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Background Briefings for Librarians #1: Impact Factor

Background Briefings for Librarians #1: Impact Factor . Paola Gargiluo speaking with Dr. David F. Kohl. CASPUR Podcast Series May 28, 2008. Dr. David F. Kohl. Began professional library work in 1972 Dean Emeritus, University of Cincinnati

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Background Briefings for Librarians #1: Impact Factor

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  1. Background Briefings for Librarians #1:Impact Factor Paola Gargiluo speaking with Dr. David F. Kohl CASPUR Podcast Series May 28, 2008

  2. Dr. David F. Kohl • Began professional library work in 1972 • Dean Emeritus, University of Cincinnati • Past President, Reference and Adult Users Association of the American Library Association • Senior Fulbright Scholar • Turkey…Taiwan…Greece…India… • Founder, U. of Cincinnati Digital Press • Retired, but still active as: • International Library Consultant • Editor in Chief, Journal of Academic Librarianship

  3. What is Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and why has it become important? • There is a new sense of accountability in Universities and JIF provides an important measure of the quality of faculty productivity • External • Objective • JIF (a single number) is quick, easy, and convenient to use

  4. Why is JIF called a “proxy” rating? • Although JIF is most appropriately applied to journals • By publishers determining sale prices • By editors comparing status • By authors looking for a prestigious journal to submit articles to • It is often used to rate the quality of the articles appearing in a journal • An article appearing in a journal with a high JIF is considered more important than an article in a low JIF journal • The article receives its rating indirectly (by proxy) from the journal rating

  5. Examples of uses for accountability • Faculty members • Hiring decisions • Promotion decisions • Tenure decisions • Annual salary decisions • Departmental funding • A factor in Great Britain universities • Graduate students • In China many scientific departments require publication in at least 2 JIF journals before a Ph. D. will be granted

  6. How is the JIF computed? (Thomson/ISI JIF) Conceptually Total Citations (2 preceding years = JIF Total Articles (2 preceding years Specific example Total Citations in 2006 to articles published in 2004 and 2005 = 2006 JIF Total Articles published in 2004 and 2005 Half of all JIFs are less than 1

  7. Appearances can be deceiving • The simple, scientific, and quantifiable JIF gets messier the closer you look • There are concerns both about: • The mechanism used to compute the JIF • Some of the assumptions which underlie the JIF as a concept

  8. What are these limitations? • The limitations can be divided into 4 main areas • Technical • Statistical • Philosophical (underlying assumptions) • Moral

  9. Technical limitations • The JIF applied to articles is a “proxy” rating • Even in some of the journals with the highest JIFs there have been bad articles (later withdrawn) • Thomson only gathers citations from about 9,000 of 20,000-50,000 academic journals worldwide • The citations are only gathered during a two year period • There is a troubling lack of transparency (and possibly consistency) in how the citation and article counting is done • JIFs can’t be reliably replicated

  10. Statistical limitations • There is a possible problem with outliers • In small populations an extreme instance can create a misleading effect • Library journals in particular seldom publish more than 50 referred articles a year • In such an environment just one or two very highly cited articles can establish a misleadingly high JIF • There are statistical solutions to this problem but Thomson doesn’t use them

  11. Philosophical (Assumptions) limitations • While citations do a good job of measuring impact in traditional academic disciplines, that may not be the case in the professions • In professions where the focus is on practical applications (librarianship, medicine, law), an article may have a large impact on behavior but generate few citations • In some disciplines downloads or other measures may be more useful in measuring impact • Reputational studies using expert opinion, for example, have very poor correlation with JIFs

  12. Moral limitations • As JIFs have become more important, there is a greater temptation to manipulate them unfairly • Like Claude Raines in Casablanca, librarians may be shocked to hear this • Review articles with their many citations can be used to increase a journal’s JIF • Sometimes publication acceptance depends on citing enough earlier articles published by a journal • While such practices have been documented in other disciplines, so far library journals have been exempt!

  13. So what does this all mean? • As the song from Casablanca goes, “you must remember this…” • JIFs can be a useful and helpful tool in determining the importance of a journal (and its articles)… • But it must be used with caution and knowledge of its limitations

  14. Follow-up reading for those interested (a short list) • [put the web address of the bibliography here]

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