Transportation Journal Impact Factors

8/11/2019 Transportation Journal Impact Factors

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Journal Impact factors: what theymean, what they don't mean, and

why you should care

Elana Broch ([email protected])Stokes Library

Wallace HallLunch and Learn

November 30, 2011


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Publish or Perish

Ones publication record is a key component

of hiring, tenure and promotion decisions.

Grant agencies want their money to supportresearch that is widely distributed/relevant.


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I did all that research

Are people reading my work?

To me, this is a much more interesting questionthan which journals are most highly read.

However, I am frequently asked by researchersfor suggestions of the best journal for them tosubmit their work to.

The underlying assumption is that the more visiblethe journal is, the more your paper will get seenand (hopefully) read and (hopefully) cited.


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Overview of session What is a citation? What is impact? What is a bibliographic database?

Web of Science (a.k.a. Science Citation Index/Social Science CitationIndex)

Journal Citation Reports Journals Impact Factor

Google Scholar as an alternative to Web of Science Alternative measures of Impact Factor (briefly, if time)

How do you decide the best journal to publish in? What is the best way to keep track of whos citing me?


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Basic Definitions

Impact = effect.

Citation= entries in a list of references at theend of an article, chapter, book, etc.

Database=collection of records about, forexample, articles published in a particularfield.


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Impact of one article

Looking for a way to quantify an articles

impact.

The simplest measure of impact is Times

Cited.

Whether being cited is an indication of impactrequires a leap of faith.


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But even the simplest measure ofimpact (Times Cited) quickly gets

complicated

What counts as a citation? Self-citation?

Citation by ones co-authors?

Citation in a book chapter? Working paper?Dissertation? Conference presentation?

Only citations in peer-reviewed journal articles?


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Eugene Garfield, Ph.D.

The person who has given morethought to these questions than

anyone else is Eugene Garfield


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Like every field

Garfield developed what were referred to asCitation Indexes to compile information

about citation counts.

These citations indexes evolved into thepresent day Web of Science

nb: earlier versions of WoS were referred to asthe discipline specific Science Citation Indexand Social Science Citation Index


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Web of Science

We can talk about the impact of one article,one author, or one journal. All of this comesfrom the database Web of Science and the

related product, Journal Citation Reports. Bibliographic database.

http://isiknowledge.com/wos

Alternatives to using Web of Science exist,most notably Google Scholar.
http://isiknowledge.com/woshttp://isiknowledge.com/wos


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The workings of Web of Science


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References from back of article

MORTALITY DIFFERENTIALS BY MARITAL-STATUS - AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONAuthor(s): HU, YR (HU, YR); GOLDMAN, N (GOLDMAN, N)

Source: DEMOGRAPHY Volume: 27 Issue: 2 Pages: 233-250 DOI: 10.2307/2061451 Published: MAY 1990

MORTALITY DIFFERENTIALS BY MARITAL-STATUS - AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONAuthor(s): HU, YR(HU, YR); GOLDMAN, N(GOLDMAN, N)
http://apps.webofknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&colName=WOS&SID=2B35LpeNlj6M2lahaDe&author_name=HU,%20YR&dais_id=1131490http://apps.webofknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&colName=WOS&SID=2B35LpeNlj6M2lahaDe&author_name=GOLDMAN,%20N&dais_id=4844401http://apps.webofknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&colName=WOS&SID=2B35LpeNlj6M2lahaDe&author_name=GOLDMAN,%20N&dais_id=4844401http://apps.webofknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&colName=WOS&SID=2B35LpeNlj6M2lahaDe&author_name=HU,%20YR&dais_id=1131490


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References as they appear in Web of ScienceTimes Cited: 228 (from Web of Science)

Cited References:28 [ view related records ]Citation Map

There are a total of 28references (a.k.a. Cited

References )

These first two are books.Since books arent covered

in WoS there is no title.

There are 228 articlesthat cite this one


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Coverage ishighly selectiveback to 1900.

Stillit is a verylarge database.


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Web of Science entries evolved ina time when computer storagewas expensive and data entryunsophisticated.

I always think of monkeys entering the

references because obvious errors appearthat could have been corrected. To correctthem would have been too labor intensive.


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This is not meant to be a session onWeb of Science, but

Spelling variations are problematic. They usea standardized list of abbreviations but thecitation is only as good as the article they are

analyzing. Errors in citing articles citations are

perpetuated.

The increasing role of unpublished workingpapers articles that may not be indexed byWoS.


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Articlefrom thatjournal

issue

Article

from thatjournal

issue

Articlefrom that

journalissue

Reference 1

Reference 2

Oneissue of

ajournal

Reference 3Reference 4

The reference list is used to computethe impact factor for the journals cited

in the reference list, not the journal thatthe article came from (unless theyre

the same).


