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Distribution of changes in impact factors over time

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  • Juan Miguel Campanario

    (Universidad de Alcalá)

Abstract

I studied the distribution of changes in journal impact factors (JIF) between 1998 and 2007 according to an empirical beta law with two exponents. Changes in JIFs (CJIF) were calculated as the quotient obtained by dividing the JIF for a given year by the JIF for the preceding year. The CJIFs showed good fit to a beta function with two exponents. In addition, I studied the distribution of the changes in segments of the CJIF rank order. The distributions, which were similar from year to year, could be fitted to a Lorentzian function. The methods used here can be useful to understand the changes in JIFs using relatively simple functions.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Miguel Campanario, 2010. "Distribution of changes in impact factors over time," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 35-42, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:84:y:2010:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-009-0094-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0094-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mansilla, R. & Köppen, E. & Cocho, G. & Miramontes, P., 2007. "On the behavior of journal impact factor rank-order distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 155-160.
    2. Benjamin M. Althouse & Jevin D. West & Carl T. Bergstrom & Theodore Bergstrom, 2009. "Differences in impact factor across fields and over time," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(1), pages 27-34, January.
    3. Wolfgang Glänzel & Henk F. Moed, 2002. "Journal impact measures in bibliometric research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(2), pages 171-193, February.
    4. Stephen J. Bensman, 2008. "Distributional differences of the impact factor in the sciences versus the social sciences: An analysis of the probabilistic structure of the 2005 journal citation reports," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(9), pages 1366-1382, July.
    5. Juan Miguel Campanario & Antonio Molina, 2009. "Surviving bad times: The role of citations, self-citations and numbers of citable items in recovery of the journal impact factor after at least four years of continuous decreases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(3), pages 859-864, December.
    6. Guang Yu & Liang Wang, 2007. "The self-cited rate of scientific journals and the manipulation of their impact factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 73(3), pages 321-330, December.
    7. Frandsen, Tove Faber, 2007. "Journal self-citations—Analysing the JIF mechanism," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 47-58.
    8. Antonia Andrade & Raúl González-Jonte & Juan Miguel Campanario, 2009. "Journals that increase their impact factor at least fourfold in a few years: The role of journal self-citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(2), pages 515-528, August.
    9. Althouse, Benjamin M. & West, Jevin D. & Bergstrom, Ted C & Bergstrom, Carl T., 2008. "Differences in Impact Factor Across Fields and Over Time," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt76h442pg, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sarabia, José María & Prieto, Faustino & Trueba, Carmen, 2012. "Modeling the probabilistic distribution of the impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 66-79.
    2. Claus-Christian Carbon, 2011. "The Carbon_h-Factor: Predicting Individuals' Research Impact at Early Stages of Their Career," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(12), pages 1-7, December.
    3. Brzezinski, Michal, 2014. "Empirical modeling of the impact factor distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 362-368.
    4. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2011. "Empirical study of journal impact factors obtained using the classical two-year citation window versus a five-year citation window," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(1), pages 189-204, April.
    5. Campanario, Juan Miguel, 2015. "Providing impact: The distribution of JCR journals according to references they contribute to the 2-year and 5-year journal impact factors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 398-407.
    6. L. Egghe, 2011. "The impact factor rank-order distribution revisited," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 683-685, June.

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