The relation between Eigenfactor, audience factor, and influence weight

We present a theoretical and empirical analysis of a number of bibliometric indicators of journal performance. We focus on three indicators in particular, namely the Eigenfactor indicator, the audience factor, and the influence weight indicator. Our main finding is that the last two indicators can be regarded as a kind of special cases of the first indicator. We also find that the three indicators can be nicely characterized in terms of two properties. We refer to these properties as the property of insensitivity to field differences and the property of insensitivity to insignificant journals. The empirical results that we present illustrate our theoretical findings. We also show empirically that the differences between various indicators of journal performance are quite substantial

A More Comprehensive Index in the Evaluation of Scientific Research: The Single Researcher Impact Factor Proposal

Good alternatives to the Impact Factor (IF) algorithm are needed. The Thomson IF represents a limited measure of the importance of an individual article because 80% of a journal's IF is determined by only the 20% of the papers published. In the past few years, several new indexes has been created to provide alternatives to the IF algorithm. These include the removal of self citations from the calculation of the IF using the Adjusted IF, Index Copernicus initiative and other modifications such as the Cited Half-Life IF, Median IF, Disciplinary IF, and Prestige Factor. There is also the Euro-Factor, born in Europe to avoid the strong US centrality, and the English language basis of the Thomson database. One possible strategy to avoid "IF supremacy" is to create a new index, the Single Researcher Impact Factor (SRIF), that would move the evaluation from the power of scientific journals to the quality of single researchers. This measure can take into account the number and quality of the traditional publications and other activities usually associated with being a researcher, such as reviewing manuscripts, writing books, and attending scientific meetings. Also, in funding policy, it might be more useful to consider the merits, contributions, and real impact of all the scientific activities of a single researcher instead of adding only the journals' IF numbers. The major aim of this paper is to propose and describe the SRIF index that could represent a novel option to evaluate scientific research and researchers

The Impact Factor as a measuring tool of the prestige of the journals in research assessment in mathematics

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Research evaluation following peer review. The version of record Antonia Ferrer-Sapena, Enrique A. Sánchez-Pérez, Fernanda Peset, Luis-Millán González, Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent; The Impact Factor as a measuring tool of the prestige of the journals in research assessment in mathematics. Res Eval 2016; 25 (3): 306-314 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvv041The (2-year) Impact Factor of Thomson-Reuters (IF) has become the fundamental tool for analysing the scientific production of academic researchers in a lot of countries. In this article we show that this index and the ordering criterion obtained by using it are highly unstable in the case of mathematics, to the extent that sometimes no reliability can be assigned to its use. We explain the reasons of this behaviour by the specific properties of the mathematical journals and publications, attending mainly the point of view of the researchers in pure mathematics. Using the Journal Citation Report list of journals as a source of information, we analyse the stability in the position of the mathematical journals-the so-called rank-normalized impact factor-compared with journals in applied physics and microbiology during the period 2002-12. Due to the lack of stability of the position of the journals of mathematics in these lists, we propose a 'cumulative index' that fits better the characteristics of mathematical journals. The computation of this index uses the values of the IF of the journals in previous years, providing in this way a more stable indicator.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Spain) [CS02012-39632-C02 to A.F.S, F.P., R.A.B.] and [MTM2012-36740-C02-02 to E.A.S.P.].Ferrer Sapena, A.; Sánchez Pérez, EA.; Peset Mancebo, MF.; Gonzalez, L.; Aleixandre-Benavent, R. (2016). The Impact Factor as a measuring tool of the prestige of the journals in research assessment in mathematics. Research Evaluation. 25(3):306-314. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvv041S30631425

Evaluating Research Activity:Impact Factor vs. Research Factor

The Impact Factor (IF) “has moved ... from an obscure bibliometric indicator to become the chief quantitative measure of the quality of a journal, its research papers, the researchers who wrote those papers, and even the institution they work in” ([2], p. 1). However, the use of this index for evaluating individual scientists is dubious. The present work compares the ranking of research units generated by the Research Factor (RF) index with that associated with the popular IF. The former, originally introduced in [38], reflects article and book publications and a host of other activities categorized as coordination activities (e.g., conference organization, research group coordination), dissemination activities (e.g., conference and seminar presentations, participation in research group), editorial activities (e.g., journal editor, associate editor, referee) and functional activities (e.g., Head of Department). The main conclusion is that by replacing the IF with the RF in hiring, tenure decisions and awarding of grants would greatly increase the number of topics investigated and the number and quality of long run projects.scientific research assessment, Impact Factor, bibliometric indices, feasible Research Factor

