Temporal Trends in the Impact Factor of European versus USA Biomedical Journals

Karageorgopoulos, Drosos E.; Lamnatou, Vasiliki; Sardi, Thalia A.; Gkegkes, Ioannis D.; Falagas, Matthew E.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016300

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…We also observed an influence of journals‘ countries of origin and the languages used besides English on the results: journals originating in North America tend to have a higher IF, followed by journals from Northern and Western Europe. However, European journals may catch up with America in the future [7]. Most likely, our findings can be ascribed to the number of potential readers that depend on the article language, the country of origin, and the historically developed structures and reputation of medical societies and journals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor

2013

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BackgroundIn times of globalization there is an increasing use of English in the medical literature. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of English-language articles in multi-language medical journals on their international recognition – as measured by a lower rate of self-citations and higher impact factor (IF).Methods and FindingsWe analyzed publications in multi-language journals in 2008 and 2009 using the Web of Science (WoS) of Thomson Reuters (former Institute of Scientific Information) and PubMed as sources of information. The proportion of English-language articles during the period was compared with both the share of self-citations in the year 2010 and the IF with and without self-citations. Multivariable linear regression analysis was performed to analyze these factors as well as the influence of the journals‘ countries of origin and of the other language(s) used in publications besides English.We identified 168 multi-language journals that were listed in WoS as well as in PubMed and met our criteria. We found a significant positive correlation of the share of English articles in 2008 and 2009 with the IF calculated without self-citations (Pearson r=0.56, p = <0.0001), a correlation with the overall IF (Pearson r = 0.47, p = <0.0001) and with the cites to years of IF calculation (Pearson r = 0.34, p = <0.0001), and a weak negative correlation with the share of self-citations (Pearson r = -0.2, p = 0.009). The IF without self-citations also correlated with the journal‘s country of origin – North American journals had a higher IF compared to Middle and South American or European journals. ConclusionOur findings suggest that a larger share of English articles in multi-language medical journals is associated with greater international recognition. Fewer self-citations were found in multi-language journals with a greater share of original articles in English.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor

2013

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“…have recently shown that journals published on behalf of European scientific societies in 4 select biomedical categories increased, during 1999–2008, their IF more than the corresponding US journals (published on behalf of US scientific societies) . The authors interpreted their findings as potentially indicative of the financial effort of the European Union to close the gap in research output with the USA, yet they also point out to other factors that may have increased the permeation of European journals in the worldwide scientific community, such as the possibility that journals published in a country language have changed it into English, or the expansion of scientific databases, such as Scopus, that comprise a greater amount of European journals than PubMed . On the basis of these findings, if we speculate that 10–15 years ago, European journals lagged behind US ones in COI policies (and overall journal quality and editorial policies), one may hypothesise that, currently, European journals have also closed the gap in these policies with US journals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Financial, nonfinancial and editors' conflicts of interest in high‐impact biomedical journals

Bosch

Pericàs

Hernández

et al. 2013

Eur J Clin Investigation

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Purpose To assess financial, nonfinancial and editors' conflicts of interest (COI) disclosure policies among the most influential biomedical journals publishing original research. Materials and methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study of 399 high-impact biomedical journals in 27 biomedical categories of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) in December 2011. Information relevant to COI and requirements for disclosures that was publicly available on journal websites was collected.Results While financial COI disclosures were required by 358 (89Á7%) and nonfinancial by 280 (70Á2%) journals, 155 (38Á8%) required editors' disclosures. Journals in the first decile of the JCR classification scored significantly higher than those in the second decile for all disclosure policies. Ninety (22Á6%) journals were published by Elsevier and 59 (14Á8%) by Wiley-Blackwell, with Elsevier scoring significantly better in financial disclosure policies (P = 0Á022). Clinical journals scored significantly higher than basic journals for all disclosure policies. No differences were observed between open-access (n = 25) and nonopen-access (n = 374) journals for any type of disclosure. Somewhat incoherently, authors' disclosure statements were included in some published manuscript in 57Á1% of journals without any COI disclosure policies.Conclusions Authors' financial COI disclosures were required by about 90% of high-impact clinical and basic journals publishing original research. Unlike recent studies showing a significantly lower prevalence of nonfinancial compared with financial disclosures, the former were required by about 70% of journals, suggesting that editors are increasingly concerned about nonfinancial competing interests. Only 40% of journals required disclosure of editors' COI, in conflict with the recommendations of the most influential editors' associations.

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“…Emerging evidence suggests that periodicals with affiliation and endorsement of relevant professional societies get an advantage and attract more citations (54). The journal affiliation to a professional society is advantageous in terms of maintaining flow of relevant submissions from the membership and continuous support of the scientific community, both valued by prestigous indexing services.…”

Section: Emerging Alternative Factors Of the Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Journal Impact Factor: Moving Toward an Alternative and Combined Scientometric Approach

et al. 2017

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The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a single citation metric, which is widely employed for ranking journals and choosing target journals, but is also misused as the proxy of the quality of individual articles and academic achievements of authors. This article analyzes Scopus-based publication activity on the JIF and overviews some of the numerous misuses of the JIF, global initiatives to overcome the ‘obsession’ with impact factors, and emerging strategies to revise the concept of the scholarly impact. The growing number of articles on the JIF, most of which are in English, reflects interest of experts in journal editing and scientometrics toward its uses, misuses, and options to overcome related problems. Solely displaying values of the JIFs on the journal websites is criticized by experts as these average metrics do not reflect skewness of citation distribution of individual articles. Emerging strategies suggest to complement the JIFs with citation plots and alternative metrics, reflecting uses of individual articles in terms of downloads and distribution of related information through social media and networking platforms. It is also proposed to revise the original formula of the JIF calculation and embrace the concept of the impact and importance of individual articles. The latter is largely dependent on ethical soundness of the journal instructions, proper editing and structuring of articles, efforts to promote related information through social media, and endorsements of professional societies.

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Temporal Trends in the Impact Factor of European versus USA Biomedical Journals

Cited by 12 publications

References 14 publications

Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor

Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor

Financial, nonfinancial and editors' conflicts of interest in high‐impact biomedical journals

The Journal Impact Factor: Moving Toward an Alternative and Combined Scientometric Approach

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