Scientific research output is always questionable, so an indicator should be used to measure the relevance and quality of other researchers’ work. This indicator is already existed and first introduced by Eugene Garfield, in 1955, and it is known by the name “Journal Impact Factor” (JIF). It was originally invited to help librarians decide on journal subscriptions, after ranking them according to their impact factor. So, what is the Journal impact factor? And why is it important?
Journal Impact factor is “the total number of citations, received by a journal in a given year, to articles published in the two immediately preceding years, divided by the total number of citable items published by that journal in the past two years, such as primary research articles, reviews, and commentary, not news items, editorials, or other non-research materials”. Therefore, the Journal Impact Factor can be calculated by using this formula:
In other words, the Journal Impact factor is the average number of citations received by papers published in a particular journal within a short time, which is probably the immediate two proceeding years. Thus, JIF measures the importance of each journal in its field by measuring the average frequency of their articles’ citations.
Indeed, the impact factor was originally invented to help librarians rate adequate academic journals, but now it is much more important. Due to the fact thousands of journals and research articles are published annually, it is difficult to rank all of them according to their quality. This is why the impact factor is used. It is hard to identify the good and the bad impact factor because it depends on the journal’s discipline and specialization. However, the more citations a journal receives, the higher the impact factor it will get.
When it comes to the score of impact factor it starts at 0 which means no citations during the observed period. The good impact factor depends on the discipline of journals, for example, history field in 2020, the highest impact factor was 2.195. Although this impact factor is considered high in that field, it is low in the field of oncology. In addition to the discipline of journals, the impact factor is affected by its calculation formula, because only citations of the previous two years are considered, and in some fields takes a longer time to discover new findings for spreading and citations.
Although impact factor was used as a valid indicator to measure the quality of researcher’s work in case of academic promotions or institutional decisions like scholarships, grants, and rewards, impact factor is always a controversy, as some researchers see it as an accurate indicator to measure the quality of journals, and the number of citations is a motivation for researchers. On the other hand, others think it is not a valid tool This is because the citation pool by genera, as general journals receive more citations than specific journals, or the citable items type, for instance, review articles are cited more than any other type of research articles such as case reports, consequently the JIF values are skewed from the normal distribution.
The impact factor is called “cancer that can’t be ignored”, as it has been encouraging exploitative practices like self-citation, non-source publications, duplicate publications, and selective publishing of highly citable literature, seeking to increase the quality and prestige of journals.
In conclusion, the impact factor is not the perfect tool to define the rank of journals, but there is nothing better, and has the advantage of already existing. It is always known that the best journals are those in which it is difficult to accept articles for publication, and those are the journals with a high impact factor. Journals and articles existed a long time ago before the impact factor was found. impact factor as a measure of quality is widespread because it fits well with the opinion we have in each field of the best journals in our specialty.
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Garfield, E. (2006). The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. jama, 295(1), 90-93.
Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National academy of Sciences, 102(46), 16569-16572.
https://akjournals.com/page/what-is-a-good-impact-factor/what-is-a-good-impact-factor-for-an-academic-journal
Lariviere, V., & Sugimoto, C. R. (2019). The journal impact factor: A brief history, critique, and discussion of adverse effects. Springer handbook of science and technology indicators, 3-24.
Mech, E., Ahmed, M. M., Tamale, E., Holek, M., Li, G., & Thabane, L. (2020). Evaluating journal impact factor: a systematic survey of the pros and cons, and overview of alternative measures. Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases, 26, e20190082.