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Cited by 31scientometrics and bibliometrics researchWeb visibility and informetricsPsychology Research and Bibliometrics

Bibliometric Indicators: Why Do We Need More than One?

Open access
Setti, Gianluca·2013·IEEE Access
DOI 10.1109/access.2013.2261115
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Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the main features of several bibliometric indicators which were proposed in the last few decades. Their pros and cons are highlighted and compared with the features of the well-known impact factor (IF) to show how alternative metrics are specifically designed to address the flaws that the IF was shown to have, especially in the last few years. We also report the results of recent studies in the bibliometric literature showing how the scientific impact of journals as evaluated by bibliometrics is a very complicated matter and it is completely unrealistic to try to capture it by any single indicator, such as the IF or any other. As such, we conclude that the adoption of more metrics, with complementary features, to assess journal quality would be very beneficial as it would both offer a more comprehensive and balanced view of each journal in the space of scholarly publications, as well as eliminate the pressure on individuals and their incentive to do metric manipulation which is an unintended result of the current (mis)use of the IF as the gold standard for publication quality.

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  • The JIF calculation method leads to several biases that limit its application and it is continuously discussed and criticized in scientometric literature.

    “However, the JIF calculation method leads to several biases that limit its application and it is continuously discussed and criticized in scientometric literature concerning bibliometric indicators and their application in research evaluation practices [222,224].”

    From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [222]

  • 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 [222]

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5 of the 51 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 11

  1. E. Garfield, ''Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation,'' Science, vol. 178, no. 4060, pp. 471-479, 1972.
  2. G. Pinski and F. Narin, ''Citation influence for journal aggregates of scientific publications,'' Inf. Process. Manage., vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 575-589, 1976.
  3. E. Garfiled, ''The evolution of physical chemistry and chemical physics,'' Current Contents, vol. 3, pp. 3-12, Jan. 1986.
  4. A. Jackson, ''The impact factor game,'' PLoS Med. Editors, vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 289-291, Jun. 2006.
  5. P. Bonacich ''Factoring and weighting approaches to clique identification,'' J. Math. Sociol., vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 113-120, 1972.
  6. J. E. Hirsh, ''An index to quantify an individual scientific output,'' in Proc. Nat. Academy Sci. United States Amer., vol. 102. 2005, pp. 16569-16572.
  7. R. A. Johnson and D. W. Wichern, Applied Multivariate Statistical Analy- sis, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall, 2007.
  8. 2011). Journal of Citation Reports Notices [Online]. Avail- able: http: // admin-apps.webofknowledge.com / JCR/static_ html/notices/notices.htm
  9. 2010). Journal of Citation Reports Notices [Online]. Avail- able: http: // admin-apps.webofknowledge.com / JCR/static_ html/notices/20110603notices.htm
  10. T. Braun. W. Glaenzel, and A. Schubert, ''A Hirsch-type index for jour- nals,'' Scientometrics, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 169-173, 2006.
  11. R. A. Johnson and D. W. Wichern, ''Applied multivariate statistical analy- sis,'' Pearson, 6th ed., 2007.

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Authors
Setti, G.
Affiliations
University of Ferrara (IT)
Corresponding author
Setti, Gianluca
ORCID
Setti, Gianluca
Venue
IEEE Access
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Published
2013
Volume
1
Pages
232-246
ISSN
2169-3536 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1109/access.2013.2261115
OpenAlex
W2057681932
Cited by
31
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1
FWCI
1.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplorehelp/downloads/license-information/OAPA.html (vor)
Locations
  • IEEE Access (publishedVersion)
  • PORTO@Iris (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Institutional Research Information System University of Ferrara (University of Ferrara) (submittedVersion)
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
bibliometric indicators, impact factor, altmetrics, journal evaluation, publication quality, bibliometric analysis

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