Misconceptions surrounding the relationship between journal impact factor and citation distribution in veterinary medicine

PurposeThis study distinguishes the academic influence of different papers published in journals of the same subject or field based on the modification of the journal impact factor.Design/methodology/approachTaking SSCI journals in library and information science (LIS) as the research object, the authors first explore the skewness degree of the citation distribution of journal articles. Then, we define the paper citation ratio as the weight of impact factor to modify the journal impact factor for the evaluation of papers, namely the weighted impact factor. The authors further explore the feasibility of the weighted impact factor in evaluating papers.FindingsThe research results show that different types of skewness exist in the citation distribution of journal papers. Particularly, 94% of journal paper citations are highly skewed, while the rest are moderately skewed. The weighted impact factor has a closer correlation with the citation frequency of papers than the journal impact factor. It resolves the issue that the journal impact factor tends to exaggerate the influence of low-cited papers in journals with high impact factors or weaken the influence of high-cited papers in journals with low impact factors.Originality/valueThe weighted impact factor is constructed based on the skewness of the citation distribution of journal articles. It provides a new method to distinguish the academic influence of different papers published in journals of the same subject or field, then avoids the situation that papers published in the same journal having the same academic impact.

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The Relationship Between Interdisciplinarity and Journal Impact Factor in the Field of Communication During 1997–2016

Journal of Communication ◽

10.1093/joc/jqz012 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 69 (3) ◽

pp. 273-297 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Yuner Zhu ◽

King-wa Fu

Keyword(s):

Impact Factor ◽

Journal Impact Factor ◽

The Relationship ◽

Journal Impact

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La "religione della valutazione", tra oligopoli editoriali e "pubblicitŕ del sapere"

HISTORIA MAGISTRA ◽

10.3280/hm2012-009009 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 94-100

Author(s):

Isabella Gagliardi

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Impact Factor ◽

Journal Impact Factor ◽

University Libraries ◽

Economic Interests ◽

Institutional Repositories ◽

Evaluation Systems ◽

Scientific Nature ◽

The Relationship ◽

Journal Impact

The paper analyzes the relationship between the economic interests and the scientific research using as intepretative key the genesis and the aims of the evaluation systems used in scholarly fields. It gives a particular attention to bibliometric indices - such as the hindex and the journal impact factor - now used to judge the scientific nature of a paper, but which in reality were developed by publishing companies for directing the purchases by university libraries. Afterward it shows how the commercial nature of the indices provokes distortions of the research, depriving it of its freedom and reducing its potential innovation. Finally the paper indicates the clever use of the semantic web (institutional repositories in open access) as a possible way out of this "impasse".

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Relationship between an editor in chief’s commentary publications and the impact factor of cardiovascular medicine journals

Journal of the Medical Library Association JMLA ◽

10.5195/jmla.2021.1145 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 109 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Alex Salazar ◽

Michael Joseph Berry

Keyword(s):

Impact Factor ◽

Journal Impact Factor ◽

Cardiovascular Medicine ◽

Length Of Service ◽

Spearman Rank ◽

Partial Correlations ◽

The Impact ◽

The Relationship ◽

Journal Impact

Journal impact factor (IF) inflation is suggested as a problem resulting from commentaries published by the editors in chief (EiCs) of their respective journals. However, it is unclear whether this is a systemic problem across the top thirty cardiovascular medicine journals. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between the number of commentaries written by an EiC and their journal’s IF and Eigenfactor (Ef). Utilizing Spearman rank partial correlations controlling for length of service as the EiC, significant moderate correlations were found between the number of commentaries and the number of first-author commentaries by the EiC and the IF of their journal (r=0.568, p=0.001 and r=0.504, p=0.005; respectively). A weak but still significant correlation was found between the number of commentaries by the EiC and the Ef of their journal (r=0.431, p=0.020). The reason for these correlations is unclear, and whether the methodology used to compute the IF and Ef should be modified needs further research.

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Analysis of the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in education and educational research category

Education for Information ◽

10.3233/efi-200442 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-22

Author(s):

Metin Orbay ◽

Orhan Karamustafaoğlu ◽

Ruben Miranda

Keyword(s):

Impact Factor ◽

Educational Research ◽

Journal Impact Factor ◽

Impact Factors ◽

Bibliometric Indicators ◽

Strongly Correlated ◽

Starting Point ◽

Consistent Assessment ◽

The Impact ◽

Journal Impact

This study analyzes the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in Education and Educational Research (E&ER) category, highlighting the main differences among journal quartiles, using Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index, SSCI) as the data source. High impact journals (Q1) publish only slightly more papers than expected, which is different to other areas. The papers published in Q1 journal have greater average citations and lower uncitedness rates compared to other quartiles, although the differences among quartiles are lower than in other areas. The impact factor is only weakly negative correlated (r=-0.184) with the journal self-citation but strongly correlated with the citedness of the median journal paper (r= 0.864). Although this strong correlation exists, the impact factor is still far to be the perfect indicator for expected citations of a paper due to the high skewness of the citations distribution. This skewness was moderately correlated with the citations received by the most cited paper of the journal (r= 0.649) and the number of papers published by the journal (r= 0.484), but no important differences by journal quartiles were observed. In the period 2013–2018, the average journal impact factor in the E&ER has increased largely from 0.908 to 1.638, which is justified by the field growth but also by the increase in international collaboration and the share of papers published in open access. Despite their inherent limitations, the use of impact factors and related indicators is a starting point for introducing the use of bibliometric tools for objective and consistent assessment of researcher.

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