Timeline for How do journals improve their impact factor?
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14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 3, 2016 at 9:41 | comment | added | JDługosz | I see. I didn’t realize it had a fixed time window for which citations it counted. | |
| Aug 3, 2016 at 2:19 | comment | added | Jeromy Anglim | @JDługosz So 2015 impact factor is calculated in 2016 as the number of citations given by 2015 publications in any included journal divided by the number of publications in the focal journal in 2013 and 2014. So say the journal publishes an article online first in 2012, but doesn't publish it officially with pages until 2013. Now also assume that the citations a this article will receive will on average be greater in 2015 than in 2014 because of this strategy (i.e. because an article receives few citations straight away because it takes time for people to read it and then incorporate it). | |
| Aug 3, 2016 at 2:02 | comment | added | JDługosz | But if it was published in paper earlier and attracted citations, wouldn't it have the same score anyway at time X whether it was officially published at X or was published earlier? | |
| Aug 3, 2016 at 2:00 | comment | added | Jeromy Anglim | @JDługosz I think the idea is that the article is posted to an "online first" or "early access" section. But it only gets official page numbers some time later. So, the paper exists for a while, before it enters into the date range used for impact factor calculation (which I think uses the official publication with page number date). So readers become aware of the paper and it gets a chance to build up traction. So that by the time it actually has page numbers, it is already attracting citations. At least, that's how it works in theory. | |
| Aug 3, 2016 at 1:56 | comment | added | JDługosz | How does delaying publication help, if the article will be cited at some point anyway? | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 9:33 | comment | added | Kimball | @FedericoPoloni As I recall, examples are given in the links in the answer and comment here: academia.stackexchange.com/a/44918/19607 | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 7:00 | comment | added | Jeromy Anglim | @Federico I feel like I've heard about this a few times. Here's one news post about a few journals that were noted for citation irregularities: scielo.br/… | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 6:26 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | @Kimball Has there really been a case in which the impact factor of a journal has been altered or retracted after proof of citation fraud? I never heard about it but I would be interested. | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 5:52 | comment | added | Jeromy Anglim | @Kimball +1 good point. I imagine there must be a spectrum of practices. In particular, more subtle forms are likely to go undetected (e.g., editors choosing to cite their journal where they have a choice, but only where it seems appropriate in the context). | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 5:39 | comment | added | Kimball | And you might note the unethical approaches are punished with with lower/no IF scores when discovered. | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 5:38 | comment | added | Kimball | I don't know about your field, but in mine (where the publication process is notoriously slow, and IFs never get too big) you would probably have better luck with the opposite of your first questionable approach. Journals being fast can attract higher quality papers. | |
| Aug 1, 2016 at 5:23 | history | edited | Jeromy Anglim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 1, 2016 at 5:16 | history | edited | Jeromy Anglim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 1, 2016 at 5:09 | history | answered | Jeromy Anglim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |