Calculating impact factor: how bibliographical classification of journal items affects the impact factor of large and small journals

Golubić, Rajna and Rudeš, Mihael and Kovačić, Nataša and Marušić, Matko and Marušić, Ana (2008) Calculating impact factor: how bibliographical classification of journal items affects the impact factor of large and small journals. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14 (1). pp. 41-9. ISSN 1353-3452

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Abstract

As bibliographical classification of published journal items affects the denominator in this equation, we investigated how the numerator and denominator of the impact factor (IF) equation were generated for representative journals in two categories of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). We performed a full text search of the 1st-ranked journal in 2004 JCR category "Medicine, General and Internal" (New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM, IF = 38.570) and 61st-ranked journal (Croatian Medical Journal, CMJ, IF = 0.690), 1st-ranked journal in category "Multidisciplinary Sciences" (Nature, IF = 32.182) and journal with a relative rank of CMJ (Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, AABC, IF = 0.435). Large journals published more items categorized by Web of Science (WoS) as non-research items (editorial material, letters, news, book reviews, bibliographical items, or corrections): 63% out of total 5,193 items in Nature and 81% out of 3,540 items in NEJM, compared with 31% out of 283 items in CMJ and only 2 (2%) out of 126 items in AABC. Some items classified by WoS as non-original contained original research data (9.5% in Nature, 7.2% in NEJM, 13.7% in CMJ and none in AABC). These items received a significant number of citations: 6.9% of total citations in Nature, 14.7% in NEJM and 18.5% in CMJ. IF decreased for all journals when only items presenting original research and citations to them were used for IF calculation. Regardless of the journal's size or discipline, publication of non-original research and its classification by the bibliographical database have an effect on both numerator and denominator of the IF equation.

Item Type: Article
MeSH: Bibliometrics ; Databases, Bibliographic/statistics & numerical data ; Periodicals as Topic/classification ; Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data
Departments: Katedra za anatomiju i kliničku anatomiju
Depositing User: Marijan Šember
Status: Published
Creators:
CreatorsEmail
Golubić, RajnaUNSPECIFIED
Rudeš, MihaelUNSPECIFIED
Kovačić, NatašaUNSPECIFIED
Marušić, MatkoUNSPECIFIED
Marušić, AnaUNSPECIFIED
Date: March 2008
Date Deposited: 05 Mar 2010
Last Modified: 27 Jan 2020 15:24
Subjects: /
Related URLs:
URI: http://medlib.mef.hr/id/eprint/734

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