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

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 ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: SCIENTOMETRICS
• Authors: Juan Miguel Campanario, Jesús Carretero, Vera Marangon, Antonio Molina, Germán Ros
• Keywords: Citing Records, Image Analysis, Journal Impact Factor, Journal Impact Factors, SCIENTOMETRICS 2011