Impact factors and prestige

Impact factor: Mutation, manipulation, and distortion

Currently, there is an increased dependency on the impact factor in scientific research publications. Sometimes the overzealousness in implementing the impact factor value to a publication is detrimental to the growth of the scientific authors, especially the junior lot, for no fault of theirs. The inept and myopic application of the impact factor defeats the purpose of making the value judgment and hence has been criticized by many learned authors. The scientist Eugene Garfield, who formulated the impact factor, feels wrong that it is being not judiciously used. A corollary is the invention dynamite by Alfred Nobel which instead of helping, aiding, and reducing human effort and endeavor it was more misused for human annihilation and pained the scientist who gave it to the world. The authors reexamine the application of impact factor to scientific manuscripts for rightful application of the value judgment.

The evolution of academic performance in nine subspecialties of internal medicine: an analysis of journal citation reports from 1998 to 2010

BACKGROUND

Internal medicine includes several subspecialties. This study aimed to describe change trend of impact factors in different subspecialties of internal medicine during the past 12 years, as well as the developmental differences among each subspecialty, and the possible influencing factors behind these changes and differences.

METHODS

Nine subspecialties of internal medicine were chosen for comparison. All data were collected from the Science Citation Index Expanded and Journal Citation Reports database.

RESULTS

(1) Journal numbers in nine subspecialties increased significantly from 1998 to 2010, with an average increment of 80.23%, in which cardiac and cardiovascular system diseases increased 131.2% rank the first; hematology increased 45% rank the least. (2) Impact Factor in subspecialties of infectious disease, cardiac and cardiovascular system diseases, gastroenterology and hepatology, hematology, endocrinology and metabolism increased significantly (p<0.05), in which gastroenterology and hepatology had the largest increase of 65.4%. (3) Journal impact factor of 0-2 had the largest proportion in all subspecialties. Among the journals with high impact factor (IF>6), hematology had the maximum proportion of 10%, nephrology and respiratory system disease had the minimum of 4%. Among the journal with low impact factor (IF<2), journal in nephrology and allergy had the most (60%), while endocrinology and metabolism had the least (40%). There were differences in median number of IF among the different subspecialties (p<0.05), in which endocrinology and metabolism had the highest, nephrology had the lowest. (4) The highest IF had a correlation with journal numbers and total paper numbers in each field.

CONCLUSION

The IF of internal medicine journals showed an increasingly positive trend, in which gastroenterology and hepatology increase the most. Hematology had more high IF journals. Endocrinology and metabolism had higher average IF. Nephrology remained the lowest position. Numbers of journals and total papers were associated with the highest IF.

The impact factor of rheumatology journals: an analysis of 2008 and the recent 10 years

Despite various weaknesses, the impact factor (IF) is still used as an important indictor for scientific quality in specific subject categories. In the current study, the IFs of rheumatology journals over the past 10 years were serially analyzed and compared with that from other fields. For the past 10 years (1999–2008), the IFs published by the Institute for Scientific Information in the Science Citation Index—Journal Citation Report were analyzed. For the majority of rheumatology journals, the IF shows a gradually increasing trend. The mean and median level of increase of IF from 1999 to 2008 is 233.9 and 66.5%, respectively. The increase in IF from 1999 or the first year with IF documentation to that in 2008 was higher for European journals than for the USA journals. The aggregate IF and the median IF of rheumatology journals remained within the top 30% and top 15% in clinical medical and all the scientific categories, respectively. Over the past 10 years, rheumatology journals showed a general increase in IF and rheumatology remained a leading discipline. For journals in the English language, those from Europe had an even higher increase than those from USA.

Predicting impact factor one year in advance

The first impact factor (IF) to reflect the sole efforts of a new editorial team occurs 4 years into what is usually a 5-year editorship, owing to the lag times of: paper accrual and publication, accumulation of citations in derivative literature, and compiling of such citations by the Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge service. Through weekly collection of citation data from the Web of Science over the past 2 years, we now demonstrate that the evolution of IF can be tracked weekly over the course of a calendar year, enabling prediction of the next year's IF beginning at the middle of the previous year. The methodology used to track the developing IF for Lab Invest is presented in this study and a prediction made for the 2006 IF, along with IF predictions for other general pathology journals (American Journal of Pathology, Journal of Pathology, Modern Pathology, American Journal of Surgical Pathology, and Human Pathology). Despite the fact that the 2006 IF for Lab Invest will not be issued until June 2007, it became apparent as early as July 2006 that the Lab Invest IF would be greatly improved over 2004 and 2005 by a predicted 0.5 units. However, as important as IF can be to a journal, it is vital not to let IF considerations influence every aspect of the editors' decisions. Rather, the significance of early prediction lies in earlier validation of editorial policies for journal management as a whole, and reassurance that the philosophy for journal operations is on track.