scholarly journals The Association Between The Impact Factor of A Journal And The Trueness of Findings Published Therein: A Meta-Epidemiological Study

Author(s):  
Andreas Heidenreich ◽  
Nora Eisemann ◽  
Alexander Katalinic ◽  
Joachim Huebner

Abstract Background: Scientists, physicians, and the general public legitimately expect scholarly publications to give true answers to study questions raised. We investigated whether findings from studies published in journals with higher Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) are more accurate than findings from studies in less-cited journals via a meta-epidemiological approach.Methods: We screened intervention reviews from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) and sought well-appraised meta-analyses. We defined the trueness of RCT study results as their point estimates’ relative deviation from the pooled effect estimate. In addition to the JIF we considered the open-access policy of journals, the relative size of studies, and the studies’ methodical quality.Results: In 2,459 results from 446 meta-analyses, there was a positive association between a journal’s JIF and the trueness of the study results published therein (Pearson’s r for the deviation = −0.21, 95% CI −0.24 to −0.17, P < 0.001). The mean relative deviation decreased from 1.11 (SD = 0.94) in the lowest JIF quartile to 0.80 (SD = 0.75) in the top quartile (95% CI: 0.21 to 0.40, P < 0.001). Findings from larger and methodically sound studies were also more likely to be accurate. In a multiple regression analysis, the JIF proved to be the strongest determinant of trueness, independent of the covariates.Conclusions: Our results indicate that higher-impact journals act as gatekeepers in the process of science more effectively than less-cited journals. However, the fact alone that a study result is reported in a journal with a high impact factor is only a weak and impractical indicator for its accuracy.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Metin Orbay ◽  
Orhan Karamustafaoğlu ◽  
Ruben Miranda

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.


2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-468
Author(s):  
Dieter H.H. Hoffmann

The primary goal of Laser and Particle Beams as part of the Cambridge University Press is the dissemination of knowledge in our research field. How effective we are in this respect is not easy to determine. But the impact factor published annually in June by Thomson ISI® 2005 Journal Citation Reports (JCR), gives at least an indication and a method to compare other journals in the field. In this respect, Laser and Particle Beams is a journal with a very high ranking in the field of applied physics, but it also compares very well to journals in other field of physics. The impact factor of a journal gives an account of how often an average paper in the journal is referred to, in a two year time span after publication. The current impact factor of 2.59 is based on an evaluation conducted in 2005 of Laser and Particle Beams publications of 2003 and 2004. During the evaluation period (2005), Laser and Particle Beams publications were cited about 1000 times. The topics that attracted most attention were Fast Ignition (Deutsch, 2004; Mulser & Schneider, 2004a; Hora, 2004; Mulser & Bauer, 2004b), Inertial Fusion Targets (Borisenko et al., 2003), and Ion and Electron Acceleration in laser plasma and Ultrashort Pulses (Shorokhov & Pukhov, 2004; Osman et al., 2004; Malka & Fritzler, 2004; Limpouch et al., 2004; Pegoraro et al., 2004). However, the editorial boards of Laser and Particle Beams strongly encourage authors to submit their results in High Energy Density Physics, the emerging field of Warm Dense Matter, Pulsed Power and Accelerator Physics and Technology.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Kulczycki ◽  
Marek Hołowiecki ◽  
Zehra Taskin ◽  
Franciszek Krawczyk

One of the most fundamental issues in academia today is understanding the differences between legitimate and predatory publishing. While decision-makers and managers consider journals indexed in popular citation indexes such as Web of Science or Scopus as legitimate, they use two blacklists (Beall’s and Cabell’s), one of which has not been updated for a few years, to identify predatory journals. The main aim of our study is to reveal the contribution of the journals accepted as legitimate by the authorities to the visibility of blacklisted journals. For this purpose, 65 blacklisted journals in social sciences and 2,338 Web-of-Science-indexed journals that cited these blacklisted journals were examined in-depth in terms of index coverages, subject categories, impact factors and self-citation patterns. We have analysed 3,234 unique cited papers from blacklisted journals and 5,964 unique citing papers (6,750 citations of cited papers) from Web of Science journals. We found that 13% of the blacklisted papers were cited by WoS journals and 37% of the citations were from impact-factor journals. As a result, although the impact factor is used by decision-makers to determine the levels of the journals, it has been revealed that there is no significant relationship between the impact factor and the number of citations to blacklisted journals. On the other hand, country and author self-citation practices of the journals should be considered. All the findings of this study underline the importance of the second part of this study, which will examine the contents of citations to articles published in predatory journals because understanding the motivations of the authors who cited blacklisted journals is important to correctly understand the citation patterns between impact-factor and blacklisted journals.


