Thanks for your thoughts. But, if the IF represents average number of citations per paper, how can the number of published items drive this shift? The number of papers should be the denominator in calculating the IF. (Unless, the more publishable items ….the greater the chances of a high outlier in terms of citations. Seems plausible, but also with a greater number of papers there should be less sensitivity of the mean to outliers.)

In any case, perhaps the real question is what drove the increasing number of citations? 

Hi Matt,

How are things?

I have also noticed this sudden increase in the IF of the journal when I read the latest paper by our mutual friend Laura. I don't really know for a fact what caused this increase, but one thing I did realize is that the journal's editor Artemi Cerda is very active on social media (in fact, he was the one drawing my attention to Laura's paper via Twitter). It is only a speculation, but I think good science communication might have had something to do with it.

Greetings from freezing Germany

Vincent

That's intriguing. I thought maybe there was a trend of more special issues recently…but I checked and they have been doing them for years. I thought maybe one or 2 outlier viral papers might have inflated the numbers, but I can't find any.

I think your hypothesis seems very plausible, I wonder what year he took over?

Here's another observation, they changed the cover about 2 years ago. In the age of pdf's it doesn't seem like that would have a huge effect, but the former cover was awful…like something from the 1970s. It did not invite casual perusal, and if you saw that cover on the website it might subconsciously lead you to view the work inside less favorably. Design matters.

In any case, I think it's great that we have a journal friendly to soil science and restoration/rehabilitation that's really getting well cited.