![]() However, different fields exhibit variable citation patterns. Only citations within a two-year time frame are considered. The JIF is calculated considering only those citations that a particular journal has received within 2 years prior.Conversely, a few highly cited papers within a particular year can result in anomalous trends in a journal’s impact factor over time. 8 So, an article published in a journal with a high JIF has not necessarily had high impact: it is very well possible that the article itself has not received any citations. Following the well-known 80-20 rule, the top 20% articles in a journal receive 80% of the journal’s total citations this holds true even for the most reputed journals like Nature. The JIF measures the number of citations accrued to all the articles in a journal, not to individual articles. The JIF is a measure of journal quality, not article quality.To compare journals from different disciplinesīy librarians, to manage institutional subscriptionsīy funding agencies, as a basis for grant allocationīy researchers, to identify prestigious field-specific journals to follow and possibly submit toīy authors, as a singular criterion of consideration for journal selectionīy journals, to compare expected and actual citation frequency and compare themselves with other journals within their fieldīy hiring and promotion committees, as a basis for predicting a researcher’s standingīy publishers, to conduct market research6īelow are listed some of the features and shortcomings of the JIF that should be well understood in order to prevent misuse of this metric: To compare the influence of journals within a specific subject area To evaluate the impact of individual articles and researchers How the JIF should be usedĪs a measure of journal prestige and impact This article delves a little deeper into the fallacies of the impact factor and points that you should consider when using it. 5 A previous article "The impact factor and other measures of journal prestige" touched upon its calculation and features. The impact factor of a journal is a simple average obtained by considering the number of citations that articles in the journal have received within a specific time frame. This metric has recently come under considerable criticism owing to its inherent limitations and misuse. Unfortunately, the JIF is now often used inappropriately, for example, to evaluate the influence of individual pieces of research or even the prestige of researchers. Eugene Garfield, 1 the founder of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), had originally designed it as a means to help choose journals. ![]()
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