Impact and performances of different scientific fields at the AABC

Abstract

Continuing with the evaluation of the impact of different scientific fields for the bibliometric indexes of the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (AABC) that was recently started (Kellner 2020a, b), here I focus on the publications regarding Mathematical, Chemical, Earth and Engineering Sciences during 2018 considered in the 2019 Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Concerning Mathematical Sciences, only six papers were published, two of which were cited during 2019-one and two times, respectively. This results in an Article Citation Factor (ACF, see Kellner 2020a) of 0.3333, showing that only about one third of the articles published by the AABC in this area were cited in the following year. The Impact Factor (IF) of Mathematical Sciences of these papers in 2019 is 0.500-much lower than the 2019 IF of this journal (1.280). If only the two cited papers are considered, the Reescalated Article Impact Factor (RAIF, see Kellner 2020a) is 1.500. In Engineering Sciences, a total of seven manuscripts were published, three of which were cited once during 2019, resulting in an ACF of 0.4286, which is slightly higher than the ACF of Agrarian and Biological Sciences (Kellner 2020b). RAIF is 1.000 and if only this scientific field is considered, the IF of the AABC would be 0.429. A different situation is found in Earth Sciences. The total number of articles published during 2018 is 28, but two were not retrieved by JCR, resulting in a Missing Article Index (MAI, see Kellner 2020b) of 0.0714. From the 26 articles considered by JCR 2019, 16 were cited, producing an ACF of 0.6154. Most articles received one or two citations, but one was cited 17 times (Marengo et al. 2018), contrasting with all others. If all papers are considered, RAIF is 2.875, but if the most cited article is excluded, the value drops to 1.933. The same happens with the IF if only publications of this scientific field are considered, changing from 1.160 to 1.769 if the contribution of Marengo et al. (2018) is included. The last area that is analyzed here is Chemical Sciences that has also provided the greatest contribution to the 2019 IF of the AABC considering the papers published in 2018 (Kellner in prep). A total of 41 articles were published, including two special volumes (Cavaleiro 2018, Crespilho 2018). From the 41 published papers, 29 were cited resulting in an ACF of 0.7073. RAIF is 3.621 and IF is 2.561-almost the double of the 2019 IF of this journal (1.280). Examining the evolution of these specific areas in the AABC compared to the overall rates of submissions, rejection, and publication (Fig. 1), Mathematical (Fig. 1a) and Engineering Sciences (Fig. 1b) have similar trajectories, with a small but steady growth. However, the numbers are clearly much lower than in other scientific fields that have contributed to the AABC. How to cite KELLNER AWA. 2020. Impact and performances of different scientific fields at the AABC. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e2020923.

Brief comments on the 2020 Impact Factor of the AABC released by Journal Citation Reports

“…If one would like to get an idea of the impact of articles, more than the journal itself where they are published, the best source is not the JCR database, in which the exclusion of articles happens with apparent frequency and seems to be random -you might never know who is the lucky one. Missing articles are only discovered post factum and regardless of what is done, corrections to citations and IF are infrequent (e.g., Kellner & Azevedo 2013, Kellner 2020c). The database presented by WoS, while also susceptible to miss articles (Kellner 2020b), has at least been corrected and papers (apparently also citations) can be (re)included.…”

“…In this process, I found out that articles could get missing from the JCR and Web of Science (WoS) databases, which happened with 17 manuscripts published in 2018 that were disregarded in the 2019 JCR (Clarivate 2020, Kellner 2020a. This led to the introduction of the Missing Article Index (MAI, see Kellner 2020b), which for AABC-90 was 0.0567 considering the 2019 JCR (Kellner 2020c). In the 2020 JCR, 15 of these 17 articles reappear and their citations were therefore considered for the AABC 2020 IF.…”

“…There is a difference between the number of citations for the citable items presented by JCR. The 283 articles of AABC-90 considered in 2019 JCR received a total of 293 citations, 12 less than the official number (305) employed to calculate the 2019 IF (Kellner 2020c). Using the WoS database (Clarivate 2021), the four editorials published in AABC-90 received six citations in 2019.…”