Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Diversity, value and limitations of the journal impact factor and alternative metrics

  • Review Article
  • Published:
Rheumatology International Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The highly popular journal impact factor (JIF) is an average measure of citations within 1 year after the publication of a journal as a whole within the two preceding years. It is widely used as a proxy of a journal’s quality and scientific prestige. This article discusses misuses of JIF to assess impact of separate journal articles and the effect of several manuscript versions on JIF. It also presents some newer alternative journal metrics such as SCImago Journal Rank and the h-index and analyses examples of their application in several subject categories.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Archambault É, Larivière V (2009) History of the journal impact factor: contingencies and consequences. Scientometrics 79:635–649. doi:10.1007/s11192-007-2036-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Gasparyan AY, Banach M (2009) A medium of science communication in our times. Arch Med Sci 5:1–2

    Google Scholar 

  3. Habibzadeh F (2008) Journal impact factor: uses and misuses. Arch Iran Med 11:453–454

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Gasparyan AY (2010) Thoughts on impact factors and editing of medical journals. Inflamm Allergy Drug Targets 9:2–5. doi:10.2174/187152810791292908

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Bornmann L, Leydesdorff L, Marx W (2007) Citation environment of angewandte chemie. CHIMIA 61:104–109. doi:10.2533/chimia.2007.104

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Retzer V, Jurasinski G (2009) Towards objectivity in research evaluation using bibliometric indicators: a protocol for incorporating complexity. Basic Appl Ecol 10:393–400. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2008.09.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. (2007) EASE statement on inappropriate use of impact factors. Eur Sci Ed 33:99–100

  8. Hoeffel C (1998) Journal impact factors. Allergy 53:1225

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Garfield E (2006) The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. JAMA 295:90–93. doi:10.1001/jama.295.1.90

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Seglen PO (1997) Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. BMJ 314:498–502

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Oswald AJ (2007) An examination of the reliability of prestigious scholarly journals: evidence and implications for decision-makers. Economica 74:21–31. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.2006.00575.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Metze K (2010) Bureaucrats, researchers, editors, and the impact factor: a vicious circle that is detrimental to science. Clin (Sao Paulo) 65:937–940. doi:10.1590/S1807-59322010001000002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Krell FT (2010) Should editors influence journal impact factors? Learn Publ 23:59–62. doi:10.1087/20100110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Dimitrov JD, Kaveri SV, Bayry J (2010) Metrics: journal’s impact factor skewed by a single paper. Nature 466:179. doi:10.1038/466179b

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Rossner M, Van Epps H, Hill E (2008) Irreproducible results: a response to Thomson Scientific. J Exp Med 205:260–261. doi:10.1084/jem.20080053

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Rossner M, Van Epps H, Hill E (2007) Show me the data. J Cell Biol 179:1091–1092. doi:10.1083/jcb.200711140

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Golubic R, Rudes M, Kovacic N, Marusic M, Marusic A (2008) Calculating impact factor: how bibliographical classification of journal items affects the impact factor of large and small journals. Sci Eng Ethics 14:41–49. doi:10.1007/s11948-007-9044-3

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. González L, Campanario JM (2007) Structure of the impact factor of journals included in the social sciences citation index: citations from documents labeled “editorial material”. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 58:252–262. doi:10.1002/asi.v58:2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Togia A, Tsigilis N (2006) Impact factor and education journals: a critical examination and analysis. Int J Educ Res 45:362–379. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2007.02.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Caramelli B, Silva MRE (2010) Brazilian medical journals are now facing a big challenge. Eur Sci Ed 36:38–39

    Google Scholar 

  21. Satyanarayana K (2010) Impact factor and other indices to assess science, scientists and scientific journals. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol 54:197–212

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Bornmann L, Daniel H-D (2008) What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior. J Documentation 64:45–80. doi:10.1108/00220410810844150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Tomlinson S (2000) The research assessment exercise and medical research. BMJ 320:636–639

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Brown H (2007) How impact factors changed medical publishing—and science. BMJ 334:561–564. doi:10.1136/bmj.39142.454086.AD

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Adler R, Ewing J, Taylor P (2009) Citation statistics. Stat Sci 24:1–14. doi:10.1214/09-STS285

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Habibzadeh F, Yadollahie M (2011) Evidence-based journalism. Croat Med J 52:212–213. doi:10.3325/cmj.2011.52.212

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Frey BS, Rost K (2010) Do rankings reflect research quality? J Appl Econ 13:1–38. doi:10.1016/S1514-0326(10)60002-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Moed HF, Van Leeuwen TN, Reedijk J (1996) A critical analysis of the journal impact factors of angewandte chemie and the journal of the American chemical society: inaccuracies in published impact factors based on overall citations only. Scientometrics 37:105–116. doi:10.1007/BF02093487

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Marx W (2001) Angewandte chemie in light of the science citation index. Angew Chem Int Ed 40:139–141. doi:10.1002/1521-3773(20010105)40:1<139:AID-ANIE139>3.0.CO;2-4