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Impact factor bragging rights


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Impact Factor

The Impact Factor is aan attempt to measurethe impact a journal has

had It is designed to scale

the number of times ajournal has been cited

The older an article is,the more opportunitiesit has to have been

cited. Some disciplines have

more people working inthem (child psychology

vs. demography;surgery vs. mycology)


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Computing Journal Impact Factor


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Social Science Subject Categories forJournal Citation Reports (JCR)

AnthropologyArea StudiesBusinessBusiness, FinanceCommunicationCriminology & PenologyDemographyEconomicsEducation & Educational ResearchEducation, SpecialEnvironmental StudiesErgonomicsEthicsEthnic StudiesFamily StudiesGeographyGerontologyHealth Policy & ServicesHistoryHistory & Philosophy Of ScienceHistory of Social SciencesIndustrial Relations & Labor

Information Science & Library Science

International RelationsLawLinguisticsManagementNursing

Planning & DevelopmentPolitical SciencePsychiatryPsychology, AppliedPsychology, BiologicalPsychology, ClinicalPsychology, DevelopmentalPsychology, EducationalPsychology, ExperimentalPsychology, MathematicalPsychology, MultidisciplinaryPsychology, PsychoanalysisPsychology, SocialPublic AdministrationPublic, Environmental & Occupational HealthRehabilitationSocial IssuesSocial Sciences, BiomedicalSocial Sciences, InterdisciplinarySocial Sciences, Mathematical MethodsSocial WorkSociologySubstance AbuseTransportationUrban StudiesWomen's Studies

Journals are assigned to one or more categories.That is how the impact factor takes on bragging rights


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Impact factor vs. total cites forDemography Journals

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You do the math!

Impact factor=

Cites to recent itemsNumber of recent items

For journals with a fewarticles, the impact factoris easily influenced by thenumber of citations

The latency (time to get

published) makes usingthe previous two years ofcitations problematic.

All citations count in thenumerator, but certaintypes of articles areexcluded from the

denominator. A citation counted in the

numerator may be acritique of the article in

questi on.


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Alternatives to impact factor

5 year impact factor

Eigenfactor Score (see West et al., 2008)

H-index (see Hirsch, 2005 in References)

Calculations that may make sense in science,dont seem relevant in social science. Cited half life Immedicacy

H-factor


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Sins of Omission

One of my proudest moments at Princetonwas when I realized that a certain journals

low ranking was due to a failure to send issues

of the journal to the people who produce Webof Science.

Fortunately this was before every impact

factor became a household word.


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Google Scholar vs. WoS

Being indexed in Wos requiresadmission to the in crowd.

Google Scholar includes everything that itsrobots can crawl on the internet.


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Complete

citationanalysisrequires

both GS andWoS
http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-scholar-citations-open-to-all.html


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New! Google Scholar Citations open to all
http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-scholar-citations-open-to-all.htmlhttp://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-scholar-citations-open-to-all.html


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The best way to keep track of who isciting you.

Have a very complete copy of yourpublications

Use Web of Science and Google Scholar. They

will produce overlapping and unique results


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Kids, dont try this at home--Using Web of Science

Have a librarian help you do a Cited ReferenceSearch in Web of Science to get citations fromjournals not covered by Web of Science.

Important to search variants of name, etc.

Create an alert to be notified when newarticles that cite your work have been added.


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Kids dont try this at home--Using Google Scholar

Conduct a search in Google Scholar for all yourpublications

There may be multiple entries for the same article

Create an alert in Google Scholar for all yourpublications

Use Googles new Google Scholar Citations

Depending on your discipline, use Scopus andBiosis, too.


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Conclusions

Journal Impact Factor is a very crude measureof a journals impact in a discipline

Do not make important decisions aboutsubmitting to a journal based on it


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Bibliography

Archambault, . , Larivire, V. (2009). History of the journal impactfactor: contingencies and consequences. Scientometrics, 79(3), 635-649.http://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdf

Brown, H. (2007) How impact factors changed medical publishing

and science. BMJ, 334http://www.bmj.com/content/334/7593/561.extract Hirsch, J.E. (2005). An index to quantify an individuals scientific

research output. PNAS, 102 (46) 16589-16572.www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdf

West, J., Althouse, B., Rosvall, M. Bergstrom, T., & Bergstrom, C.

(2008). Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score: DetailedMethods. www.eigenfactor.org/methods.pdf
http://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.bmj.com/content/334/7593/561.extracthttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdfhttp://www.bmj.com/content/334/7593/561.extracthttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdfhttp://www.ost.uqam.ca/portals/0/docs/articles/2009/11-arch2036.pdf

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Transportation Journal Impact Factors

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