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Comment on Bornmann (2017): confidence intervals for journal impact factors

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Abstract

In this Letter to the Editor I comment on a recent Letter from Lutz Bornmann. I argue that the Poisson distribution is not an appropriate simplifying assumption to make when computing confidence intervals for journal impact factors.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. Denoting the two regression coefficients by \(\beta_{0}\) and \(\beta_{1}\), then, for the Poisson distribution, if \(M_{i} = 1\), \(E\left( {V_{i} } \right) = 1 = e^{{\beta_{0} }}\). Therefore, \(\beta_{0} = 0\).

References

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Acknowledgements

I thank Richard Tol for helpful feedback on an earlier draft.

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Correspondence to David I. Stern.

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Stern, D.I. Comment on Bornmann (2017): confidence intervals for journal impact factors. Scientometrics 113, 1811–1813 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2507-7

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