciplines such as Computer Science, over 50% of original research results are published in conference proceedings. In this study, we have analysed the role of conference proceedings in various disciplines and propose an alternative approach to research evaluation based on conference proceedings and Scimago Journal Rank (SJR). The result of the study is a list of conference proceedings, categorised Q1 - Q4 in several disciplines by analogy with SJR journal quartiles. The comparison of this bibliometric-driven ranking with the expert-driven CORE ranking in Computer Science showed a 62% overlap, as well as a significant average rank correlation of the category distribution. Moreover, 38 conference proceedings in Engineering (45% of the list) and 23 in Computer Science (32% of the list) have an SJR level corresponding to the first quartile journals in these areas. This again emphasises the exceptional importance of conferences in these disciplines.