Since the impact factor indicates the citations of a respected journal, then with increasing number of journals shouldn't the citations be distributed somehow.. resulting in a decrease of impact factors over time!
Also, should the total number of journals be a factor in adjustment?
Hello Yazan, I have observed that several journals have impact factors that decrease the next year, or next 2 years. If they publish many papers that do not get high citation rate, the IF will decrease. Now there are some editors who judge papers and they may refuse to publish a good honest paper, if they think that it's not likely to be cited. As an author, I learn now to submit to the right journal that is likely to find the paper interesting, and hopefully likely to be cited. Recently, one of my papers was accepted by a journal that has a low IF, but as long as it's non-zero, I will not be choosy. Have a good day.
Hi Yazan :)
The IF value importance is usually overestimated. More important (but usually not visible for the first look) is the position of journal in its category. I am sure you know that Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 journals exists. If you want to present your research in good journals, Q1 and Q2 are generally the best choice. This metric is more interdisciplinary comparable than IF. Ofcourse in time some journals can change their position (both - IF and Quartile ranking), but if the journal is very good, it will hold its Q1 position even between many new journals and even in the case of its IF decrease (it means it will still stay between 25% of best journals).
So, the existence of quartile ranking can be the answer to your question. Publish in journal with as high position in its category, as is possible to get more citations. Or there exist metric for average number of citation excluding self-citations, so try to find category which fits to your expectations (see the first link, select some category and find: Total Cites (3years); Citable Docs. (3years); Cites / Doc. (2years); Ref. / Doc. Ofcourse if the popularity of journal (or quality) will decrease in comparsion to others, these numbers will be affected too as they are conected with IF.
Only for comparison (I am writing from home so I don't have acces to full Thomson Reuters functionality and therefore I will use something very similar - ScimagoJR - for approx. evaluation). Imagine two scientist - one is specialist in agronomy and the second one is excelent biochemist. The first one will publish article in "Plant Biotechnology Journal" with IF 6.09, the second one will publish in "Annual Review of Biochemistry" with IF 21.41. From these numbers people usually conclude that the second one is better scientist than the first one. But if you check it more carefully, you will find that "Plant Biotechnology Journal" is Q1 in category "Agronomy and Crop Science" and "Annual Review of Biochemistry" is Q1 in category "Biochemistry" (both are on the top in given category). So the right conclusion is that both are - ofcourse very probably - good scientists.
Simply speaking, in our country the position of journal (not IF) in its specific category is a key how to evaluate and distribute subsidies for research from our government to all university.
Below are some links for clarification if necessary.
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php
http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlsubcatg.cgi?PC=K
http://wokinfo.com/essays/impact-factor/?utm_source=false&utm_medium=false&utm_campaign=false
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