2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I Stern

Academic economists appear to be intensely interested in rankings of journals, institutions, and individuals. Yet there is little discussion of the uncertainty associated with these rankings. To illustrate the uncertainty associated with citations-based rankings, I compute the standard error of the impact factor for all economics journals with a five-year impact factor in the 2011 Journal Citations Report. I use these to derive confidence intervals for the impact factors as well as ranges of possible rank for a subset of thirty journals. I find that the impact factors of the top two journals are well defined and set these journals apart in a clearly defined group. An elite group of 9–11 mainstream journals can also be fairly reliably distinguished. The four bottom ranked journals are also fairly clearly set apart. For the remainder of the distribution, confidence intervals overlap and rankings are quite uncertain. (JEL A14)


2021 ◽  
pp. bmjspcare-2021-003163
Author(s):  
Ronald Chow ◽  
Robert Bergner ◽  
Elizabeth Prsic

ObjectivesSeveral reviews and meta-analyses have reported on music therapy for physical and emotional well-being among patients with cancer. However, the duration of music therapy offered may range from less than 1 hour to several hours. The aim of this study is to assess whether longer duration of music therapy is associated with different levels of improvement in physical and mental well-being.MethodsTen studies were included in this paper, reporting on the endpoints of quality of life and pain. A meta-regression, using an inverse-variance model, was performed to assess the impact of total music therapy time. A sensitivity analysis was conducted for the outcome of pain, among low risk of bias trials.ResultsOur meta-regression found a trend for positive association between greater total music therapy time and improved better pain control, but it was not statistically significant.ConclusionThere is a need for more high-quality studies examining music therapy for patients with cancer, with a focus on total music therapy time and patient-related outcomes including quality of life and pain.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 708-712
Author(s):  
John A. Kellum

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Reports of consensus conferences are usually valued less than reports of clinical trials even when rigorous methodology is used. However, limited data are available comparing the impact of these 2 methods of shaping clinical practice. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> Compare the publication impact of consensus conferences and clinical trials. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Consensus publications from the Acute Disease Quality Initiative (ADQI) from 2002 through 2017 were identified and classified by subject matter. Randomized trials were identified in the same publication year and subject in journals, starting with the highest impact factor. Both publication types were matched, and total citations were determined for each using Google Scholar. A secondary analysis compared total costs for each publication type. <b><i>Results and Conclusions:</i></b> Seventeen ADQI consensus conference reports and 17 randomized trials were identified. ADQI reports received a similar number of citations per paper (median, interquartile range) compared to randomized trials (132, 54–228; vs. 159, 60–340, <i>p</i> = ns). Similarly, 10 (58.8%) ADQI reports and 10 randomized trials were cited &#x3e;100 times. On average, ADQI reports appeared in journals with lower impact factors compared to clinical trials (5.4 ± 4.6 vs. 25.4 ± 27.1; <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.01). The median cost per citation (USD 2017) for ADQI reports was USD 606.01 compared to almost twice this figure, USD 1,182.59, for clinical trials on the same topics (<i>p</i> = 0.09). Despite being published in lower impact factor journals, consensus reports on topics in critical care nephrology, received similar citations to randomized controlled trials published the same year.


