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Some countries like Norway have introduced a ranking of conferences and journals, and thus provide recommendations on where to publish scientific results. This page adresses some of the aspects related to the Impact Factor and Scientific Publications.

Impact Factor

According to Kumar et. al ^[1], «the impact factor (IF) was initially designed by Eugene Garfield in the 1950s. It was introduced to the scientific community as an assessment tool to evaluate the value of a scientific journal, by calculating the number of citations of an article published in a particular journal over a specific time period. The term, impact factor, was only first used in 1961, after publication in the Science Citation Index (SCI) in 1963.(1) Presently, it is popularly referred to as Journal Citation Reports (JCR). In general, the number of citations of a particular article indicates only the mean interest of scientists for that article. Thus, the IF highlights the average interest in an article that gets published in the journal. However, most of the data utilised in the JCR are IF ratios obtained from dividing the number of citations received in one year on articles published the preceding two years (numerator) by the number of papers published over the two previous years (denominator). The JCR’s impact calculations are based on original research and review articles, as well as on short notes.»

Calculation of Impact Factor

The impact factor is calculated ...

Research Quality and Impact Factor

As Hansson pointed out in 1995, there is «no relation between the impact factor and the quality of the research»^[2].

Seglen identitfied reasons why the impact factor of journals should not be used^[3]. His main arguments were related to the fact that the reasons for citation are different than measures of quality. He used the example of overview or review articles, which are often cited, despite the fact that they often present little novelty in academic research.

5 Nobel price winners joined forces in late 2013 to critise the amount of research. Randy Schekman, Nobel Price winner in medicin, critised the System of using Impact Factors, because citation are not related to the quality of the research^[4]. And Peter Higgs, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics is 2013, claimed that he probably would not have got an academic position, given his low numbers of publications.^[5]

Conclusions

The impact factor was introduced by librarians to get an indication on which printed documents should be ordert for the library of the institution. Universities and countries have then adopted the impact factor to get a measure on the quality of research being performed. This adoption and the evolution of research has led

References

1. ↑ Kumar, V.; Upadhyay, S. & Medhi, B. Impact of the impact factor in biomedical research: its use and misuse. Singapore medical journal, 2009, 50, 752
2. ↑ Hansson, S. Impact factor as a misleading tool in evaluation of medical journals. The Lancet, 1995, 346, 8979
3. ↑ Seglen, P. O. Why the impact factor of journals should not be used BMJ, 1997, 314
4. ↑ Nico Kuhrt, Systemkritik: Wissenschaftselite beklagt zu viel Forschungsmüll, Spiegel online, http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/lancet-spezial-fuer-mehr-qualitaet-in-der-wissenschaft-a-942328.html, <assessed 8Jan2014>
5. ↑ Sabine Kleinert, Richard Horton. How should medical science change? The Lancet, Published online January 8, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62678-1