SCImago: Diamond Open Access journals within the Earth Planetary Sciences category

 In this post, I will explain how to search and filter diamond open cccess journals within the earth planetary sciences category using a reputed journal ranking platform known as Scimago.

What is SCImago?

SCImago Journal & Country Rank (scimagojr.com) is a free, publicly accessible online portal that provides scientific quality metrics and rankings for academic journals and countries.

Developed by a prominent Spanish research group, the website pulls its massive dataset directly from Elsevier's peer-reviewed Scopus database. It serves as a primary tool for researchers, universities, and students to evaluate the authority and credibility of global journals.

Unlike a basic citation count, the platform uses an algorithm modeled after Google's PageRank™. It measures a journal's prestige by factoring in both the number of citations and the reputation of the journals where those citations came from. A citation from a world-renowned journal like Nature carries much more weight than a citation from a niche, lesser-known journal.

The website splits journals within specific academic disciplines into four equal tiers based on performance:

• Q1 (Top 25%): The highest prestige and impact journals in that subject.
• Q2 & Q3 (Middle 50%): Moderate to good impact.
• Q4 (Bottom 25%): Lowest relative impact, often representing newer or highly localized publications.

Authors use it to search for a journal title and instantly view its historical trends, h-index, international collaboration rates, and lists of similar publications.

Academics heavily rely on scimagojr.com to find reputable places to publish their papers, avoid predatory fake journals, and check if a journal meets the strict "Q1" or "Scopus-indexed" publication standards required by their universities for graduation or career promotions.

What is a Diamond Open Access journal?

Academic journals are primarily categorized by how they are funded and who pays for the publishing costs. Academic journals are primarily categorized by their funding and publishing models, which determine who bears the financial costs. These distinctions define whether readers pay to access articles or if the costs are shifted to authors to make the research freely available.

The two dominant academic journal categories are:

1. Subscription-Based (Traditional/Paywalled) Journals:-  In this model, the publishing costs are covered by the readers or their institutions (usually university libraries) through subscription fees.

2. Open Access (OA) Journals:- In the Open Access model, the financial burden is shifted away from the reader. Instead, the costs of peer review, editing, and hosting are typically covered upfront by the authors, their academic institutions, or research funding bodies.

Common Open Access variations include:

1. Gold Open Access: Fully open access journals where the final version is freely available on the publisher's website, often funded by APCs.
2. Diamond (or Platinum) Open Access: Open access journals that do not charge APCs to authors. The publishing costs are instead subsidized entirely by scholarly societies, academic institutions, or non-profit grants.
3. Green Open Access: A model where an author publishes in a traditional subscription journal but self-archives a version of the paper (such as a preprint or accepted manuscript) in a free, public repository.
4. Hybrid Open Access: Subscription journals that allow authors to pay a fee to make their specific article open access, while the rest of the journal remains behind a paywall.

How to search for journals on SCImago

To filter for Open Access journals within the GIS, Geography, Geodesy or Earth Sciences categories on scimagojr.com, follow these step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Open the Journal Rankings Page

1. Go to the SCImago Journal & Country Rank home page.
2. Click on the Journal Rankings button or link located at the top menu bar or center panel.

Step 2: Select the Broad Subject Area

1. Locate the drop-down menu labeled All subject areas.
2. Click it and select Earth and Planetary Sciences (this is the parent category that contains geodesy, mapping, and spatial geosciences).

 

Step 3: Narrow Down the Subject Category (Optional)

If you want to filter past generic earth sciences down to specific mapping disciplines:

1. Click the next drop-down menu labeled All subject categories.
2. Select a category like Computers in Earth Sciences (excellent for GIS/Cartography) or Earth-Surface Processes (where geodesy and satellite altimetry often live). If you want to see all available options, leave it on "All subject categories."

 

Step 4: Apply the Open Access Filter

1. Look right below the drop-down menus for a series of checkboxes.
2. Check the box that says "Only Open Access Journals".
3. Note: The platform automatically reloads the list. You will now see an open padlock icon next to every journal title left on the screen.

 

Step 5: Read the Results and Verify Q1 Status

• The list is automatically sorted by the SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) indicator from highest prestige to lowest.
• Look at the colored square or indicator next to the journal name. If it shows a green Q1 box, you have successfully found a top-tier Open Access journal in your field.

(Keep in mind: SCImago flags all "Open Access" journals, but it combines Gold OA and Diamond OA together. Once you find a promising Q1 journal on the list, click its title to visit its profile page and jump to the journal's official homepage to verify if it charges an author APC or if it is fully free/Diamond OA.)

 

 Note on scimagojr.com and the Scopus database, the broad subject area of Earth and Planetary Sciences is broken down into 14 distinct sub-disciplines (known as subject categories):

• General Earth and Planetary Sciences
• Atmospheric Science (Includes meteorology, climate dynamics, and atmospheric chemistry)
• Computers in Earth Sciences (Includes GIS, geoinformatics, spatial modeling, and cartographic data management)
• Earth-Surface Processes (Includes geomorphology, glaciology, and hydrology)
• Economic Geology (Focuses on mineral deposits, ore exploration, and fossil energy resources)
• Geochemistry and Petrology (The study of rock compositions and chemical processes within the Earth)
• Geology (Structural geology, stratigraphy, and general earth history)
• Geophysics (Seismology, magnetic mapping, crustal deformation, and geodesy)
• Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology (Application of geosciences to construction, mining, and civil engineering)
• Oceanography (Physical, chemical, and geological marine science)
• Paleontology (The study of fossils and prehistoric life forms)
• Space and Planetary Science (Astronomy-adjacent fields tracking remote sensing of other planets, asteroids, and space weather)
• Stratigraphy (The analysis of layered rock or soil strata over geological time)
• Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) (Catch-all for highly interdisciplinary or localized research journals)

Thank you for reading.