Bibliometric Indices of Scientific Journals: Time to Overcome the Obsession and Think beyond the Impact Factor
Open accessAbstract
Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has been widely used for a long time as a proxy marker of journal prestige. However, off late, accuracy and reliability of JIF for evaluation of scientific journals has been increasingly questioned by numerous stakeholders in the field of scholarly publications. Having realized the perils and pitfalls of JIF, there is an increasing understanding among academia to develop and consider alternatives to the traditional JIF. It is possibly time for all concerned to understand the pros and cons of JIF to overcome this obsession. Limitations of JIF and possible alternative and emerging bibliometric indicators are being discussed in this article for the benefit of the readers of MJAFI.
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JIF shows a certain level of discrimination against less popular publication types that, in certain disciplines, are as important as original research articles.
“In this way, JIF also shows a certain level of discrimination against less popular publication types that, in certain disciplines, are as important as original research articles [2,26,45,46,224,225,229].”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [225]
Today, JIF is often misused due to a misinterpretation of its meaning, as it has become a standard tool in virtually all evaluation practices at all levels, usually without proper considerations of the rationale for its use.
“However, today, JIF is often misused due to a misinterpretation of its meaning, as it has become a standard tool in virtually all evaluation practices at all levels, usually without proper considerations of the rationale for its use [2,44,222,224-227].”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [225]
JIF values can be artificially inflated by pressuring authors to reference articles from a particular journal, as journal self-citations are not accounted for in the calculation of classical and five-year JIF.
“JIF values can also be artificially inflated by other means, for example, by pressuring authors to reference articles from particular journal, as journal self-citations are not accounted for in the calculation of classical and five-year JIF [224,225,230].”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [225]
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Cites
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Flagged first, then by citations
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Cited by
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Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World
Pranckutė, R. (2021) · Publications · doi:10.3390/publications9010012 · Cited by 2,696 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ranjan, C. K.
- Affiliations
- Armed Forces Medical College (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Ranjan, C.K.
- Venue
- Medical Journal Armed Forces India
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-04
- Volume
- 73
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 175-177
- ISSN
- 0377-1237 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5592267
- OpenAlex
- W2604621984
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 3.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Medical Journal Armed Forces India (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Keywords
- journal impact factor, bibliometric indicators, journal evaluation, journal prestige
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