[IRTalk] Beat it, impact factor! Publishing elite turns against controversial metric

[Ina Smith]

Dear Colleagues

This is indeed great news! Article-level metrics far more indicative of the quality of a research peper.

Senior staff at leading journals want to end inappropriate use of the measure.


The tide is turning against the impact factor -one of publishing's most contentious metrics - and its outsized impact on science. Calculated by various companies and promoted by publishers, journal impact factors (JIFs) are a measure of the average number of citations that articles published by a journal in the previous two years have received in the current year. They were designed to indicate the quality of journals, but researchers often use the metric to assess the quality of individual papers - and even, in some cases, their authors.
http://www.nature.com/news/beat-it-impact-factor-publishing-elite-turns-against-controversial-metric-1.20224?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews

Kind regards
Ina

Ina Smith
SciELO Planning Manager
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)

[cid:image001.gif at 01D1DD32.641A3F00]<http://orcid.org/>  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9710-3668
LIASA Exco Convener ICT Development (2014-2016)
LIASA HELIG Chair (2014-2016)

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