The impact factor: a useful indicator of journal quality or fatally flawed?

Elliott, David B.

doi:10.1111/opo.12107

Cited by 41 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Although social media use is incredibly pervasive, less than a third of general medical journals have used Twitter, so this may not be the best proxy for mainstream media popularity. There has been some controversy over the use (and abuse) of impact factor as a meaningful metric for capturing scientific merit, 17,18 suggesting that further refinement is warranted. High-quality journals are garnering the greatest online followings, which hopefully will translate into a greater number of people absorbing high-quality, evidence-based research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical journals, impact and social media: an ecological study of the Twittersphere

Cosco

2015

CMAJ

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical journals, impact and social media: an ecological study of the Twittersphere

Cosco

2015

CMAJ

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“…This led to the production of the Science Citation Index [2] which served as a foundation for the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) [3]. The IF of a given journal is the average number of citations received per paper published during the 2 previous years [4]. Currently, the IF is a common method for assessing the quality of a scientific journal, and many journals state their IF and ranking on their websites [4,5,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The IF of a given journal is the average number of citations received per paper published during the 2 previous years [4]. Currently, the IF is a common method for assessing the quality of a scientific journal, and many journals state their IF and ranking on their websites [4,5,6]. However, the IF has been criticized for having many flaws, and alternatives have been proposed [7,8,9,10,11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Citation Rate and Impact Factor in Ophthalmology

Segal¹

2014

Ophthalmic Res

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Purpose: To analyze the self-citation rate (SCR) of ophthalmology journals, determine its possible effect on a journal's impact factor (IF) and compare the SCR of subspecialty journals versus general ophthalmology journals. Method: A retrospective consecutive study of ophthalmology journals listed in the Journal Citations Report (JCR) 2013. We retrieved these parameters from each journal's report: IF, total citations, self-citations, SCR and IF without self-citations (corrected IF). Results: A significant correlation was detected between the number of self-citations and publications (R² = 86.3, p = 0.000). Subspecialty journals had a significantly higher SCR than general journals (p = 0.017). No significant difference was found in terms of IF and corrected IF between general and subspecialty journals (p = 0.260 and p = 0.108, respectively). No significant correlation between IF and SCR was detected (p = 0.099). The corrected IF was inversely correlated with SCR (R² = -32.6, p = 0.013). An inverse correlation was detected between SCR and IF in the 29 ophthalmology journals with the lowest IF (R² = -57.3, p = 0.001). Conclusion: Unlike other fields of medicine, the IF of an ophthalmology journal does not correlate with its SCR. Self-citation is found more often in journals with a low corrected IF and is inversely correlated with IF in the bottom half.

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“…Do the authors truly understand the logistical aspects of a journal (such as review speed, or peer review processes in general) that are assumed to be characteristics of quality? As has been noted, impact factor is a metric that is problematic (Elliott, 2014;Gisvold, 1999). Are there other factors beyond traditional metrics and what we have explored to help journals achieve respect among scholars?…”

Section: Regional Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open access journals in educational technology: Results of a survey of experienced users

Perkins

Lowenthal

2016

AJET

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As the academic publishing industry evolves, there has been an unprecedented growth of open access journals (OAJs). In educational technology alone, with an estimated 270 associated journals, nearly one-third are designated as open. Though OAJs are lauded for what their availability can contribute to social justice issues (reduction of subscription requirement barriers), some remain suspicious of the content found in them and question the legitimacy of publishing in them. In this study, we sought to discover the opinions of educational technology scholars about OAJs in their own field. We were able to learn which OAJs were deemed to be most valuable, as well as the characteristics of OAJs thought to be particularly important.

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The impact factor: a useful indicator of journal quality or fatally flawed?

Cited by 41 publications

References 11 publications

Medical journals, impact and social media: an ecological study of the Twittersphere

Medical journals, impact and social media: an ecological study of the Twittersphere

Self-Citation Rate and Impact Factor in Ophthalmology

Open access journals in educational technology: Results of a survey of experienced users

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