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Impact of COVID-19 on Journal Impact Factor

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  • Uddin, Shahadat
  • Khan, Arif
  • Lu, Haohui

Abstract

Research related to COVID-19 has grown significantly in recent years and dominated health-related publications. Data-driven explorations, such as analysing the quality of COVID-19 research across journals, how the journals prioritised emerging topics and how their prominence has changed during this time, are critical to understanding the scientific community, especially for prospective researchers and editors. Based on the scoring systems of the Impact Factor and its six years of data (2016-21) for 12,873 journals, this study explores how the journal's impact was affected by COVID-19-related research. We examined the variability between non-pandemic and pandemic periods regarding the effect of COVID-19 on the growth of journal performance. The results indicate that journals with COVID-19-related publications show a significantly higher increase in their Impact Factor (IF) values, and journals with lower IF values contributed most to this increase. Journals prioritising publishing COVID-19 research will likely experience increased visibility and IF growth in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Uddin, Shahadat & Khan, Arif & Lu, Haohui, 2023. "Impact of COVID-19 on Journal Impact Factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:17:y:2023:i:4:s1751157723000834
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2023.101458
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