Past newsletters

Issue 1 (June 2005)

Issue 2 (September 2005)

Issue 3 (March 2006)

Issue 4 (July 2006)

Issue 5 (January 2007)

Journal Ranking Project
Council commissioned a project for the development of a ranking of refereed journals in which Australian and New Zealand nursing and midwifery researchers publish their work. Click here for the tender brief.

Background
Since August 2006, the Centre for Health Initiatives (CHI) at the University of Wollongong has been working in conjunction with the Council of Deans of Nursing & Midwifery (CDNM) to produce a new method of ranking refereed journals in which Australian and New Zealand nursing and midwifery researchers publish their work. This project was entitled “Development of a ranking of refereed journals in which Australia & New Zealand nursing and midwifery researchers publish their work”.

Throughout this project, CHI consulted with peak nursing and midwifery bodies, utilising both a Delphi survey process and a focus group design with an ‘expert panel’. The method rests upon the idea that:
i) citation rates and impact factors, while still of importance, should not be the sole indicator of journal quality for disciplines like nursing and midwifery; and
ii) nursing and midwifery researchers should dictate which factors are important when judging journal quality.

This project has resulted in the development of the "Journal Evaluation Tool" (JET). Download the JET here. (PDF 62 KB) or (RTF 546 KB)

The JET has been used to provide a preliminary ranking of refereed journals in which nurses and midwives publish. The preliminary ranked list is available here.

Please note that some journals did not receive a ranking as part of the preliminary exercise, as they were either uncontactable or unresponsive to the call for participation. These journals are included in Band 4, but may still receive a ranking in the future by completing the steps below.

How to gain a ranking
All refereed journals in which nurses and/or midwives publish are eligible to be included in the rankings.

As ISI impact factors are changeable, new rankings and re-rankings will occur on a yearly basis, and will be posted here.

Submissions

Inquiry into research training and research workforce issues in Australian universities (June 2008)

National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (May 2008)

Review of the impact of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 on the current funding cluster mechanism and pipeline arrangements for funding (February 2007)

Health Workforce Issues Paper (July 2005)

Australia's Health Workforce (November 2005)

The Productivity Commission released its research report Australia's Health Workforce in January 2006. View the Council's endorsement in Press Releases.

View the Council's submissions to the Research Quality Framework (RQF) in Research.