Predicting impact factor one year in advance

Publication Times and Impact Factors (IFs) in Dentistry Journals

INTRODUCTION

 The speed of manuscript publication in reputable journals plays a crucial role in spreading scientific novelties and may influence the number of received citations. In the present study, the authors investigated the publication speed of dentistry journals. This is crucial for both authors, who desire rapid dissemination of their findings, and patients in need, who seek new therapies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

 This was a cross-sectional bibliometric analysis of published dentistry journals. A list of dentistry journals featured in the 2021 Journal Citation Report was downloaded. A total of five random original articles were extracted from each of these journals. These articles were published between January and December 2020. Median and interquartile range (IQR) times from submission to acceptance, publication in print, online publication, time from acceptance to in print and online publication were calculated. The correlation between publication times and journal impact factor (IF) was examined.

RESULTS

 A total of 89 journals were included. Individual time from submission to acceptance (peer review time) ranged from 6 to 279 days, the combined median peer review time was 115 (80-159) days. The overall median time from acceptance to online or print publication was 17 (12-38) and 153 (92-249) days, respectively. Journals with available data concerning publication times tended to have higher IF than others. Only journals that did not have available time from acceptance to online publication had higher IF. There were negative correlations between times from submission (r = -0.442, p = 0.007), acceptance (r = -0.616, p < 0.001) to in-print publication, and IF. There were no correlations between IF and time from submission to acceptance, acceptance to online publication, and submission to online publication.

CONCLUSIONS

 Publication times availability was revealed to be an indicator of higher impacted journals, which is a potential new exponent of journal quality. Higher IF values were associated with shorter times from submission to acceptance and in-print publication, which is consistent with current editorial policies.

How well are journal and clinical article characteristics associated with the journal impact factor? a retrospective cohort study

OBJECTIVE

Journal impact factor (JIF) is often used as a measure of journal quality. A retrospective cohort study determined the ability of clinical article and journal characteristics, including appraisal measures collected at the time of publication, to predict subsequent JIFs.

METHODS

Clinical research articles that passed methods quality criteria were included. Each article was rated for relevance and newsworthiness by 3 to 24 physicians from a panel of more than 4,000 practicing clinicians. The 1,267 articles (from 103 journals) were divided 60∶40 into derivation (760 articles) and validation sets (507 articles), representing 99 and 88 journals, respectively. A multiple regression model was produced determining the association of 10 journal and article measures with the 2007 JIF.

RESULTS

Four of the 10 measures were significant in the regression model: number of authors, number of databases indexing the journal, proportion of articles passing methods criteria, and mean clinical newsworthiness scores. With the number of disciplines rating the article, the 5 variables accounted for 61% of the variation in JIF (R(2) = 0.607, 95% CI 0.444 to 0.706, P<0.001).

CONCLUSION

For the clinical literature, measures of scientific quality and clinical newsworthiness available at the time of publication can predict JIFs with 60% accuracy.

On indexing in the Web of Science and predicting journal impact factor

We discuss what document types account for the calculation of the journal impact factor (JIF) as published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Based on a brief review of articles discussing how to predict JIFs and taking data differences between the Web of Science (WoS) and the JCR into account, we make our own predictions. Using data by cited-reference searching for Thomson Scientific's WoS, we predict 2007 impact factors (IFs) for several journals, such as Nature, Science, Learned Publishing and some Library and Information Sciences journals. Based on our colleagues' experiences we expect our predictions to be lower bounds for the official journal impact factors. We explain why it is useful to derive one's own journal impact factor.

The impact of review articles

The expansion of the scientific literature has produced a concomitant increase in the number of review articles. One may posit that the sheer number of review articles belies their function. This study examines the growth of the review literature, what types of journals publish these papers, and provides data on the citation rate of the review literature. Focus is given to the pathology literature, defined as papers that have the word 'pathology' or its derivatives in the title, abstract or as a key word. The pathology literature is proliferating at a rapid rate; from 1991 to 2006, the total number of original articles increased 2.3-fold, while the number of reviews increased 5.6-fold. Furthermore, in that same time frame, approximately 90% of pathology articles and reviews were not published in pathology journals. An examination of the 538 review articles that were published in pathology journals in 2005 reveals that only 21% of them have been cited more than 10 times since their publication. The impact factors of 12 pathology journals were compared with and without review articles for the period 2000-2006, including The American Journal of Pathology (AJP), The Journal of Pathology (JP) and Laboratory Investigation (LI). Inclusion of reviews increased the impact factor for JP by 0.610+/-0.153 U (+/-s.d.), which was significantly greater than that for AJP (0.109+/-0.086) and LI (0.147+/-0.088). However, for all three journals the total impact factor was largely a reflection of the citations of original articles. The motivations of authors and editors who produce review articles are considered, such as career progress and increasing journal visibility, respectively. The fact that many review articles are poorly cited raises concern about the harm that poor review articles can cause, first by making it more difficult to find the good reviews, and in the worst case by propagating scientific error through lack of critical appraisal of original research. The attributes of the best reviews that serve to shape the future of science are described. These data are presented with the hope that authors and editors will carefully consider their respective roles in ensuring that the body of review literature will be of maximum benefit to the scientific and biomedical community.