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The pragmatics of a diachronic journal impact factor

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Abstract

With reference to Vanclay (Scientometrics in press, 2012) the paper argues for a pragmatic approach to the Thomson-Reuter’s journal impact factor. The paper proposes and discusses to replace the current synchronous Thomson-Reuter journal impact factor by an up-to-date diachronic version (DJIF), consisting of a three-year citation window over a one year publication window. The DJIF online data collection and calculation is exemplified and compared to the present synchronous journal impact factor. The paper discusses briefly the dimensions of currency, robustness, understandability and comparability to other impact factors used in research evaluation.

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Notes

  1. In case of synchronous TRIF for logical reasons in WoS the citation window must cover the publication years in Search mode; then the citation number from the given citation year, say 2011, can be extracted from the result table of the Citation Report.

  2. In TRIF 2010 one year of citations are lacking (from 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Library Science and Documentation, University Carlos III Madrid, Calle Madrid, 126, 28903, Getafe, Madrid, Spain

    Peter Ingwersen

  2. Royal School of Library and Information Science, Birketinget 6, 2300, Copenhagen S, Denmark

    Peter Ingwersen

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  1. Peter Ingwersen
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Correspondence to Peter Ingwersen.

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Ingwersen, P. The pragmatics of a diachronic journal impact factor. Scientometrics 92, 319–324 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0701-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0701-1

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