Nowadays it's all about the impact factor when building one's scientific reputation. However, my personal opinion is that the 'Impact Points' system (as implemented in RG) may, at times, not be truly representative of a scientist's real output. Having co-authored just 1 Nature article and 1 Science paper as 18th-listed co-author, a researcher is rewarded with 73.83 impact points despite not having contributed more than maybe 5-10% of each paper. In comparison, a researcher with, e.g., 5 lead-author contributions in GEOLOGY and another 5 lead-author papers in Geophysical Research Letters (both are journals of high reputation in the Earth sciences) would only collect 40.4 impact points for significant efforts. This is, somehow, unequal and clearly favors scientists who are part of big research groups with a large number of authors (e.g., such as those conducting space missions). In my view, the effective impact point output should also include the percentage of contribution made in each specific contribution (similar to what this platform uses as their "RG score"). What is your opinion on this?
Martin,
I couldn’t agree with you more. If you’re lucky enough to be on a mission/instrument team, you more or less automatically get a Science/Nature paper out of it. Of course the first results then are new and exciting and all that. But are they necessarily the best research on the planet, like the hype around Science and Nature wants us to believe? Frankly, no, and quite often far from it. Those first papers often are (or at least they seem to be) put together in a haste, and if you really want to know about the topic of the paper, you have to wait for a proper JGR/Icarus/etc. paper to come out anyway. Many scientists that I know acknowledge this fact, at least to some extent, but it’s the hiring committees, bureaucrats and media that glorify Nature and Science.
But hey, I’ve never written a Science or Nature paper, so what do I know… And I find the whole religion of impact factors and points, and particularly the application of this religion utterly bonkers anyway…
Teemu
Dear Martin,
we all know that the 'impact points' system is not fair and favours scientists who are part of big research groups unambigously. It is also clear that the review system is not always fair and it is surly easier to publish in high-ranking journals if you are part of a big research group. On the other hand, the question we are facing is, how a system can appear that would be more fair - I have no idea. All we can hope is that vacancies will not only be filled on the basis of impact points - I know this remain very largely a pipe dream...
Cheers,
Elmar
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Journal Impact Factor