2019 ◽  
Vol 124 (12) ◽  
pp. 1718-1724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Opthof

In this article, I show that the distribution of citations to papers published by the top 30 journals in the category Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems of the Web of Science is extremely skewed. This skewness is to the right, which means that there is a long tail of papers that are cited much more frequently than the other papers of the same journal. The consequence is that there is a large difference between the mean and the median of the citation of the papers published by the journals. I further found that there are no differences between the citation distributions of the top 4 journals European Heart Journal , Circulation , Journal of the American College of Cardiology , and Circulation Research . Despite the fact that the journal impact factor (IF) varied between 23.425 for Eur Heart J and 15.211 for Circ Res with the other 2 journals in between, the median citation of their articles plus reviews (IF Median) was 10 for all 4 journals. Given the fact that their citation distributions were similar, it is obvious that an indicator (IF Median) that reflects this similarity must be superior to the classical journal impact factor, which may indicate a nonexisting difference. It is underscored that the IF Median is substantially lower than the journal impact factor for all 30 journals under consideration in this article. Finally, the IF Median has the additional advantage that there is no artificial ranking of 128 journals in the category but rather an attribution of journals to a limited number of classes with comparable impact.


2011 ◽  
Vol 90-93 ◽  
pp. 1106-1111
Author(s):  
Hong Xia Tan ◽  
Zheng Qing Chen

This paper studies the dynamic response and the impact factor of the concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) arch bridge named Hejiang River Bridge under the moving vehicles. Research shows that the impact factor of CFST arch bridge at the vault and 1/4 arch rib is greatly influenced by the road surface roughness (RSR), and it is increased with the grade of RSR increases, meanwhile it is different at apiece section position of the arch bridge. The impact factor doesn't vary monotonically with the speed of vehicle, it appears the maximum when the speed of vehicle is between 20-25 km/h and 35-50 km/h, and the impact factors of different cross-sections are not just the same with the changing regularity of speed. Therefore, the dynamic characteristics of different structural components should be calculated in designing CFST arch bridge for discrepant dynamic characteristics of various constructional elements.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javid Hussain ◽  
Zhenhua Zhao ◽  
Yong Pang ◽  
Liling Xia ◽  
Ittehad Hussain ◽  
...  

The sediments’ samples were collected from Changdang Lake for the concentration of fourteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in March (dry season), June (wet season), and September (temperate season) 2013. The highest average value of∑PAHswas detected as 295.28 ng/g dw in March, followed by 240.91 ng/g dw in June and 165.81 ng/g dw in September. Source characterization studies based on the analysis of diagnostic ratio (triangular plot method) suggested that the PAHs in sediments from Changdang Lake were mainly from the mixed combustion source of biomass and petroleum, and the origins of PAHs in different sampling sites have a great deal of temporal and spatial variability during different water seasons. Redundancy analysis was applied to identify the impact factors and the possible relationship between PAHs and environmental parameters. The predicted results showed that the main factors impacting PAHs temporal distribution were temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and oxidation-reduction potential, while conductivity showed secondary impacts on the PAHs distribution. Risk assessment of PAHs in sediments was carried out based on the US Sediments Quality Guidelines (SQGs). By comparing the present study results with SQGs standard values results showed that the adverse effects are not expected at the present levels of PAHs contamination observed in the sediments from Changdang Lake.


2011 ◽  
Vol 90-93 ◽  
pp. 1245-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Rong Yuan

The natural frequencies and mode shapes of 2, 3 and 4 spans continuous beam with universal cross section are calculated, and these dynamic parameters of 2 spans continuous beam model are measured. From the analysis and the model test, the locations of the maximum curvatures of the mode shapes are determined, and comparing that with the maximum bending moment of the beam under the action of uniformly distributed load, the selection of the natural frequency of the beam is discussed with the General Code for Design of Highway Bridges and Culverts as the impact factors of the beam is calculated. It is shown from the results of the analysis and the test that, for the impact factor, when the effect of positive bending moment caused by impact force is calculated, the fundamental frequency must be used as shown in the General Code, and the 2nd or 3rd frequency must be used when the effect of negative bending moment caused by impact force is calculated. The selection of the frequency should be combined with the mode shape into account for the specific circumstances.


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