Quality Indicators for Scientific Publications in the Social Sciences in Spain: a Comparative Analysis between Evaluation Agencies

Scientific publications (articles and books) are one of the basics for evaluating research. This article describes, analyzes and compares the quality criteria employed by the three major agencies which evaluate the scientific activity of Spanish university faculty when evaluating publications in the area of Social Sciences. The three selected entities are: ANECA (National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain), ANEP (National Evaluation and Planning Agency) and CNEAI (National Research Activity Evaluation Commission). The results show that the most important quality criterion is the publication of articles in journals included in the Journal Citation Reports and SCOPUS. The conclusion reached was that international bibliographic and bibliometric databases are the only unanimously accepted quality indicators.