Position of Ultrasonography in the scholarly journal network based on bibliometrics and developmental strategies for it to become a top-tier journal

PURPOSE: This study aimed to clarify the present position of Ultrasonography in the scholarly journal network with a variety of bibliometric indicators. Furthermore, developmental strategies for Ultrasonography to become a top-tier journal are suggested. METHODS: The following bibliometric indicators were analyzed: number of citable articles, countries of authors, total cites, impact factor, Hirsch index, authors' countries and source titles of citing articles, and the titles of sources cited by articles in Ultrasonography. RESULTS: The annual number of citable articles was consistently 40 from 2014 to 2019. The number of countries of authors increased to 22 in 2018-2019. The numbers of total cites reached 632 in Web of Science, 595 in Scopus, and 552 in the Crossref metadata in 2019. The estimated 2-year impact factor soared from 2.15 in 2016 to 3.20 in 2019. The Hirsch index was 20 in both Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection. Authors from 76 countries cited Ultrasonography. The number of source titles of citing articles was 668, and the number of source titles cited by articles in Ultrasonography was 1,246. CONCLUSION: The above bibliometric results show that Ultrasonography has become a top-tier journal in its field. Ultrasonography furnishes an example of how after changing its language policy to English-only, a local society journal became a highly cited journal in a short period of time. For further development of the journal, adoption of a data-sharing policy is recommended. Furthermore, indexation in MEDLINE should be pursued in the near future.