IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION THEORY

Oh my god, if TIT is in the third zone, which other journal under IEEE dares to claim to be awesome.

In terms of engineering theory alone, TIT is definitely the top, followed by TSP, TAC, and TPAMI (I personally feel that TPAMI is popular because the field is hot, so there are many submissions and thus high acceptance difficulty), followed by TII, TIE, and TIM.

TIT feels like the giant top journal of OR (Operations Research), with a low zone but absolutely prestigious status.

The reason for the low impact factor is probably simple, TIT and OR papers are too difficult, most people can't understand them, let alone cite them.

Of course, some people say TIT is a "water journal" and that's not a problem. I have also seen many experts like this: they are not just pretending, they can actually contribute to TIT easily. After all, for someone with a math background, what is difficult about engineering journals?

This is actually the consequence of only looking at impact factor. It focuses solely on applications and disregards theory. Because high impact factor journals are usually application-oriented, but applications quickly get drowned in the tide of the times. It is normal for traditional basic journals to lower their impact factor rankings in the future, maybe even reaching the fourth quartile someday. However, their importance is unquestionable and their influence is far-reaching. The Chinese Academy of Sciences should learn from the ranking methods in the West and consider incorporating some comprehensive indicators into consideration.