The Impact Points in Research Gate and the impact factor of journals are different from each other. The impact factor of journal is a product of ISI, as I stated earlier. But, the impact points in Research Gate are auto-generated by the system itself as someone hits any publication. It may not necessarily need to be cited somewhere else by any author. So important point to be noted here is that the impact point increases as the publication gets hitted again and again.

Note: The views shared here are solely based on the perceptions as the writer is not an expert of the system. Only Research Gate experts can give the details of it.

Impact factor is different from citations.

Impact factor depends from the journal and citation is how often the article has been cited.

These two elements are important when it is a matter of academic research and publications, but to me, this doesn't mean that the other articles published in other journals are less interesting.

@ Blerina - Thanks for your valuable comment Madam. What I exactly wanted to know is how some of the author's/resource people here make a note of the impact factor on their profile page. Of course, with all respect to those people, I believe that everyone of us would love to mention our own impact factors in our profiles too.

when you enter your publication I believe the system automatically calculates your impact?

@ Colin - Yes, I am exactly trying to push that so called 'system' into the lime-light, so that we all can understand and learn and execute what exactly impact factor really is. I can compare it to the stock exchange - easy to perform, but difficult to understand how it is done..!

what i mean is the researchgate system!

The impact is quite simple - this is from wikipedia................

A = the number of times articles published in 2006 and 2007 were cited by indexed journals during 2008.

B = the total number of "citable items" published by that journal in 2006 and 2007. ("Citable items" are usually articles, reviews, proceedings, or notes; not editorials or Letters-to-the-Editor.)

2008 impact factor = A/B.

@ Colin - Dear Sir, (if I am allowed to use your good self as an example here) what I am trying to extract is not only the impact factor, but the impact points also. That's a very neat example cited by your good self (from Wikipedia) regarding the impact factor, and considering these impact points, for example, even you have mentioned it on your profile page (you have mentioned it to be 41 points, I believe). I am eager to learn what that is all about.

each journal I've published in has an impact factor associated with it. I guess they add up those for my publications

@ Colin - Nice to hear about that Sir. So that means, can I say that everyone can just mention the impact factor of the journal in which their article gets published as their respective impact points?

i guess so but I'm think that is only common to researchgate - you would need to check it out.

I know for a person there is a measure known as a H-index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index

but I'm no expert on this - maybe someone here can help............

@ Colin - Of course I too wish others would participate in this debate. You did a great job with your valuable inputs Sir. Thanks. I really appreciate it.

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. The impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), now part of Thomson Reuters. Impact factors are calculated yearly for those journals that are indexed in Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports.

Journal Impact Factor is from Journal Citation Report (JCR), a product of Thomson ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). JCR provides quantitative tools for evaluating journals. The impact factor is one of these; it is a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a given period of time.

The impact factor for a journal is calculated based on a three-year period, and can be considered to be the average number of times published papers are cited up to two years after publication. For example, the impact factor 2012 for a journal would be calculated as follows:

A = the number of times articles published in 2010-2011 were cited in indexed journals during 2012

B = the number of articles, reviews, proceedings or notes published in 2010-2011

impact factor 2012 = A/B

(note that the impact factor 2011 will be actually published in 2012, because it could not be calculated until all of the 2011 publications had been received. Impact factor 2012 will be published in 2013)

@ Pankaj - Thanks a lot for your detailed explanation Sir. I recommend your good self to go through the previous comments as well, in which I would have mentioned about the need to know about the 'impact points' as cited by a few good authors here at this site.

You can use http://journal-ranking.com/ranking/searchCommonRanking.html

@ Douglas Ferguson - Thanks for the link Sir.

The Impact Points in Research Gate and the impact factor of journals are different from each other. The impact factor of journal is a product of ISI, as I stated earlier. But, the impact points in Research Gate are auto-generated by the system itself as someone hits any publication. It may not necessarily need to be cited somewhere else by any author. So important point to be noted here is that the impact point increases as the publication gets hitted again and again.

Note: The views shared here are solely based on the perceptions as the writer is not an expert of the system. Only Research Gate experts can give the details of it.

Check it out....

Http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm

@ Colin - Thanks a lot for the link Sir.

@ Pankaj - Dear Sir, thanks a lot once again for your brief and crisp display. I guess that's the exact answer I have been looking for..!

Dear sir/madam,

i have added an article of mine published in "Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews" an elsevier journal having impact factor of 4.56; but this is not showing in my profile can anyone explain why is it happening ???

Says:-

Dear Mr. Amjid, I suggest you to read the comment made on January, 13th, by Mr. Pankaj Roy.

Dear mr. Kishore / dear mr. Roy, it is still unclear to me how Researchgate calculates its impact points. What exactly is meant by "hitting" a publication? Who or what is hitting it, and why and when does the "hit" count? I also have many journals in the list that apparently do not have an impact factor yet.

