IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v84y2010i3d10.1007_s11192-010-0200-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Citations versus journal impact factor as proxy of quality: could the latter ever be preferable?

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Abramo

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
    National Research Council of Italy)

  • Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

  • Flavia Di Costa

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

Abstract

In recent years bibliometricians have paid increasing attention to research evaluation methodological problems, among these being the choice of the most appropriate indicators for evaluating quality of scientific publications, and thus for evaluating the work of single scientists, research groups and entire organizations. Much literature has been devoted to analyzing the robustness of various indicators, and many works warn against the risks of using easily available and relatively simple proxies, such as journal impact factor. The present work continues this line of research, examining whether it is valid that the use of the impact factor should always be avoided in favour of citations, or whether the use of impact factor could be acceptable, even preferable, in certain circumstances. The evaluation was conducted by observing all scientific publications in the hard sciences by Italian universities, for the period 2004–2007. Performance sensitivity analyses were conducted with changing indicators of quality and years of observation.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2010. "Citations versus journal impact factor as proxy of quality: could the latter ever be preferable?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(3), pages 821-833, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:84:y:2010:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-010-0200-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0200-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-010-0200-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-010-0200-1?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. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2008. "Assessment of sectoral aggregation distortion in research productivity measurements," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 111-121, June.
    2. Aksnes, Dag W. & Rip, Arie, 2009. "Researchers' perceptions of citations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 895-905, July.
    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. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Fabio Pugini, 2008. "The measurement of Italian universities’ research productivity by a non parametric-bibliometric methodology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(2), pages 225-244, August.
    5. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan N. Groesser, 2012. "Dynamics of Journal Impact Factors," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 624-644, November.
    2. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2013. "Are academics who publish more also more cited? Individual determinants of publication and citation records," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 831-857, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Johannes König & David I. Stern & Richard S.J. Tol, 2022. "Confidence Intervals for Recursive Journal Impact Factors," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-038/III, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2023. "Correlating article citedness and journal impact: an empirical investigation by field on a large-scale dataset," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1877-1894, March.
    6. Drahomira Herrmannova & Robert M. Patton & Petr Knoth & Christopher G. Stahl, 2018. "Do citations and readership identify seminal publications?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 239-262, April.
    7. Xiomara S. Q. Chacon & Thiago C. Silva & Diego R. Amancio, 2020. "Comparing the impact of subfields in scientific journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 625-639, October.
    8. Stefan Houweling & Sven Wolff, 2020. "The influence of scientific prestige and peer effects on the intention to create university spin-offs," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(5), pages 1432-1450, October.
    9. Adriana Bin & Sergio Salles-Filho & Luiza Maria Capanema & Fernando Antonio Basile Colugnati, 2015. "What difference does it make? Impact of peer-reviewed scholarships on scientific production," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1167-1188, February.
    10. Enrico Miersch, 2020. "Research Evaluation of Financial Research - Evidence from a Survey," Credit and Capital Markets, Credit and Capital Markets, vol. 53(3), pages 383-419.
    11. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Felici, Giovanni, 2019. "Predicting publication long-term impact through a combination of early citations and journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 32-49.
    12. Yadav, Anil & McHale, John & O'Neill, Stephen, 2023. "How does co-authoring with a star affect scientists' productivity? Evidence from small open economies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    13. 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.
    14. Abramo, Giovanni, 2018. "Revisiting the scientometric conceptualization of impact and its measurement," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 590-597.

    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. Tingcan Ma & Gui-Fang Wang & Ke Dong & Mukun Cao, 2012. "The Journal’s Integrated Impact Index: a new indicator for journal evaluation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(2), pages 649-658, February.
    2. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2011. "A national-scale cross-time analysis of university research performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(2), pages 399-413, May.
    3. Narongrit Sombatsompop & T. Markpin & N. Premkamolnetr, 2004. "A modified method for calculating the Impact Factors of journals in ISI Journal Citation Reports: Polymer Science Category in 1997–2001," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(2), pages 217-235, June.
    4. Ian Coelho de Souza Almeida & Rafael Galvão de Almeida & Lucas Resende de Carvalho, 2017. "Academic rankings and pluralism : the case of Brazil and the new version of Qualis," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG 569, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    5. Francisco González-Sala & Julia Osca-Lluch & Julia Haba-Osca, 2019. "Are journal and author self-citations a visibility strategy?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1345-1364, June.
    6. Liu, Meijun & Jaiswal, Ajay & Bu, Yi & Min, Chao & Yang, Sijie & Liu, Zhibo & Acuña, Daniel & Ding, Ying, 2022. "Team formation and team impact: The balance between team freshness and repeat collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    7. Xiomara S. Q. Chacon & Thiago C. Silva & Diego R. Amancio, 2020. "Comparing the impact of subfields in scientific journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 625-639, October.
    8. T. Markpin & B. Boonradsamee & K. Ruksinsut & W. Yochai & N. Premkamolnetr & P. Ratchatahirun & N. Sombatsompop, 2008. "Article-count impact factor of materials science journals in SCI database," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 75(2), pages 251-261, May.
    9. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Marco Solazzi, 2010. "National research assessment exercises: a measure of the distortion of performance rankings when labor input is treated as uniform," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(3), pages 605-619, September.
    10. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Marco Solazzi, 2011. "The relationship between scientists’ research performance and the degree of internationalization of their research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(3), pages 629-643, March.
    11. Jiancheng Guan & Yan Yan & Jingjing Zhang, 2015. "How do collaborative features affect scientific output? Evidences from wind power field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 333-355, January.
    12. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Marco Solazzi, 2010. "Assessing public–private research collaboration: is it possible to compare university performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 173-197, July.
    13. Rosenthal, Edward C. & Weiss, Howard J., 2017. "A data envelopment analysis approach for ranking journals," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 135-147.
    14. Ramón A. Feenstra & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2022. "Philosophers’ appraisals of bibliometric indicators and their use in evaluation: from recognition to knee-jerk rejection," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 2085-2103, April.
    15. Pantea Kamrani & Isabelle Dorsch & Wolfgang G. Stock, 2021. "Do researchers know what the h-index is? And how do they estimate its importance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 5489-5508, July.
    16. Jo Royle & Louisa Coles & Dorothy Williams & Paul Evans, 2007. "Publishing in international journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 71(1), pages 59-86, April.
    17. Mehdi Rhaiem & Nabil Amara, 2020. "Determinants of research efficiency in Canadian business schools: evidence from scholar-level data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 53-99, October.
    18. Bárbara S. Lancho-Barrantes & Vicente P. Guerrero-Bote & Félix Moya-Anegón, 2010. "The iceberg hypothesis revisited," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(2), pages 443-461, November.
    19. 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.
    20. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2023. "Correlating article citedness and journal impact: an empirical investigation by field on a large-scale dataset," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1877-1894, March.

    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:84:y:2010:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-010-0200-1. 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.