What I don't like about impact-factor rating schemes, besides the fact that there are so many ways of gaming the system, is that they build a certain kind of unfairness into the system. It happens by way of the rich-get-richer mechanism. However an article first gets a high rating, it then continues to enjoy an advantage SIMPLY BECAUSE IT HAS A HIGH RATING. People will tend to read the high-impact articles and not bother to look at lesser-rated articles, which may be just as worthy. It is like a bunch tree seedlings reforesting a field: the ones that happen to germinate and establish early, perhaps by blind luck of where the seeds lands, will begin to shade out those that germinate later. Of course, for articles and trees, some will truly deserve their privileged place because of scientific merit or good physiology, but what about all those others?
Martin M. Meiss 2013/10/22 malcolm McCallum <[email protected]> > I agree! > > My experience is that the impact factors of some journals are real > citation ratings (uninflated), but the impact factors of others get > inflated by a variety of strategies that improve the chances of higher > ratings. Among these, bundling journal topics and then asking authors > to cite papers from partner journals, (asking authors to cite papers > from their own journal is becoming rare due to the "self citation > rule" now in effect but only occasionally enforced [for good reason]), > and also pre-releasing articles 6-8 mo before they appear in print so > that now the citations to that article are based on a window 6-8 mo > larger than that of journals which do not do this. A strategy I see > at PLoS that is pretty unique to them is a submission sent to PLoS > Biology if rejected is almost always forwarded to PLoS One, and I > believe that some are even fast-tracked for publication there. This > also ensures improved impact rating of PLoS Bio because many authors > DO make sure they include relevant citations from the jouranl where to > which they are submitting, and it is also more likely a paper > submitted to your journal will cite your journal simply because of > commonality in subject matter. Its all a game from the editor > perspective. > > the pre-release is not a favor to the author, it is a strategy to > bump citation ratings by increasing the quantity of citations in year > 1. year 1 citations are in a lot of ways more important than year 2 > citations for impact calculations because articles release at the end > of the year have virtually no possiblity of citation in the following > year. A good example is PLoS One which continues to grow at a huge > rate. The growth is deflating the real impact factor. It causes year > 1, the year with the least opportunity for citation to always be way > larger than year 2 (the year with most citations). A stable journal > is the only one that has a valid impact rating. Journals that reduced > publication volume by increasing rigor (a valid mechanism) or reducing > anual volume regardless of rigor will see growth in their impact > rating. > > Impact factor is important, but maybe we need to start looking at the > individual's citation rating instead of the rating of the jourals in > which they publish. > > On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Mitch Cruzan <[email protected]> wrote: > > They find that assessors give higher scores to papers from higher > > impact-factor journals, and papers from those journals get cited more > often. > > They try to make the argument that assessor scores for papers from > journals > > with high impact factors are inflated, but this is unconvincing. The > > assessor scores, citation numbers, and journal impact factors are all > > positively correlated - there is a lot of co-linearity in the data. By > > trying to control for journal impact factor they effectively eliminate > the > > correlation between assessor score and citation number per paper. These > > three variables cannot be untangled because of they are strongly > associated. > > Their conclusion is based on a statistical artifact and does not reflect > the > > true relationships among these three variables. > > > > I agree that citation number is not always the best measure of the > quality > > or impact of a paper. Search engines such as Web of Science rank papers > > based on numbers of shared citations - the papers at the top of the list > are > > most likely to get read and cited. > > > > To objectively assess the quality of papers it would have to be a blind > test > > - papers would have to be presented to assessors in plain manuscript form > > with no authors or journal indicated. I don't think it would be worth > the > > effort. We all know that not all papers in high-impact journals are are > > high quality, but you are more likely to find high quality papers in > > journals with high impact factors. > > Mitch Cruzan > > > > > > > > On 10/21/2013 9:04 AM, malcolm McCallum wrote: > >> > >> just an fyi, I thought some might be interested in! > >> > >> > >> > http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001675;jsessionid=CF510EB51871DB51380C5DAD0E41CBDA > >> > > > > > > -- > Malcolm L. McCallum > Department of Environmental Studies > University of Illinois at Springfield > > Managing Editor, > Herpetological Conservation and Biology > > > > "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - > Allan Nation > > 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert > 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, > and pollution. > 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction > MAY help restore populations. > 2022: Soylent Green is People! > > The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) > Wealth w/o work > Pleasure w/o conscience > Knowledge w/o character > Commerce w/o morality > Science w/o humanity > Worship w/o sacrifice > Politics w/o principle > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any > attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may > contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized > review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not > the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and > destroy all copies of the original message. >
