IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v53y2002i2d10.1023_a1014800407876.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Advantages and limitations in the use of impact factor measures for the assessment of research performance

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Bordons

    (Centro de Información y Documentación Científica (CINDOC-CSIC))

  • M. T. Fernández

    (Centro de Información y Documentación Científica (CINDOC-CSIC))

  • Isabel Gómez

    (Centro de Información y Documentación Científica (CINDOC-CSIC))

Abstract

Impact factor is a quasi-qualitative indicator, which provides a measurement of the prestige and international visibility of journals. Although the use of impact factor-based indicators for science policy purposes has increased over the last two decades, several limitations have been pointed out and should be borne in mind. The use of impact factor should be treated carefully when applied to the analysis of peripheral countries, whose national journals are hardly covered by ISI databases. Our experience in the use of impact factor based indicators for the analysis of the Spanish scientific production is shown. The usefulness of the impact factor measures in macro, meso and micro analyses is displayed. In addition, the main advantages, such as the great accessibility of impact factor and its ready-to-use nature are pointed out. Several limitations such as the need to avoid inter-field comparisons or the convenience of using a fixed journal set for international comparisons are also stressed. It is worth noting that the use of impact factor in the research evaluation process has influenced strongly the publication strategy of scientists.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Bordons & M. T. Fernández & Isabel Gómez, 2002. "Advantages and limitations in the use of impact factor measures for the assessment of research performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(2), pages 195-206, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:53:y:2002:i:2:d:10.1023_a:1014800407876
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1014800407876
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1023/A:1014800407876
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1014800407876?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Per O Seglen, 1992. "How representative is the journal impact factor?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(3), pages 143-149, December.
    2. Aline Solari & Marie-Helene Magri, 2000. "A New Approach to the SCI Journal Citation Reports, a System for Evaluating Scientific Journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 47(3), pages 605-625, March.
    3. Thed N. Van Leeuwen & Henk F. Moed & Robert J. W. Tijssen & Martijn S. Visser & Anthony F. J. Van Raan, 2001. "Language biases in the coverage of the Science Citation Index and its consequencesfor international comparisons of national research performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 51(1), pages 335-346, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    2. Goodall, Amanda H., 2009. "Highly cited leaders and the performance of research universities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1079-1092, September.
    3. Domingo Docampo & Lawrence Cram, 2019. "Highly cited researchers: a moving target," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 1011-1025, March.
    4. Yves Gingras & Mahdi Khelfaoui, 2018. "Assessing the effect of the United States’ “citation advantage” on other countries’ scientific impact as measured in the Web of Science (WoS) database," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 517-532, February.
    5. Henk F. Moed, 2002. "Measuring China"s research performance using the Science Citation Index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(3), pages 281-296, March.
    6. Rodrigo Costas & Thed N. Leeuwen & María Bordons, 2012. "Referencing patterns of individual researchers: Do top scientists rely on more extensive information sources?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(12), pages 2433-2450, December.
    7. Li, Jiang & Qiao, Lili & Li, Wenyuze & Jin, Yidan, 2014. "Chinese-language articles are not biased in citations: Evidences from Chinese-English bilingual journals in Scopus and Web of Science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 912-916.
    8. Maziar Montazerian & Edgar Dutra Zanotto & Hellmut Eckert, 2019. "A new parameter for (normalized) evaluation of H-index: countries as a case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 1065-1078, March.
    9. Murat Perit Çakır & Cengiz Acartürk & Oğuzhan Alaşehir & Canan Çilingir, 2015. "A comparative analysis of global and national university ranking systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 813-848, June.
    10. Yutao Sun & Seamus Grimes, 2016. "The emerging dynamic structure of national innovation studies: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 17-40, January.
    11. Rafael Aleixandre & Juan Carlos Valderrama & José María Desantes & Antonio J. Torregrosa, 2004. "Identification of information sources and citation patterns in the field of reciprocating internal combustion engines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 59(3), pages 321-336, March.
    12. Zhigao Liu & Yimei Yin & Weidong Liu & Michael Dunford, 2015. "Visualizing the intellectual structure and evolution of innovation systems research: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(1), pages 135-158, April.
    13. Jerome K. Vanclay, 2012. "Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 211-238, August.
    14. Martín-Martín, Alberto & Orduna-Malea, Enrique & Thelwall, Mike & Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio, 2018. "Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1160-1177.
    15. Gennaro Guida, 2018. "Italian Economics Departments’ Scientific Research Performance: Comparison between VQR and ASN Methodologies," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(9), pages 182-182, August.
    16. Hossein Javadi & Seyed Soheil Mousavi Ajarostaghi & Marc A. Rosen & Mohsen Pourfallah, 2018. "A Comprehensive Review of Backfill Materials and Their Effects on Ground Heat Exchanger Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-22, November.
    17. Vanclay, Jerome K., 2013. "Factors affecting citation rates in environmental science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 265-271.
    18. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Di Costa, Flavia, 2020. "Knowledge spillovers: Does the geographic proximity effect decay over time? A discipline-level analysis, accounting for cognitive proximity, with and without self-citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    19. Antonia Ferrer-Sapena & Susana Díaz-Novillo & Enrique A. Sánchez-Pérez, 2017. "Measuring Time-Dynamics and Time-Stability of Journal Rankings in Mathematics and Physics by Means of Fractional p -Variations," Publications, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-14, September.
    20. Jean-Charles Billaut & Denis Bouyssou & Philippe Vincke, 2009. "Should you believe in the Shanghai ranking? An MCDM view," Working Papers hal-00877050, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:53:y:2002:i:2:d:10.1023_a:1014800407876. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.