Use and misuse of the journal impact factor for evaluating researchers

Abstract

While the journal impact factor was originally developed to help librarians decide which journals to subscribe to, it has been increasingly used for the evaluation of the performance of individual researchers. The reasons why this practice should never be encouraged are reported in this study based on a literature review. This manuscript presents a critical overview on the international use, by governments and institutions, of the journal impact factor and/or journal indexing information for the assessment of individual researchers. The criticism on this practice is also illustrated through comments provided by Nobel laureates and others. This paper then proposes a rational method for evaluating researchers. As such, this work proposes an improved context for the use of the journal impact factor, so that this metric can be used for the right purpose.