QUALIS PERIODIC EVALUATION : ANALYSIS OF QUALIS UPGRADE IN MEDICINE III

Objective: To evaluate the preliminary results related to journals up-grade that was used by Medicine III, through opportunity offered by Capes to all agency areas programs. Methods: Were used area document of Medicine I, II and III, besides other relevant topics available online at Capes site, between 2009 and 2013. The research was focused to answer two questions: 1) the stratification of Qualis is similar in the three areas of medicine? and 2) the evolution of Qualis in Medicine III was higher? Results: Medicine III showed an increase in its Qualis classification and is publishing in journals with higher impact factors, virtually the same as the Medicine I and II. Conclusion: The area showed the strongest growth in recent three-year periods.


INTRODUCTION
T he Qualis classification is used by Capes for stratifica- tion value of intellectual production of all postgraduate programs in different areas.It is designed to meet the needs of the evaluation system and is based on information provided through the Coleta/Sucupira Platform that lists all journals.As a result, provides a list of the classification of journals used by programs for the dissemination of its production.
The objective of this study was to evaluate the preliminary results of the up-grade implanted by Medicine III on journals, representative of the area, accepting this opportunity offered by Capes for all areas.

METHODS
The following documents available online in Capes website were used: assessment/support instruments and classification of intellectual production; area document of Medicine I, 2013; area document of Medicine II, 2009; area document of Medicine II, 2013; area document Medicine III 2009; and area document Medicine III, 2013.Was searched in these documents the relevant topics that were related to the up-grade subject and its relationship to the area.
Was tried to answer two questions: 1) the stratification of Qualis is similar in the three areas of medicine?and 2) the evolution of Medicine III Qualis was higher?

RESULTS
The stratification of the quality of the scientific production is based on qualitative and quantitative criteria.Thus, the Qualis assesses the quality of articles and other types of production from the analysis of the impact factor (IF) of the indexing databases ISI-Web of Science and cites/doc in Scimago base.
The classification is made for the areas of assessment and must undergo annual update process.These vehicles are framed in strata indicative of quality: A1 (the highest); A2; B1; B2; B3; B4; B5 and C (the lowest value).The distribution of periodicals classified into A1 + A2 must be less than or equal to 25%; A1 <A2 and A1 + A2 + B1 less than or equal to 50%.
The application that allows the classification and consulting the Qualis areas, as well as disclosure of the criteria used for classification, is the WebQualis.Since when the Qualis was imposed in this way, it is observed increase in FI references in all areas; however, Medicine III was considered to have the smallest FI.
To answer the asked questions (stratification of Qualis is similar in the three areas of medicine?and 2) the evolution of Medicine III Qualis was higher?) were compared the Qualis strata of the three medical areas, using documents the areas through 2009 to 2013, and assessed their evolution.
The two areas Medicine I and II, not published document area in 2012.
On the other hand, in Medicine III Qualis classification published in 2009 and 2012 area document, considered two types of journals: the ones of the area and the "out of area", considering that it was believed that the journals from the surgical area would lower impact factor.
Thus began the area document in 2009 with 2.96 IF to stratum A1, 2.29 to A2 and 1.35 to B1 for journals considered on surgical area, and evolved to 3.3, 2, 63 and 1.5 respectively in the area document published in 2012 (Table 3).
In 2013, the Evaluation Committee for reclassification of Qualis, verified and ranked 1923 journals, putting IF 4.0 to A1, 2.85 to A2 and 1.6 to B1 stratum, regardless of whether or not in surgical area, maintaining the definition of the classification of the Qualis, ie distribution of journals classified in A1 + A2 must be less than or equal to 25%, A1 <A2 and A1 + A2 + B1 less than or equal to 50% (Table 4).
This committee discussed the validity of considering whether a journal is in area or not, in view of the postgraduate interdisciplinary and how this fact was demonstrated when analyzing the journals in which the articles produced by the programs have been published.
Another fact to be taken into account is that Medicine III, after consultation and discussion involving all the coordinators of the programs in this area, decided for the last year of the past three years, to up-grade to A2 articles published in Acta Brazilian Cirurgica and B1 to the Journal of Brazilian College of Surgeons, because both are in general surgery -clinic and experimental -so, all Medicine III programs could be included on them.This classification only valued to a limited number of publications and had as objective the enhancement of national journals.It should be said, that in the recent 2013 evaluation it did not bring major changes to the program evaluations and it was considered only one year (2012) of the triennial assessment.

A B S T R A C T
Objective: To evaluate the preliminary results related to journals up-grade that was used by Medicine III, through opportunity offered by Capes to all agency areas programs.Methods: Were used area document of Medicine I, II and III, besides other relevant topics available online at Capes site, between 2009 and 2013.The research was focused to answer two questions: 1) the stratification of Qualis is similar in the three areas of medicine?and 2) the evolution of Qualis in Medicine III was higher?Results: Medicine III showed an increase in its Qualis classification and is publishing in journals with higher impact factors, virtually the same as the Medicine I and II.Conclusion: The area showed the strongest growth in recent three-year periods.
Key Words -Educational measurement.Periodical index.Quality control.

TABLE 1 -Stratification of journals in WebQualis of Medicine I TABLE 2 -Stratification of journals in WebQualis of Medicine II TABLE 3 -Stratification of journals in WebQualis of Medicine III * Impact factor for journals considered on Medicine III area TABLE 4 -Journal distribution (absolute and relative value) in Medicine III according to the strata in WebQualis
As can be seen in absolute numbers, the Qualis rating for the three areas is almost the same, except the A2 extract in Medicine III that is greater; when the percentage change in the three areas is considered, the data are described in Figures 1, 2 and 3.These results demonstrate that the percentage change in Medicine III was greater than in other areas, especially in the strata A1 and A2.

DISCUSSION
Medicine III showed an increase in its Qualis classification and is publishing in journals with higher IF.Currently the Qualis is virtually the same as the Medicine I and II, and Medicine III was the area that had the highest evolution in recent three-year periods.Although the IF had increased, the distribution of publications remained the same, and the distribution of ratings improved.

CONCLUSION
The area showed the strongest growth in recent threeyear periods.

FIGURE 1 -
FIGURE 1 -Percentage change in Medicine I Qualis

FIGURE 3 -
FIGURE 3 -Percentage change in Medicine III Qualis This evolution in Qualis, did not change the production, distribution on the evaluation process and number of postgraduate students, as shown in Tables 5, 6, 7 and 8.

TABLE 5 -
Evolution of the number of postgraduate programs notes 5, 6 and 7 of Medicines I, II and III in the triennial evaluations of 2007 and 2011 PPG = Postgraduate programs

TABLE 6 -
Number of articles published in Qualis-Periodicals strata in the years 2007-2011 of Medicine III

TABLE 7 -
Distribution of the number of articles in Qualis Periodicals strata of joint production student/teacher in the years 2007-2011 of Medicine III ~40%

TABLE 8 -
Number of master and doctor graduates in 2007 to 2011 in Medicine III