I think there are two issues here that have to be separated:

Firstly, no, IF is no measure of the “performance” of a researcher. It is specifically not important to the established researcher. To him (or her) it is important how well his work was accepted and recognized as being original. One would look at other matters such as: was he the first author”, how often has the work been cited (by his peers- in journals and books), in which journal was the original publication (remember, the IF is an reflection of the esteem of the journal only), etc. Exactly because the IF is a poor reflection of the impact and productivity of an established researcher, other indexes such as the h- index (and its many variations: c, g, h2, h3, m, s) were developed.

All of the above have shortcomings. This has been recognized by many institutions. Therefore many leading universities and research institutions request the (established) researcher to select a few (usually 5) of his “best” publications. These will then be discussed and evaluated. This is currently the situation at our Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam. In some countries, such as Germany, this has been formalized (see: http://www.dfg.de/en/service/press/press_releases/2010/pressemitteilung_nr_07/index.html).

The situation is quite different for the young and up-coming researcher. He needs exposure and the best minds to weigh the importance of his (scientific) contribution. He cannot choose “his best” as he has hardly published. To obtain that level of exposure, to ensure citation, to ensure careful pre- publication scrutiny by international peers, he should aim for the journal, in his field of research, with the highest impact. Why? Because most of us are not as fortunate to have our first few contributions noticed by the international community who, due to time constraints only reads the journals with an high IF. Post- publication, is a publication in e.g. Nature a “measure of performance”? Yes, a little bit.

Thanks very much Ahmedani for bringing forth one of the most discussed topic in the intellectual arena. Although I do agree with you still unfortunately this is the way the scientific community perceive to be a successful researcher. More number of publications in peer reviewed journal means good research. On the other hand if you look into a specific journal then it had it's own priority area i.e., methodology, impact, policy and so on.

The most pathetic aspect is that there is no full proof system to measure intellectualism of a researcher other than the impact factor. Alternative as suggested by you like RG Score needs to be validated by a larger population.

Any thoughts?

Thank you very Much Mr. Saroj for your valuable input. though you are having a pretty good impact factor in Social sciences, which may be equal to 115 in natural sciences. I too believable that the scientific community perceives Impact factor as a measure of performance of a researcher. But perception and realities don't not give the same results all the times. There may be a gap which if discussed logically may lead to bring change in our perception. As far peer reviewing system is concerned, this is logical because known experts in the field may better judge worth of an article provided it is not an innovation in the respective field. An article reviewed by two or more referees and subject specialists guarantees more solid research and sound investigations as compared to one which is not reviewed by the peers. But you know that the impact factor is something else which bases on circulation of a journal. For example If a journal which is of very high significance is limited to one or two countries and its contents are not available online, its impact can never be equal to that of similar journal of comparatively low quality but with large circulation. So to my understanding impact factor is a relative term and all journals reviewed by peers have equal impact. For example journal in cancer and Aids research have high circulation and include burning issue as compared to a journal on on "Ethics in Business Management ". So if one publishes one article on Cancer may have more impact as compared to that who published 50 articles on business ethics, wherein both types of journals have similar peer reviewing system. Under such circumstances a need for different mechanism such as RG Score arises to account for holistic contributions of scientist working in different fields.

Another important thing to remember is that impact factor is not an indicator attributed to a researcher, but to a journal.

Absolutely right you are Dr. Tatiana. But unfortunately scientific community has unanimously started measuring achievement of researchers using this tool.

Impact factor will change every year as per the Journal type. Hence, if you wants to evaluate on the basis of Impact factor, you can evaluate every year. Because a particular journal's impact will change in forthcoming year. So, my conclusion is impact factor is not a good judgement. If the Journal is ISSN or ISBN .. Ok, we accepted.

The scientific community that Ahmedani has mentioned probably pays attention to whether your publications were in Impact factor journals or not.

However, impact factors are not always the right tool to measure that one journal is better than the other, I agree. But it really shows that the journal is at least 5 years old, publishes on a regular basis and has its readership, authors, editors, reviewers, etc.

I think there are two issues here that have to be separated:

Firstly, no, IF is no measure of the “performance” of a researcher. It is specifically not important to the established researcher. To him (or her) it is important how well his work was accepted and recognized as being original. One would look at other matters such as: was he the first author”, how often has the work been cited (by his peers- in journals and books), in which journal was the original publication (remember, the IF is an reflection of the esteem of the journal only), etc. Exactly because the IF is a poor reflection of the impact and productivity of an established researcher, other indexes such as the h- index (and its many variations: c, g, h2, h3, m, s) were developed.

All of the above have shortcomings. This has been recognized by many institutions. Therefore many leading universities and research institutions request the (established) researcher to select a few (usually 5) of his “best” publications. These will then be discussed and evaluated. This is currently the situation at our Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam. In some countries, such as Germany, this has been formalized (see: http://www.dfg.de/en/service/press/press_releases/2010/pressemitteilung_nr_07/index.html).