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. http://www.peerproject.eu/fileadmin/media/PEER_leaflet_2011.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept 2011

  31. Bornmann L, Neuhaus C, Daniel H-D (2011) The effect of a two-stage publication process on the journal impact factor: a case study on the interactive open access journal atmospheric chemistry and physics. Scientometrics 86:93–97. doi:10.1007/s11192-010-0250-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Pöschl U (2004) Interactive journal concept for improved scientific publishing and quality assurance. Learn Publ 17:105–113. doi:10.1087/095315104322958481

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Bergstrom CT, West JD, Wiseman MA (2008) The eigenfactor metrics. J Neurosci 28:11433–11434. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0003-08.2008

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Rizkallah J, Sin DD (2010) Integrative approach to quality assessment of medical journals using impact factor, eigenfactor, and article influence scores. PLoS One 5:e10204. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010204

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Fersht A (2009) The most influential journals: impact factor and eigenfactor. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:6883–6884. doi:10.1073/pnas.0903307106

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Mathur VP, Sharma A (2009) Impact factor and other standardized measures of journal citation: a perspective. Indian J Dent Res 20:81–85

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Licinio J (2006) Molecular psychiatry: the highest immediacy index in the field of psychiatry. Mol Psychiatr 11:324. doi:10.1038/sj.mp.4001820

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Gasparyan AY, Ayvazyan L, Kitas GD (2011) Biomedical journal editing: elements of success. Croat Med J 52:423–428. doi:10.3325/cmj.2011.52.423

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. The SJR indicator: a new indicator of journals’ scientific prestige. Available at http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0912/0912.4141.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept 2011

  40. Gonzalez-Pereira B, Guerrero-Bote VP, Moya-Anegon F (2010) A new approach to the metric of journals’ scientific prestige: the SJR indicator. J Inf 4:379–391. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2010.03.002

    Google Scholar 

  41. Gasparyan AY (2011) Get indexed and cited, or perish. Eur Sci Ed 37:66

    Google Scholar 

  42. http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php. Accessed 15 Sept 2011

  43. Falagas ME, Kouranos VD, Arencibia-Jorge R, Karageorgopoulos DE (2008) Comparison of SCImago journal rank indicator with journal impact factor. FASEB J 22:2623–2628. doi:10.1096/fj.08-107938

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  44. Bornmann L, Daniel H-D (2009) The state of h index research. Is the h index the ideal way to measure research performance. EMBO Rep 10:2–6. doi:10.1038/embor.2008.233

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Hirsch JE (2005) An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:16569–16572. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507655102

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  46. Braun T, Glänzel W, Schubert A (2006) A Hirsch-type index for journals. Scientometrics 69:169–173. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0147-4

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Kanter SL (2009) Understanding the journal’s impact. Acad Med 84:1169–1170. doi:10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181b7ffa6

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  48. http://www.bioinformation.net/. Accessed 15 Sept 2011

  49. Chen M, Zhao MH, Kallenberg CG (2011) The impact factor of rheumatology journals: an analysis of 2008 and the recent 10 years. Rheumatol Int 31:1611–1615. doi:10.1007/s00296-010-1541-z

    Google Scholar 

  50. Bornmann L, Marx W (2011) The h index as a research performance indicator. Eur Sci Ed 37:77–80

    Google Scholar 

  51. Bornmann L, Marx W, Schier H (2009) Hirsch-type index values for organic chemistry journals: a comparison of new metrics with the Journal Impact Factor. Eur J Org Chem 2009:1471–1476. doi:10.1002/ejoc.200801243

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Rieder S, Bruse CS, Michalski CW, Kleeff J, Friess H (2010) The impact factor ranking—a challenge for scientists and publishers. Langenbecks Arch Surg 395(Suppl 1):69–73. doi:10.1007/s00423-010-0623-4

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Kovacić N, Huić M, Ivanis A (2008) Citation analysis of the croatian medical journal: the first 15 years. Croat Med J 49:12–17. doi:10.3325/cmj.2008.1.12

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  54. http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html. Accessed 17 Sept 2011

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Society, Administrative Headquarters, Munich, Germany

    Lutz Bornmann

  2. Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany

    Werner Marx

  3. Clinical Research Unit, Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust (A Teaching Trust of University of Birmingham), Department of Rheumatology, Russell’s Hall Hospital, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 2HQ, UK

    Armen Yuri Gasparyan & George D. Kitas

  4. Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    George D. Kitas

Authors
  1. Lutz Bornmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Werner Marx
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Armen Yuri Gasparyan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. George D. Kitas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Armen Yuri Gasparyan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bornmann, L., Marx, W., Gasparyan, A.Y. et al. Diversity, value and limitations of the journal impact factor and alternative metrics. Rheumatol Int 32, 1861–1867 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-011-2276-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-011-2276-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation