Research evaluation
Vol 33(3), August 2007
By
Apr 20, 2008 - 11:23 PM

Coleman A. Assessing the value of a journal beyond the impact factor. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 2007; 58(8):1148-1161.
With the current rapid evolution of scientific communication in its different facets, the author considers citations (and, consequently, impact factor) not completely representative of journal value, and proposes other criteria to evaluate a journal: journal attraction power, author associativity, and journal consumption power.

Williams G, Hobbs R. Should we ditch impact factors? BMJ 2007; 334:568–569.
Should we get rid of impact factors, or is refining them the answer? One argument is that they don’t measure quality: every scientist knows that the vagaries of peer review can push a “not so good” paper into a “good” journal, and vice versa. Though bibliometric scoring will be driving the UK’s research assessment exercise, we want journals to publish material that has been filtered to ensure it is reliable, interesting, relevant, or important, and that reading it results in some wider benefit.

Brown H. How impact factors changed medical publishing and science. BMJ 2007; 334:561–564.
Journal rankings can be maximized by keeping the number of scholarly articles as small as possible, and boosting review content can make journals perform better. But minor manipulation of journal content is not the issue causing concern: ignorance persists about what impact factors can and cannot do, especially in regard to guiding decisions on research funding.

Martyn C. Advice to a new editor. BMJ 2007; 334:586.
Tongue in cheek advice on, above all, maximizing the (medical) journal’s impact factor. Although you’ll probably produce a journal that is widely read and enjoyed, you’ll never impress the sort of people who prefer a number to thinking for themselves.


© Copyright 2008 by European Association of Science Editors