Fear Factor and Impact Factor

WRITING JOURNAL: FEAR FACTOR & IMPACT FACTOR

Abd Karim [email protected]

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

FEAR FACTOR? PUBLISH OR PERISH


FEAR OF PUBLISHING?

•Get rejected many times

•Research not up to “standard”

•Lack of scientific communication skill

•Lack of confidence & encouragement

•Poor planning


TO GET PUBLISHED IS NOT EASY

•Rejection rates can be as high as 60-70%

•Criteria for publication are more stringent


PUBLISH, NOT PERISH"How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper" by Robert A. Day

"What I have said in this book is this: Scientific research is not complete until the results have been published. Therefore, a scientific paper is an essential part of the research process. Therefore, the writing of an accurate, understandable paper is just as important as the research itself.”


PUBLISH, NOT PERISH"How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper" by Robert A. Day

“…Therefore, the education of a scientist is not complete until the ability to publish has been established.”


WHERE TO PUBLISH?

•National/regional journal?

•International citation-indexed journal?

•International citation-indexed journal with impact factor?


SCIENTIFIC PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (METRICS)

•Indexing of scientific literature started in 1950s by Eugene Garfield

•“Citation indexes for science: A new dimension in documentation through association of ideas”, Science, 122, July 15, 1955: 108.



•Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was established in 1960 - began to publish Science Citation Index.

•Now published by Thompson Reuters

•Published annually in the SCI Journal Citation Report.


JCR - JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS

•A host of journal information & metrics

•Impact Factor•5-Year Impact factor•Immediacy Index•Cited Half-Life•Self-Citation Rates•Article Influence Score•Eigenfactor Score


SCIENTIFIC PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Nature: Vol. 465, June 2010, 864-866



•Simple way to denote influence

•Hard to compare between fields

Number of citationsNumber of times a researcher or research paper is cited by others



Impact Factor (IF)The frequency with which an average article in a journal gets cited.

Impact factor 2010 =

All citations received by Journal X in 2010 to any content published in 2008-2009

No. of citable items published in Journal X in 2008-2009

2010 2009 2008 2007 2011


ABOUT IMPACT FACTOR

•Introduced in 1963 to assist selection of journal for SCI.

•Only indicates impact of journals, NOT of individual researchers or papers

•IF correlates poorly with actual citations of individual articles.


ABOUT IMPACT FACTOR


ABOUT IMPACT FACTOR

•IF can be affected significantly by a small number of papers in the journal.


ABOUT IMPACT FACTOR


•For example: In 2005, 89% of Nature’s impact factor was generated by 25% of the articles


ABOUT IMPACT FACTOR



“Impact factors don’t tell us as much as some people think of the

quality of the science that journals are publishing”


ABOUT IMPACT FACTOR



“Impact factors don’t tell us as much as some people think of the

quality of the science that journals are publishing”

See “Not-so-deep-impact”, Nature 435, 1003-1004 (23 June 2005)


IMPACT FACTOR PROS & CONS

•Easy to understand

•Almost universally accepted.

•Little transparency - underlying database not publicly available

•2 years citation windows are biased: 2 years favor rapidly moving field; 5 years favor slowly moving field

•Subject field differences

•Easy to misled & manipulate

Pros Cons


IF CAN RISE & DROP DRAMATICALLY!

IF in 2008 = 2.0IF in 2009 = 49.9

A case in point: Acta Crystallographica - Section A

The dramatic rise was due to a single article cited over 6,700 times! Without this article, the IF would have remained < 3.0!


5-YEAR IMPACT FACTOR

Introduced in February 2009 -- to better gauge the impact of journals within fields where influence of research evolves over a longer period of time.


2-YEAR VS 5-YEAR IMPACT FACTORImmunology


2-YEAR VS 5-YEAR IMPACT FACTORGeology


SUBJECT FIELD DIFFERENCES

Journal IF Impact Factor 2010

Lancet Infectious Diseases

Social Studies of Science

Dyes and Pigments

Food Chemistry


EASY TO MISLEAD & MANIPULATE

Journal can publish a lot of content that is not an article or review (but the citation of the content is counted!)

Mislead -- what is counted and what is not counted?

Impact factor 2010 =

All citations received by Journal X in 2010 to any content published in 2008-2009

No. of citable items published in Journal X in 2008-2009


EASY TO MISLEAD & MANIPULATE

•ISI counted documents classified as ‘articles’, ‘reviews’ or ‘proceeding papers’ in the denominator

•Citations to all papers (including editorials, news items, letters to editor, etc.) are counted for the numerator.

What exactly counted in the numerator & denominator?


•Editors write editorial•Editor refers to a lot of journal content

published in last 2 years - all these citations are counted

TRICKS & MANIPULATION TO BOAST IMPACT FACTOR


BEWARE WHILE USING IMPACT FACTOR

•The absolute value of IF is meaningless

•IFs should not be used to compare journals across disciplines (e.g., citation frequency in medicine > mathematics)

•IFs are not very relevant in certain field


IMPACT FACTOR ALONE DOES NOT INDICATE...

•Quality of individual article within a journal

•The overall quality of research performed

•The prestige of research or academic programs/institution


COMMON MISUSES OF IMPACT FACTOR AS A SOLE CRITERIA

•Promotion/tenure decisions

•University administrators’ rating or ranking academic & research programs within and across an institution

•Use as a publicity by journal publishers to boast their reputation


CAN WE RELY ON IMPACT FACTOR?

•All metrics have limitation!

•We have to understand the limitation of IF

•Use multiple qualitative & quantitative measures as much as possible (e.g., Eigenfactor, h-index)


EIGENFACTOR SCORE

•The Eigenfactor algorithm uses the structure of the entire network to evaluate the importance of each journal, cutting across all diciplines. Self-citations are excluded.

•This corresponds to a simple model in which readers follow chains of citations as they move from journal to journal.


EIGENFACTOR SCORE

•Eigenfactor calculations take into consideration a 5-year span of citation activity utilizing data from JCR.

•Journals are considered to be influential if they are cited often by other influential journals.


WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA OF A GOOD JOURNAL?

Strong peer-review process?

High manuscript rejection rates?

Inclusion of high quality research?

Impact factor?

Highly respected editor or editorial

board?

Authors prestige?

Publisher?

Readership - size, diversity?

User view point


WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA OF A GOOD JOURNAL?

Document delivery request

Faculty recommendation

Citation impact

Usage

Indexing sources

Editorial quality

Publisher

Cost

Librarian view point


CONCLUSION

•Don’t worry so much about impact factor

•Overcome your fear of publishing by getting your first paper published at least in peer-reviewed journal.

•Publish in journals that are visible and accessible (i.e., in indexed journal)

•Go for reputable journals that publish only quality papers (not necessarily high IF) .


Thank You for Your Kind Attention


Fear Factor and Impact Factor

Education

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