scholarly journals Scrambling for higher metrics in the Journal Impact Factor bubble period: a real-world problem in science management and its implications

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trung Tran ◽  
Hoang Khanh Linh ◽  
Viet-Phuong La ◽  
Toan Manh Ho ◽  
Quan-Hoang Vuong
Keyword(s):  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Fund Managers ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
Statistical Representation ◽  
Real World Problem ◽  
Science Management ◽  
Journal Impact

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management.

scholarly journals Scrambling for higher metrics in the Journal Impact Factor bubble period: a real-world problem in science management and its implications

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Trung Tran ◽  
Khanh-Linh Hoang ◽  
Viet-Phuong La ◽  
Manh-Toan Ho ◽  
Quan-Hoang Vuong
Keyword(s):  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Fund Managers ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
Statistical Representation ◽  
Real World Problem ◽  
Science Management ◽  
Journal Impact

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management.

Who Is Citing Your Work? Journals With Impact Factor and h-Index in Social Work and Related Fields

2020 ◽  
pp. 104973152096377
Author(s):  
Monit Cheung ◽  
Patrick Leung
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Impact Factor ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
H Index ◽  
Journal Publishing ◽  
Social Work Faculty ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
Journal Impact

Purpose: With journal publishing being an important task for academicians, this article aims to help faculty and researchers increase their productivity by identifying journals with influential impacts on producing scientific knowledge. Method: Since 2004, the authors compiled and updated a journal list annually for social work faculty to use. This list aims to help faculty and researchers, including doctoral students, identify journals with significant scholarly impacts in social work and related fields for national and international recognition. Results: A total of 221 journals are included in the study, covering 44 social work journals with two indexes reported in the Journal Citation Reports® with Journal Impact Factor® and the h-index. Discussion: This list aims to help scholars find appropriate journals for article submissions. The criteria for the authors to select journals to be included in the publication list are also discussed.

scholarly journals Some Misuses of Journal Impact Factor in Research Evaluation

Cortex ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesús Rey-Rocha ◽  
M. José Martín-Sempere ◽  
Jesús Martínez-Frías ◽  
Fernando López-Vera
Keyword(s):  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Journal Impact

scholarly journals The Journal Impact Factor: A Threat or Opportunity?

Aquichan ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cayetano Fernández-Sola ◽  
José Granero-Molina ◽  
José Manuel Hernández-Padilla ◽  
Gabriel Aguilera-Manrique ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
Journal Impact ◽  
Journal Citation

Este artículo contiene un resumen de las críticas a la utilización del factor de impacto (FI) como indicador de calidad de las publicaciones y de producción de investigadores. Tales críticas alcanzan a los autores que intentan publicar en revistas con FI, argumentando que así renuncian a la propia identidad, primando su currículum sobre la utilidad de su investigación. En oposición a esas críticas se afirma que unos criterios de evaluación exigentes sirven de estímulo para la internacionalización del sistema científico. Existe consenso en la comunidad académica sobre las imperfecciones del FI y su aceptación como recurso válido y necesario para la evaluación científica, como también en que el debate identitario contribuye poco a resolver la invisibilidad internacional de la investigación de enfermería en español. Se esbozan propuestas que apuestan por aprovechar las fortalezas para incrementar y visibilizar dicha investigación, desarrollar estrategias para incluir y mantener a las revistas en español en el Journal Citation Reports (JCR), fomentar la formación y cooperación interdisciplinar, promover la publicación de investigaciones desarrolladas en los programas de posgrado, y reclamar la apuesta editorial por la indexación de sus revistas en el JCR. Se concluye que, aunque difícil, es posible aumentar la visibilidad de la producción científica de enfermería en español.

scholarly journals Speed of Online and Print Peer-Reviewed Ophthalmology Publications and Correlation to Journal Bibliometric Measures

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. e284-e291
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Nuesi ◽  
John Y. Lee ◽  
Ajay E. Kuriyan ◽  
Jayanth Sridhar
Keyword(s):  
Impact Factor ◽  
Outcome Measures ◽  
Study Design ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Print Publication ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
Journal Impact ◽  
Bibliometric Measures