(Here the text that I am referring to, dated 13th of Jan: "But, the impact points in Research Gate are auto-generated by the system itself as someone hits any publication. It may not necessarily need to be cited somewhere else by any author. So important point to be noted here is that the impact point increases as the publication gets hitted again and again.")

Hit = select; view

Says:-

Mr. Peter Otieno - To my knowledge, it is the number of citations an aritcle gets and the popularity/demand of the subject it is based up on that decides the impact factor for any journal. It is an yearly calculation based on the number of articles that gets published in that journal and is subject to change. I have come across a lot of journals without any impact factor, still would have published certain articles which are of very high demand.

Mr. Carel Windt - I guess, only Researchgate can clarify this. As far as I have understood, the number of times a publication has been viewed or 'hit' depicts the impact points of that article. Again as I mentioned above it is the popularity-demand that makes any article to be top notch.

IF ȋ̝̊̅ƨ̣̣̣̇̇̇ not just calculated by ISI. It ȋ̝̊̅ƨ̣̣̣̇̇̇ also calculated by Scimago. Both α̲̅я̩̥̊ε̲̣̣̣̥ released by Elsevier.

Pertaining †☺ IF by researchgate researchers, according †☺ the response Ȋ̝̊̅ got from one of the Researchgate board members sometimes ago, it ȋ̝̊̅ƨ̣̣̣̇̇̇ an auto-generated value calculated based on the number of articles published I̶̲̥̅̊n̶̲̥̅̊ journals with IF. For example, if a researcher has published 3 articles I̶̲̥̅̊n̶̲̥̅̊ 3 different journals with IF 0.2, 0.4, and 0.3, the researcher's IF ȋ̝̊̅ƨ̣̣̣̇̇̇ 0.9

Says:-

Thank you so much Mr. Marius for the FASEB journal article.

Can you find these on researchgate?

Says:-

I assume that you are asking me Mr. Thomas Ind. My answer would be a positive nod. Yes, but researchgate has moved on since I started this post and thanks to RG, we all got our RG score's.

I.F means little given the vast plethora of poor scientific work published in recent years in many fields. I would suggest that one goes with historically reputable journals with a well known editor-in-chief who has vast experience themselves when it comes to preparing, submitting, and reviewing articles. The previous ten years, especuially with the advent of on-line pre-peer reviewed articles almost anything goes and will be published somewhere. A 'good' journal will maintain an I.F that reflects its overall history, not just the 'current popular' garbage that litters the indexes now.

The system is perverse in the way that an article is interesting for his content not necessary for the IF of the journal. What is better: a good article in a low journal or a bad article in a good journal?

I think that a good alternative is the authors impact, which is calculated by the h-index.

The h-index was proposed by J.E. Hirsch in his paper An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output, arXiv:physics/0508025 v5 29 Sep 2005. It is defined as follows:

A scientist has index h if h of his/her Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np-h) papers have no more than h citations each.

h-index is influenced also by the number of times authors cite their own previous work, so others have come up with better schemes (see Harzing's program Publish or Perish for details).

Says:-

Nice to see some interesting replies like the H-index, here. Thanks guys...!!!

I have a paper comparing 11 metrics of journal influence/impact among ecology journals. It includes definitions and uses of each. The metrics include the Journal Impact Factor, h-index, g-index, e-index, Article Influence, SJR, SNIP, and Eigenfactor. The paper is open access so everyone can read it (not behind paywall): http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/IEE/article/view/4949/4966

I would certainly use a network index such as the Article Influence (also published in the JCR available through Web of Science ISI) over the Impact Factor for most purposes. That said, all metrics have different pros and cons and no single metric can encompass all aspects of publishing influence, even just as indicated by citations.

Says:-

Thanks Mr. Hocking for sharing your publication. The idea to use a scatter plot to describe your findings is really a smart work! To my knowledge, the h-index is considered the best of all? Could you please share your thoughts on this.

I think the h-index is decent for individual researchers, especially if calculated with and without self citations. However, I think it is a problematic measure for comparing journals. The h-index can only go up, never down, so it tends to increase with increasing number of publications. A journal that publishes 1000 papers per year and has an h-index of 50 is not necessarily better than a journal that publishes 50 papers per year and has an h-index of 20. As I mentioned previously, there is no one metric that encompasses all aspects of impact, influence, or prestige (for researchers or journals). Researchers must be viewed more holistically and not based on the impact factor (or other metrics) of the journals they publish in ( http://www.ascb.org/dora/ ). For that reason, individual-based metrics are better. I don't really get ResearchGates' impact points. On average it correlates with the h-index but there is a lot of variation from researcher to researcher and I don't think it accurately reflects an author's influence through citations or readership. Impact Story is a better place to go to complement the h-index and total number of publications and citations.

From a quick piece of calculator work, at least in my case, the research gate impact points are the simple sum of the journal impact factors (which are noted beside publications in the "contributions" tab) for my published research.  Imagine it will be the same for everyone.  

Says:~

Thanks a lot all for your excellent comments!