Towards a new crown indicator: an empirical analysis

We present an empirical comparison between two normalization mechanisms for citation-based indicators of research performance. These mechanisms aim to normalize citation counts for the field and the year in which a publication was published. One mechanism is applied in the current so-called crown indicator of our institute. The other mechanism is applied in the new crown indicator that our institute is currently exploring. We find that at high aggregation levels, such as at the level of large research institutions or at the level of countries, the differences between the two mechanisms are very small. At lower aggregation levels, such as at the level of research groups or at the level of journals, the differences between the two mechanisms are somewhat larger. We pay special attention to the way in which recent publications are handled. These publications typically have very low citation counts and should therefore be handled with special care

A multidimensional analysis of Aslib proceedings – using everything but the impact factor

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the journal impact factor (IF) is not able to reflect the full impact of scholarly journals and provides an overview of alternative and complementary methods in journal evaluation. Design/methodology/approach – Aslib Proceedings (AP) is exemplarily analyzed with a set of indicators from five dimensions of journal evaluation, i.e. journal output, content, perception and usage, citations and management to accurately reflect its various strengths and weaknesses beyond the IF. Findings – AP has become more international in terms of authors and more diverse regarding its topics. Citation impact is generally low and, with the exception of a special issue on blogs, remains world average. However, an evaluation of downloads and Mendeley readers reveals that the journal is an important source of information for professionals and students and certain topics are frequently read but not cited. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to one journal. Practical implications – An overview of various indicators and methods is provided that can be applied in the quantitative evaluation of scholarly journals (and also to articles, authors and institutions). Originality/value – After a publication history of more than 60 years, this analysis takes stock of AP, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and developments over time. The case study provides an example and overview of the possibilities of multidimensional journal evaluation

Bibliometric indicators for assessing the quality of scientific journals

Znanstveni časopisi zauzimaju važno mjesto u znanstvenoj zajednici te obavljaju različite uloge, među kojima posebice valja spomenuti objavljivanje i diseminacija rezultata znanstvenih istraživanja, vrednovanje zaprimljenih članaka kroz recenzijski postupak, zaštita intelektualnog vlasništva autora te njegovo predstavljanje znanstvenoj zajednici. Znanstveni časopisi također zauzimaju i važnu ulogu u procjeni kvalitete znanstvenoga istraživanja pa se od 60-tih godina 20. stoljeća nadalje uočava porast kvantitativnih istraživanja svojstava časopisa, odnosno radova/članaka koje oni objavljuju kao osnovnih jedinica na kojima se provode, tzv., bibliometrijske analize. U ovom su poglavlju opisani bibliometrijski pokazatelji o časopisima kao što su to faktor odjeka časopisa (IF), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) i h-indeks. Također je i razjašnjena metodologija njihovog izračuna te je donesen i kritički pregled njihovih prednosti i mana, kao i naglašena važnost razumijevanja kontektsta unutar kojih se spomenuti bibliometrijski pokazatelji o časopisima moraju interpretirati. Donesen i pregled relevantnih citatnih baza podataka koje bilježe podatke o citiranosti pojedinih radova objavljenih u časopisima, a na temelju kojih se izračunavaju razni bibliometrijski pokazatelji o časopisima (Web of Science Core Collection i Scopus), kao i besplatne citatne baze podataka Google Znalac. Kao alternativa, ali i dopuna bibliometrijskim pokazateljima o časopisima donesen je i pregled altmetrijskih pokazatelja o radovima objavljenim u časopisima koji se temelje, primjerice, na broju posjeta nečkom članku u digitalnoj verziji, broju preuzimanja, dijeljenja i spominjanja na raznim društvenim mrežama i sl