Characteristics of highly cited papers from Journal of Southern Agriculture during 2011-2015

ObjectiveIn the present study, characteristics of highly cited papers from Journal of Southern Agriculture during 2011-2015 were analyzed in order to find out the gap between Journal of Southern Agriculture and counterparts and propose targeted measures to improve the influence of the journal. In this way, the journal could better serve issues related to agriculture, peasants and rural areas, and made due contributions to spreading domestic agricultural researches.MethodPapers published on Journal of Southern Agriculture during 2011-2015 were research target. Advanced search on CNKI was conducted and papers "cited for ≥15 times" were exported and analyzed by Excel 2007. The data was due to 31, October, 2016. ResultForty-nine papers, which were cited for ≥15 times, were searched on CNKI, twenty-seven in 2011(55.1%), seventeen in 2012(34.7%) and five in 2013(10.2%). Two hundred and sixty-one authors were involved in the forty-nine papers and average author was 5.33 for each paper, which meant the cooperation degree was high. But there was still room for development concerning education background and professional title of the authors. Majority of pa-pers published came from Guangxi(30 papers), accounting for 61.2%. The development of each discipline was unbalanced, which caused by each editor's orientation in topic selection and editing. Out of 49 highly cited papers, 93.9%were founded papers. 22.5% of them were papers sponsored by national fund, 34.7% were sponsored by ministerial or provincial funds. 36.7% were sponsored by prefectural or departmental funds or below and 11 papers sponsored by science and technology development fund by Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences (sponsor and administrator). SuggestionThe following suggestions are proposed:making full use of local advantages and create featured columns; accelerating digital transforma-tion and improving social influence; keeping up with the development of academic frontier and cultivating core authors;shortening publication delay via OA platform.