The impact points on RG is only the sum of the impact factors of all your articles published in journals with impact factors. For this, it is important to check that the impact factor is well defined for a given journal.

Thank you all for your lovely answers.

As suggested by Stephane above, has any one verified to see if the impact points on RG is actually the sum of the impact factors of all the articles published in journals with individual impact factors?

I like to know if this is true or not? If not what it (RG IF) means...???

Thanks.

I have just checked on myself, the impact points on RG does NOT equal the sum of the impact factors of the articles published.

However, I still have no idea what RG impact points could mean...

Dear Tamas

I have checked for your publication and your impact points is the sum of the of your impact factors of the articles published. Please check !! Your impact factor is 1.27 and you have an article with 1.27 impact factor. Do not confuse between impact point and RG score!

Best regards

Stephane

Dear Stephane,

You are right, thank you for the correction. Sorry, I just did not realize that the journal of my other article had no impact factor in the year of publication (which is quite surprising because it has an impact factor both in the previous year and in the next year).

Kind regards,

Tamas

Thanks  everyone, Thanks Stephane and Tamas.

Thanks for your help in  verifying it. 

Appreciated

Brian

Dear Tamas

Sometimes you have to update yourself the impact factor of the journal. If I well remember to do this you have to go on the title of your paper and then edit your paper. If the journal is in the database his impact factor will be updated.

Best regards

Stephane

Dear Stephane

The impact factor for J Phys Chem B for year 2003 was missing from all online sources where I tried to find it. However, RG have probably found the missing impact factor and they updated their database to contain the value 3.38.

Therefore, my impact point value has risen from 1.27 to 4.65(=1.27+3.38), which is another proof that the impact point value is the sum of the individual impact factors of each publication.

Kind regards,

Tamas

Due respect to all,

Neither the Score of RG is as same as the IF of Journal as perceived by (most respectful) Shivangi Shivpuri nor its the sum total of the Impact points of published articles as mentioned by (most respectful) Stephane Panier.  Yes the IF of published articles have share on RG score but, not alone the IF of published articles. Yes! Its true "sometimes you have to update yourself the impact factor of the journal. If I well remember to do this you have to go on the title of your paper and then edit your paper. If the journal is in the database his impact factor will be updated"--as rightly stated by Stephane Panier. Thank you Stephane.

I have observed many scholars' RG score is quite lesser than the sum total of the IF of their published articles. On the other hand, some scholars have RG score without any uploading evidences of published work. Now question is--where does this score come from?  Let's say in the language of RG itself--"The RG Score is a metric that measures scientific reputation based on how all of your research is received by your peers.

How does the RG Score work?

We believe that researchers are best placed to evaluate each other’s work, and that you should receive credit for all of your research, whether published or not. With this in mind, algorithm of RG looks at how both your published research and your contributions to ResearchGate are received by your peers. Here’s how it works.

CONTRIBUTIONS

A contribution is anything you share on ResearchGate or add to your profile. So whether it’s your questions and answers, a published paper you add to your profile, or the negative results and raw data you upload, anything you contribute can count towards your RG Score.

INTERACTIONS

Interactions form the basis of your RG Score. Not only does RG algorithm look at how your peers receive and evaluate your contributions, it also looks at who these peers are. This means that the higher the scores of those who interact with your research, the more your own score will increase. Your published research is then factored in to reflect your current standing within the scientific community.

REPUTATION

With the RG Score, reputation is passed from researcher to researcher, allowing you to build and leverage your reputation based on anything you choose to contribute."

Thanking you all!

Thank  you, dear  Pankaj Roy for  your  contribution. They  are  quite  elucidating.

Please impact factor 2015 of journal  DCDIS series a: Mathematical Analysis.

Thank you

Its my pleasure Thomas Adejoh!

Its difficult to get you properly Boulbaba Ghanmi!

Please Why?

 Dear Mr. Pankaj Roy, thanks a lot  for your contribution1

Sir, you are welcome! Its my honour to listen from you @ Prof. Dr. Bashkim Mal Lushaj.

I like to share it here..... https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_impact_factor_of_Journal_differ_from_the_RG_score#55c4d64e6143252f158b45fc

Dear all,

Found an interesting article on impact factor - "Journal Impact Factor and the Real Impact of Your Paper". Hope you will enjoy reading it.

Thanks 

Thank you all for clarifying this matter, especially to those who have attached materials. Now, I have quite an idea! 

What i get from this conversation is that the impact points is equal to the summation of the impact factors of the Articles corresponding to the impact factor of the Journal.

Correct me if you found something inconvenient.. 

I used to check journal impact factors directly from ResearchGate, but strangely I am no longer seeing this update. Can someone tell me why or what is going on, is there something I should know? Thanks in advance

Yes, these seem to have been removed as an information source - does anyone know where to find these, if they still exist?

Sometimes the impact factor of the journal is 2.2 however, RG of the same journal is 0.4. May I know the difference?

Thanks a lot for the wonderful comments

Nice to see interesting information regarding impact factor