Limitations of Scopus as a source of indicators: In search for a more comprehensive understanding of the visibility of Argentinian social science journals

This work seeks proposes a group of indicators that can be used to understand the visibility of social science journals in a more comprehensive way. To this end, the use of various sources of data pertaining to citation, accessibility, and reach are considered. A sample of 11 social science journals published in Argentina and indexed in Scimago Journal & Country Rank is used. The ranking and number of citations found in Scopus are analyzed and compared against data obtained from Google Scholar using the Publish or Perish tool. In addition, data regarding the accessibility and use, as well as alternative metrics, are collected from SciELO, Redalyc, and Dimensions and systematized. The analysis highlights the limited ways in which impact is measured using Scopus data and shows that, by combining data from additional sources, new dimensions of visibility are made apparent. The article concludes with a proposal for a new set of comprehensive visibility indicators that rely on freely available data and allow journal managers and editors to offer a more complete picture of the citational impact and use of their journals and articles.