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- Epidemiologists (of All People) Should Question Journal Impact Factors
- Impact Factor: Good Reasons for Concern
- How Come Scientists Uncritically Adopt and Embody Thomson's Bibliographic Impact Factor?
- Rise and Fall of the Thomson Impact Factor
- The Impact Factor Follies
To say it with the authors at Epidemiology:
in its present format, the impact factor should be killed off, and the sooner the better.
Having a collection of impact measures will only be sensibly feasible in a large, decentralized databank in which all peer-reviewed scientific primary literature is collected, cross-referenced and stored. Of course, the algorithms for any such metric need to be transparent. The data is all there, the technology is around. Now we only need to get the word out and bring the majority of scientists behind us. If scientists are as rational as they claim, they have no choice but to follow their rationality and get on with the program

If this is so, why do we still have journals? One of the authors has the answer:
The irresistible fascination with (and picturesque uses of) a construct so scientifically weak as BIF are simple reminders that scientists are embedded in and embody culture. We are vain and contradictory human beings too [...].
Posted on Friday 09 May 2008 - 10:30:34 comment: 0
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