PLoS blog: Measuring Up: Impact Factors Do Not Reflect Article Citation Rates

Journal-level metrics, the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) being chief among them, do not appropriately reflect the impact or influence of individual articles—a truism perennially repeated by bibliometricians, journal editors and research administrators alike. Yet, many researchers and research assessment panels continue to rely on this erroneous proxy of research – and researcher – quality to inform funding, hiring and promotion decisions.


In strong support for the shedding of this misguided habit, seven journal representatives and two independent researchers – including the three authors of this post – came together to add voice to the rising opposition to journal-level metrics as a measure of an individual’s scientific worth. The result is a collaborative article from Université de Montréal, Imperial College London, PLOS, eLife, EMBO Journal, The Royal Society, Nature and Science, posted on BioRxiv this week. Using a diverse selection of our own journals, we provide data illustrating why no article can be judged on the basis of the Impact Factor of the journal in which it is published.


Read the full post at: http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2016/07/impact-factors-do-not-reflect-citation-rates/