The situation is quite different for the young and up-coming researcher. He needs exposure and the best minds to weigh the importance of his (scientific) contribution. He cannot choose “his best” as he has hardly published. To obtain that level of exposure, to ensure citation, to ensure careful pre- publication scrutiny by international peers, he should aim for the journal, in his field of research, with the highest impact. Why? Because most of us are not as fortunate to have our first few contributions noticed by the international community who, due to time constraints only reads the journals with an high IF. Post- publication, is a publication in e.g. Nature a “measure of performance”? Yes, a little bit.

Thanks for your valued opinion. But citation again depends upon the circulation of a journal and may affect rating of a researcher if it is taken as one of the measure.

Impact factor cannot be considered as the intellectual ability of a researcher but the general acceptance of the topic of your interest. For example though chemistry and physics can be considered as some of the primary pillars of science, the impact factor of chemistry journals are much higher than that of physics. It doesn't mean that all the physicists are intellectually dumb. In fact each research area should be considered individually and should not compared. Actually such comparison will be like comparing apples with oranges.

Because of the flaw of this 'impact factor' business only the h-index came into existence and can be seen (but not absolutely) as the profile of the researcher. Even this statistical analysis is flawed, for example, even if you make publications in nature and Science, if the number of researchers working in the area is less or highly political, the chance of enhancing your h-index is less. Again one cannot then tell that you are intellectually dumb.

The best way is to concentrate on your research and make original contributions. Rest is just statistics.

Thanks Dr. Sunil. You have rightly said that " In fact each research area should be considered individually and should not compared. Actually such comparison will be like comparing apples with oranges.". This was factually purpose of this question to brainstorm the scientists about the issue of comparing oranges with apples. Let us start thinking about the alternative mechanism which may be ale to even compare apples with oranges.

Thanks Dr. Fariborz for your valuable comments. You are absolutely true but unfortunately citation is largely dependent on circulation of a journal and thus may not measure scientific worth of a scholar if he or she publishes in journals which have very limited circulation.

Yes Dr. You have rightly correlated impact factor with editorial policies which shows if an editor follows your suggestions, will surely be able to enhance impact factor and citation of his journal; which will further enhance rating of authors who publishes their article in that journal. But what will be the fault of an excellent scientist who unfortunately publishes his or her articles in journals whose editorial policies are not at par with your suggestions. This means that results obtained so far will become biased and a need will arise to think for an alternative mechanism such as RG Score that accounts for all efforts of scholars eliminating such anomalies..

A very good comment form Dr Ghaffarpasand who attracts attention to the details how impact factor can be molded. As with any evaluation system which applies, people have to adapt to it and do things which look best from the point of view of this system.

I've just got an idea why this question has arisen which confuses researchers and journals. Probably it's because ResearchGate practices 'total impact points' which could seem a conventional measure for some of the newcomers.

Has anyone seen 'total impact points' elsewhere?

With all due respect, citation does not depend on circulation of the journal. It is dependent on internet visibility of the work. To ensure that research is noted and cited, it is important that it is visible - regardless of the circulation of the journal. It is therefore important for universities and research institutions ensure that the work is accessible through various databases or "open access" publications. It is thus also important for the researcher to use multiple databases. For example, one of the quality criteria of a Systematic Review, in evidence- based medicine, the number of databases utilized and whether the literature search was done "with/ without...language restrictions" - the latter weighs far more.

Yes Dr. Jan you are absolutely right. We are saying the same thing but under different cultural circumstances. To me the visibility, access and availability of journals is the circulation of information. More the visibility more will be the circulation and greater will be chances of citation and vice versa. You are absolutely right that the universities must establish digital libraries and have subscription maximum data bases, journals, repositories as well as knowledge banks.

h-index (Hirsch index) measures both the actual scientific productivity and the apparent scientific impact of a scientist. For more information please follow the link below:

https://www.soton.ac.uk/library/research/bibliometrics/factsheet03-hindex-gs.pdf

Thanks @ Syamkumar. But I request you to please go through the posts of different contributors which depict that the impact factor is concerned with the journal and is nothing to do with the researchers. If one publish highly advanced and years data on animal taxonomy which is not the priority of scientific community, the paper will be published in some sort of behavioural journals for which the IF not high as compared to Cancer Journal. Under this circumstances, will we able to undermine work of that scientist as compared to a novice who just publishes short communication in Cancer journal?

The impact factor refers to a journal, and says little or nothing about the academic merits of any paper, other than it was accepted by some referees, an Associate Editor, and Editor.

How a published might evaluated by the academic profession depends on the number of citations (excluding self-citations) and h-index.