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Effect on the journal impact factor of the number and document type of citing records: a wide-scale study

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Abstract

We studied the effect on journal impact factors (JIF) of citations from documents labeled as articles and reviews (usually peer reviewed) versus citations coming from other documents. In addition, we studied the effect on JIF of the number of citing records. This number is usually different from the number of citations. We selected a set of 700 journals indexed in the SCI section of JCR that receive a low number of citations. The reason for this choice is that in these instances some citations may have a greater impact on the JIF than in more highly-cited journals. After excluding some journals for different reasons, our sample consisted of 674 journals. We obtained data on citations that contributed to the JIF for the years 1998–2006. In general, we found that most journals obtained citations that contribute to the impact factor from documents labeled as articles and reviews. In addition, in most of journals the ratio between citations that contributed to the impact factor and citing records was greater than 80% in all years. Thus, in general, we did not find evidence that citations that contributed to the impact factor were dependent on non-peer reviewed documents or only a few citing records.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Dirección General de Investigación) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF/FEDER, project SEJ2007-66236/SOCI). We thank K. Shashok for improving the use of English in the manuscript and for suggestions about the content. We also thank an anonymous referee for suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física, Edificio de Ciencias, Universidad de Alcalá, 28871, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

    Juan Miguel Campanario, Jesús Carretero, Antonio Molina & Germán Ros

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Alcalá, 28807, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

    Vera Marangon

Authors
  1. Juan Miguel Campanario
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  2. Jesús Carretero
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  3. Vera Marangon
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  4. Antonio Molina
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  5. Germán Ros
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Correspondence to Juan Miguel Campanario.

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Campanario, J.M., Carretero, J., Marangon, V. et al. Effect on the journal impact factor of the number and document type of citing records: a wide-scale study. Scientometrics 87, 75–84 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0333-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0333-2

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