Abstract Objective This study aimed to explore the relationship between publishing speeds and peer-reviewed journal bibliometric measures in ophthalmology. Methods Journal Citation Reports and Scopus Database were accessed for identification of journal bibliometric measures in ophthalmology. Twelve randomly selected articles from 2018 for all identified journals were studied. All outcome measures were extracted from the full text of articles and correlated with journal bibliometric measures. Statistical analysis was performed on measured parameters in comparison to a previous study. Main Outcomes and Measures Journal impact factor, Eigenfactor score, and CiteScore were correlated with time from submission or acceptance of manuscripts to online and print publication. The correlation between study design and publishing speeds was also assessed. Results A total of 55 journals were included for a total of 657 articles. Online publications were significantly faster than print publications for almost every journal (p < 0.001). Laboratory experimental studies had significantly shorter times from submission to online publication (p = 0.002) and acceptance to online publication (p < 0.001) compared with observational and interventional studies. Journal impact factor was positively correlated to publishing speed from acceptance to online publication (p = 0.034). CiteScore was positively correlated to speed from submission to print publication (p = 0.04), acceptance to print publication (p = 0.013), and acceptance to online publication (p = 0.003). Eigenfactor score was not statistically significant when correlated with any outcome measures. Conclusion Online publication has increased speed of dissemination of knowledge in the ophthalmology literature. Despite reporting higher numbers of submissions every year, ophthalmology journals with higher bibliometric measures of impact tend to publish peer-reviewed articles faster than journals with lower impact scores. Study design of an article may affect its speed to publication.

A Journal-Level Analysis of Progress in Transplantation

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-23
Author(s):  
Thomas Feeley ◽  
Seyoung Lee ◽  
Shin-Il Moon
Keyword(s):  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Kidney Diseases ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Journal Citation Reports ◽  
Journal Impact ◽  
Surgery Journals ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Journal Citation

Context: Citations to articles published in academic journals represent a proxy for influence in bibliometrics. Objective: To measure the journal impact factor for Progress in Transplantation over time and to also identify related journals indexed in transplantation and surgery. Design: Data from Journal Citation Reports (ISI web of science) were used to rank Progress in Transplantation compared to peer journals using journal impact and journal relatedness measures. Social network analysis was used to measure relationships between pairs of journals in Progress in Transplantation’s relatedness network. Main Outcome Measures: Journal impact factor and journal relatedness. Results: Data from 2010 through 2015 indicate the average journal article in PIT was cited 0.87 times (standard deviation [SD] = 0.12) and this estimate was stable over time. Progress in Transplantation most often cited American Journal of Transplantation, Transplantation, American Journal of Kidney Diseases, and Liver Transplantation. In terms of cited data, the journal was most often referenced by Clinical Transplantation, Transplant International, and Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation. Conclusion: The journal is listed both in surgery and transplantation categories of Journal Citation Reports and its impact factors over time fare better with surgery journals than with transplant journals. Network data using betweenness centrality indicate Progress in Transplantation links transplantation-focused journals and journals indexed in health sciences categories.

scholarly journals The impact factor fallacy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frieder Michel Paulus ◽  
Nicole Cruz ◽  
Sören Krach
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Journal Impact

AbstractThe use of the journal impact factor (JIF) as a measure for the quality of individual manuscripts and the merits of scientists has faced significant criticism in recent years. We add to the current criticism in arguing that such an application of the JIF in policy and decision making in academia is based on false beliefs and unwarranted inferences. To approach the problem, we use principles of deductive and inductive reasoning to illustrate the fallacies that are inherent to using journal based metrics for evaluating the work of scientists. In doing so, we elaborate that if we judge scientific quality based on the JIF or other journal based metrics we are either guided by invalid or weak arguments or in fact consider our uncertainty about the quality of the work and not the quality itself.

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

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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