Abstract
This paper is a response to that of Vanclay, who proposes, that since the impact factor (IF) is so seriously flawed, Thomson Reuters should either correct the measure or—preferably—no longer publish it and restrict itself to journal certification. It is argued here that Vanclay’s analysis is itself seriously flawed, because he appears totally ignorant of the thought structure of Eugene Garfield, IF’s creator. As a result, Vanclay appears unaware of the importance of total cites and the close connection of IF with review journals, where the paradigms of science are defined. This paper’s author agrees that IF is a defective measure, analyzing its defects from the perspective of the frequency theory of probability, on which modern inferential statistics is based. However, he asserts that abandoning it would be counterproductive because of its demonstrated ability—even with its defects—to identify small important journals like review journals, giving it an important role in science evaluation and library collection management.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bensman, S. J. (1996). The structure of the library market for scientific journals: the case of chemistry. Library Resources & Technical Services, 40(2), 145–170.
Bensman, S. J. (2001). Bradford’s Law and fuzzy sets: Statistical implications for library analyses. IFLA Journal, 27(4), 238–246.
Bensman, S. J. (2007). Garfield and the impact factor. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 41, 93–155.
Bensman, S. J. (2008). Distributional differences of the impact factor in the sciences versus the social sciences: an analysis of the probabilistic structure of the 2,005 journal citation reports. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(6), 1097–1117.
Bensman, S. J., & Leydesdorff, L. (2009). Definition and identification of journals as bibliographic and subject entities: librarianship versus ISI journal citation methods and their effect on citation measures. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(9), 1366–1382.
Bensman, S. J., Smolinsky, L. J., & Pudovkin, A. I. (2010). Mean citation rate per article in mathematics journals: differences from the scientific model. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(7), 1440–1463.
Bensman, S. J., & Wilder, S. J. (1998). Scientific and technical serials holdings optimization in an inefficient market: a LSU Serials Redesign Project exercise. Library Resources & Technical Services, 42(3), 147–242.
Bernal, J. D. (1940). The social function of science (2nd ed.). London: George Routledge.
Bortkiewicz, L. V. (1898). Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
Bradford, S. C. (1934). Sources of information on specific subjects. Engineering, 137, 85–86.
Eisenhart, C. (1983). Laws of error I: development of the concept. In S. Kotz & N. L. Johnson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of statistical sciences (Vol. 4) (pp. 530–547). New York: Wiley.
Garfield, E. (1970a). Calling attention to Chauncey D. Leake—Renaissance scholar extraordinaire. Current Contents, 16, 5–6.
Garfield, E. (1970b). What is a significant journal? Current Contents, 18, 5–6.
Garfield, E. (1971). The mystery of transposed journal lists—wherein Bradford’s Law of Scattering is generalized according to Garfield’s Law of Concentration. Current Contents, 17, 5–6.
Garfield, E. (1972a). Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation. Science, 178(4060), 471–479.
Garfield, E. (1972b). Citations-to divided by items-published gives journal impact factor; ISI lists the top fifty high-impact journals of science. Current Contents, 7, 5–8.
Garfield, E. (1973). Which journals attract the most frequently cited articles? Here’s a list of the top fifteen. Current Contents, 39, 5–6.
Garfield, E. (1976). Significant journals of science. Nature, 264(5587), 609–615.
Garfield, E. (1978). To remember Chauncey D. Leake. Current Contents, 7, 5–15.
Garfield, E. (1979). Citation indexing—its theory and application in science, technology, and the humanities. Philadelphia: ISI Press.
Garfield, E. (Ed.). (1980). SCI journal citation reports: a bibliometric analysis of science journals in the ISI data base. Science Citation Index 1979 annual, vol 14. Philadelphia: Institute for Scientific Information.
Garfield, E. (1987). Reviewing review literature: part 1, definitions and uses of reviews. Current Contents, 18, 5–8.
Garfield, E. (1991). In truth, the ‘flood’ of scientific literature is only a myth. The Scientist, 5(17), 11.
Garfield, E. (1996). The significant scientific literature appears in a small core of journals. The Scientist, 10(17), 14–16.
Garfield, E., & Sher, I. H. (1963). New factors in the evaluation of scientific literature through citation indexing. American Documentation, 14(3), 195–201.
Kosko, B. (1994). Fuzzy thinking: the new science of fuzzy logic. London: Flamingo.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (enl.). International encyclopedia of unified science: foundations of the unity of science, vol. 2, no. 2 (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Moed, H. F., Van Leeuwen, T. N., & Reeduk, J. (1998). A new classification system to describe the ageing of scientific journals and their impact factors. Journal of Documentation, 54(4), 387–419.
Quetelet, A. (1969). A treatise on man and the development of his facilities: A facsimile reproduction of the English translation of 1842. Gainesville: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints. (Reprint of book originally published, Edinburgh, William and Robert Chambers, 1842, that was a translation of original French ed. published in 1835).
Seglen, P. O. (1992). How representative is the journal impact factor. Research Evaluation, 2(3), 143–149.
Seglen, P. O. (1997). Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 314(7079), 497.
Vanclay, J.K. (2012). Impact factor: Outdated artefact or stepping stone to journal certification? Scientometrics. doi:10.1007/s11192-011-0561-0.
Von Mises, R. (1957). Probability, statistics and truth (2nd rev. English ed. prepared by H. Geiringer). New York: Macmillan. (Translation of the 3rd rev. German ed. originally published, Wien, J. Springer, 1951).
Winsor, C. P. (1947). Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen. Human Biology, 19(3), 154–161.
Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy Sets. Information and Control, 8(3), 338–353.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bensman, S.J. The impact factor: its place in Garfield’s thought, in science evaluation, and in library collection management. Scientometrics 92, 263–275 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0601-9
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0601-9