The top-ten in journal impact factor manipulation

Abstract

A considerable part of the scientific community is, at least to some degree, involved in the "impact factor game". Editors strive to increase their journals' impact factor (IF) in order to gain influence in the fields of basic and applied research and scientists seek to profit from the "added value" of publishing in top IF journals. In this article we point out the most common "tricks" of engineering and manipulating the IF undertaken by a portion of professionals of the scientific publishing industry. They attempt to increase the nominator or decrease the denominator of the IF equation by taking advantage of certain design flaws and disadvantages of the IF that permit a degree of artificial and arbitrary inflation. Some of these practices, if not scientifically unethical, are at least questionable and should be abandoned. Editors and publishers should strive for quality through fair and thoughtful selection of papers forwarded for peer review and editorial comments that enhance the quality and scientific accuracy of a manuscript.

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“…Although numerous other measures are possible and some may well be superior (see Calver and Bryant 2008;Bollen et al 2009;Colledge et al 2010;Calver et al 2012;Chang and McAleer 2012;Vanclay 2012), journals often display JIF on their web pages. Editors may even adjust editorial policies to manipulate the JIF of their journals (Ashkanasy 2007;Falagas and Alexiou 2008). Many departmental administrators also use JIF as a convenient measure of the quality of the journals in which their faculty publish (Adler et al 2008).…”

“…Nevertheless, Falagas and Alexiou (2008) argue that journal editors are aware of the characteristics of highly cited papers and consider them when deciding what to publish to boost the JIF for their journals, while Brown (2007) gives a detailed case study. Furthermore, selection priorities in highly regarded journals viewed favourably by ranking schemes require accepted papers to be excellent scientifically, novel, of broad appeal and making a significant advance (Meffe, 2006;Watson et al, 2007, Primack, 2009).…”

Should editors influence journal impact factors?

“…4 Whereas the inventor of the impact factor, Eugene Garfield did not see any wrongdoing in this editorial practice, 5 authors (and other editors) increasingly became upset about it. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Since authors, apart from publishers, are the primary beneficiaries of an increased impact factor, this upset is astonishing. Moreover, in a recent study of journals that had increased their impact factor at least fourfold in a few years, Andrade et al 14 found 'no proof of widespread manipulation of the impact factor through the massive use of journal self-citation'.…”

“…The authors' concern about 'manipulation through journal self-citation' is based on the erroneous assumption 15 that the citation process is somewhat objective 16 and unbiased, and that a journal's impact factors actually do vouch for the quality of the journal 9,12 or even of the individual authors' work. 9,17 Thus, manipulation of this supposedly objective process is considered unethical.…”

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“…As has been widely described, the journal impact factor is calculated by summing the total citations during a given year to articles published in the previous 2 years and dividing this by the number of ''items'' (a number derived secretively by Thomson Reuters) published in the journal during that same 2-year period. 10,11,13,16,23,24,44 The ability of journal editors and publishers (particularly large and influential ones) to manipulate (and negotiate) the journal impact factor to achieve higher values has been well documented. 16,25,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] Unfortunately, journals from small subspecialty fields are at a distinct disadvantage with fewer articles for possible citation, a smaller population of investigators, and little leverage to finagle higher journal impact factor values.…”