Dear @Vladimir, we were discussed this issue as far as I remember. I do agree that "Academic performance in terms of citation impact can differ enormously depending on the data source and metrics used"! There is no correlation between quality of the paper and IF! "It is not normally appropriate to compare performance across disciplines. If one has to do so, Google Scholar is the most appropriate data source."

Very good research paper Citation analysis across disciplines:The impact of different data sources and citation metrics is MUST reading!

http://www.harzing.com/data_metrics_comparison.htm

I think we should not give much priority for citation index alone because there is a possibility to some poor publications also to get more citation while a good publication cannot due to various reasons viz., field of study, accessibility to the full-text, online availability, etc. Very important point is that science should not be in the hands of business people and it should be in the hands of scientists. This is my humble opinion.

Thank you for your response. I fully share your opinion.

Thank you sir.

Dear Vladimir the problem for a citation index is the Price for you publication. It is a business for this agencies, so the importance for us is good, but some researcher don´t have money for financing you indexing yours paper. We more encourage iniciative as ResearchGate that have some way for our publications.

Dear Carlos

thank you for your response.

I agree with you that the ResearchGate implements an approach that is more useful to the scientific community.

I believe that the citation index, such as Google citation index, is more important than the impact factos of journals.

The Google Scholar Citations, as an example provide a simple way for authors to keep track of citations to their articles. You can check who is citing your publications, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. While the Impact Factor is given to the journal you are publishing your article in.

Dear Vladimir, like in all conflict cases, the truth is somewhere in the middle, so is here: Although indices are not absolutely right, we cannot ignore them, since sometimes they have something to tell us about the level of the authors.

Dear Demetris,

important note: levels of publication activity of the authors.

The absurdity of the current quantitative indicators of scientific productivity is obvious.

Look, for example, RG-page of inventor of World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee).

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tim_Berners-Lee

Dear @Vladimir, we were discussed this issue as far as I remember. I do agree that "Academic performance in terms of citation impact can differ enormously depending on the data source and metrics used"! There is no correlation between quality of the paper and IF! "It is not normally appropriate to compare performance across disciplines. If one has to do so, Google Scholar is the most appropriate data source."

Very good research paper Citation analysis across disciplines:The impact of different data sources and citation metrics is MUST reading!

http://www.harzing.com/data_metrics_comparison.htm

Yes, dear @Ljubomir, my previous question is related to the topics discussed here.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_agree_that_assessment_of_scientific_productivity_should_be_based_on_the_amount_of_discoveries_inventions_and_rationalizations

Dear @Vladimir, every of us would like to have prober and reliable citation metrics. But, especially for people whose name are in Cyrillic Alphabet, many problems arise. 

My colleague  Svetla Baykoucheva has written nice article for Elsevier : Untangling Authors’ Names! 

http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/untangling-authors-names/

Dear @Aleksey, thank you. I'll take a look. 

"The absurdity of the current quantitative indicators of scientific productivity is obvious."

Dear Vladimir, in the disputable context, please read the attached 2003 note from Nature, as well as my paper on predictive value (for citation numer) of rank-normalized journal impact factor:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24012689_Rank-normalized_journal_impact_factor_as_a_predictive_tool

Article Rank-normalized journal impact factor as a predictive tool

Dear Grzegorz, perhaps You are aware this article:

Ching N. Fame is Fortune in Sino-science. Nautilus. 19. 09. 2013. http://nautil. us/issue/5/fame/fame-is-fortune-in-sino_science

Dear Vladimir,

There are hundreds of similar papers, highlighting limitations and negative effects of “the world of impact factor-based scientific assessment”, finalized in  the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. However, note two fragments of the Ching’s article, so important in the context of China science (and not only).

1. “Wu Yishan, deputy director of ISTIC, explains his [grant; GR] agency’s thinking: “The space of a high impact factor journal is a scarce resource. It proves your competitive advantage over competitors. Project funds, which are also a scarce resource, should also be given to people with this advantage.”

As we are living in time of information oversupply and “burial under the paper weight”, paired with increasing competition for reader attention (see attachments), the above evaluation approach is of key significance. The main problem is a trustworthy selection of articles to these high-IF journals , in which a small percent of submissions only is accepted!

2. “Le says that the U.S. peer review system is more effective from this perspective, but a quality peer review system requires a healthy, competitive academic environment, which takes time to build up. China, he says, is not quite there yet: “The reasons why are complex, and related to cultural background, social institutions, and the phase of economic development. It probably will take time.” Liu Qingsheng, a retired professor who spent ten years evaluating research projects in China, agrees. “In China’s science academe, there is not yet a complete credibility system, so some quantity index is still needed,” he said.”

As stressed by Lomnicki (2003): “Abandonment of objective methods of science evaluation derived from the SCI would be most dangerous in developing countries and others where science is not first-rate.”

In Poland, the IF-based “parameter” assessment is in usage in various varieties since 1998 (see my article recommended previously), and lastly combined with elements of qualitative peer-review evaluation. Without doubts, especially in younger generation, positive consequences are far more significant than negative sides, as predicted by Lomnicki (“the system is wrong and unjust, but other systems are much worse”).

Interesting capture of the complexity and intricacy of the scientific world, especially in the context publishing research. For the sake of assumption, let us agree citation indexes and scientific significance was meant to be mutually reinforcing, however this is not necessarily the case now as domains (geographical, thematic) of scientific information have changed or expanded, whilst the mindset to accommodate and appreciate that expansion has not caught up per the expectation.

Dear @Aleksey, thanks for introducing S-index. Your comparison to Hirsh H-index is very interesting. This new scientometric indicator deserves fine attention.