Some journals have recorded unprecedented growth in impact factors while others have a either maintained theirs or declined. What does this mean for the journals and publishing in general, especially during this era of Covid-19? Share your views.
See these discussions about the recent increase of impact factors:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Unprecedented_growth_of_impact_factor
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Progressive_Inflation_Impact_Factor
Here are some previous discussions on the (real, assumed or fictitious) connection between quality and impact factor:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_it_true_that_Journals_with_high_impact_factor_always_publish_high_quality_papers_or_the_papers_in_low_or_no_impact_factor_are_of_lesser_quality
https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_quality_of_a_research_paper_is_indicated_by_the_journal_it_has_published_from_or_not_How_do_you_judge_the_quality_of_the_research_paper
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Scopus_or_ISI_do_you_agree_the_indexed_journal_always_better_than_other_or_non-indexed
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Publishing_only_in_the_journals_with_high_impact_factors_or_publishing_good_papers_no_matter_IF_or_no_IF_journal_and_achieving_high_citation_score2
See also these discussions on problems with the impact factor:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Death_of_impact_factor_system
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_could_be_a_next_scientific_quality_evaluation_approach
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Journal_impact_factor_should_be_weighted_by_two_key_variables
Thank you, Wolfgang R. Dick, for sharing these important discussions.
This is such a good question! And great debate topic on incentives in publishing (although it's close to consensus that increasing IF doesn't equate to increase in quality)
Also, consider what isn't part of the impact factor - any penalty for retractions or contrary citations... so it rewards all citations, independent of quality, contrary opinion, or context.
(IFs reward what's being talked about independent of how it's being talked about)
Better metrics have been proposed, but most of my colleagues are skeptical of bibliometrics in general as quality metrics.
See also this discussion about the recent growth of impact factors:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_clarivate_Journal_Citation_Reports_JCR_analysis_increasing_the_quality_of_the_journal
Wolfgang R. Dick thank you for the materials you have shared that have addressed various aspects of this discussion. Much appreciated!
I think you are right, increase in impact factor and cite score shows a journal is getting better
The growth of circulation is not necessary quality.
Am in line with Andrew Wilson
Nowadays predatornals J.s also having high IF ! . Everything is sold from originality and ethics .
Andrew Wilson thank you for your contribution. I agree that the IF is not comprehensive and tends to favour the established journal. We definitely need other metrics.
Considero desastres ante q pueden ser indicadores a tener en cuenta para evaluar el impacto el factor de impacto y el puntaje de citas.
Raidy Teidy Rojas Angel Bello Gracias por su contribución. Estoy de acuerdo con usted.
Of course yes. Since the citation of research papers in that particular journal increases.
Being cited and quality overlap but are not all inclusive. Some absolute nonsense is routinely cited.
Neil Dagnall, yes I agree. I hope they don't consider citations in predatory journals and self-citations that can manipulate the score.
Increase in a journal's impact factor mean that it is becoming better because greater number of researchers cite the paper in the journal. On a common platform for comparison an impact factor is important.
Madhukar Baburao Deshmukh thank you for your contribution. I think even with this comparison, some national journals not listed in the major indexing outlets such as Scopus are disadvantaged.
I think the papers published in these journals will just have a higher chance to be cited.
Mohammed Rabie and Ravinder Kumar Sahdev thank you for your contributions
Normally, Journals with high impact factor attract more researchers.
"Impact Factors are used to measure the importance of a journal by calculating the number of times selected articles are cited within the last few years. The higher the impact factor, the more highly ranked the journal. It is one tool you can use to compare journals in a subject category.
Impact Factors are useful, but they should not be the only consideration when judging quality. Not all journals are tracked in the Journal Citation Reports database and, as a result, do not have impact factors. New journals must wait until they have a record of citations before even being considered for inclusion. The scientific worth of an individual article has nothing to do with the impact factor of a journal."
Source:
https://mdanderson.libanswers.com/faq/26159
Ahmed T. Hussein, that is a great contribution. Indeed there are articles in the said 'big journals' that are hardly cited. So, the quality of an individual article matters a lot!
IF is not a good metric to evaluate journal quality. Some editors are asking the authors to cite papers published in their journal in the last 5 years, to boost their journal's impact factor. This happened to me twice, from two different journals, with impact factors of 5 and 7, and well-known, respected journals, too. Also, a lot of reviewers are asking the authors to cite their papers, and this happened to me many times, at least a dozen times to be exact. In light of such practices, IF is nothing but a number. Also, when I look at some journals with very high impact factors, I see a lot of low quality articles published there as well, further indication that IF is meaningless.
No doubt at all JIF exhibits their quality some people not agree but I did not get any logic Evaluation first criteria is IF rather than then Quartiles.
Further see link too.
https://mdanderson.libanswers.com/faq/26159
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