A new QUALIS for the Dental Press Journal of Orthodontics

In the most recent QUALIS, published at the end of 2016, Dental Press Journal of Orthodontics (DPJO) was upgraded from B3 to B2 stratum by the journals evaluation committee of CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), a foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC). That was great news to the main orthodontic scientific journal in Latin America. QUALIS-CAPES is a system used to classify a journal that has published scientific papers from Brazilian postgraduate programs. The classification is divided by evaluation areas, in accordance with predefined criteria, and is periodically updated. Scientific journals are categorized by indicative strata of their quality: A1, the highest one; A2, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and C, equivalent to zero.1 Each area of knowledge has its specificities and criteria for the journals classification; however, the essence of this system is the impact factor of the journal — an index that measures the average number of citations of papers published in a certain journal. In June 2016, the data corresponding to the citations from 2015 were published. DPJO, indexed by Scopus on SCImago base, had a cites per doc of 0.44, a threefold increase in comparison with the previous year.2 Its impact on QUALIS-CAPES classification system was DPJO being given a better stratum. When a journal reaches a higher stratum in QUALIS-CAPES, Brazilian researchers start to prioritize it for submission of their studies. It is a ripple effect: more papers, better selection, greater impact of the studies published and, consequently, a better impact factor of the journal.