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94-487: The institute has 17 research teams, with 250 staff including 185 scientists, students, and post-docs from 24 countries. It offers Masters and PhD programs. The CIML has 90 academic collaborations and 21 industrial partners in France, Europe, and worldwide, and has formed several spin-offs, including: Innate Pharma, Ipsogen (Quiagen), and Immunotech (Beckman-Coulter). The institute has published over 400 scientific publications in

188-796: A royal privilege from King Louis XIV on 8 August 1664 to establish the Journal des sçavans . The journal's first issue was published on 5 January 1665. It was aimed at people of letters , and had four main objectives: Soon after, the Royal Society established Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in March 1665, and the Académie des Sciences established the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences in 1666, which focused on scientific communications. By

282-509: A different perspective on research impact, concentrating more on immediate social impact in and outside academia. Fake impact factors or bogus impact factors are produced by certain companies or individuals. According to an article published in the Electronic Physician , these include Global Impact Factor, Citefactor, and Universal Impact Factor. Jeffrey Beall maintained a list of such misleading metrics. Another deceitful practice

376-505: A free copy of the book from the journal in exchange for a timely review. Publishers send books to book review editors in the hope that their books will be reviewed. The length and depth of research book reviews varies much from journal to journal, as does the extent of textbook and trade book review. An academic journal's prestige is established over time, and can reflect many factors, some but not all of which are expressible quantitatively. In each academic discipline , some journals receive

470-433: A good technique for scientific evaluation. Experience has shown that in each specialty the best journals are those in which it is most difficult to have an article accepted, and these are the journals that have a high impact factor. Most of these journals existed long before the impact factor was devised. The use of impact factor as a measure of quality is widespread because it fits well with the opinion we have in each field of

564-412: A high number of submissions and opt to restrict how many they publish, keeping the acceptance rate low. Size or prestige are not a guarantee of reliability. In the natural sciences and in the social sciences , the impact factor is an established proxy, measuring the number of later articles citing articles already published in the journal. There are other quantitative measures of prestige, such as

658-428: A journal article will be available for download in two formats: PDF and HTML, although other electronic file types are often supported for supplementary material. Articles are indexed in bibliographic databases as well as by search engines. E-journals allow new types of content to be included in journals, for example, video material, or the data sets on which research has been based. With the growth and development of

752-510: A larger percentage of review articles which generally are cited more than research reports. Research undertaken in 2020 on dentistry journals concluded that the publication of "systematic reviews have significant effect on the Journal Impact Factor ... while papers publishing clinical trials bear no influence on this factor. Greater yearly average of published papers ... means a higher impact factor." Journals may also attempt to limit

846-517: A mixture of metrics on their website; the PLOS series of journals does not display the impact factor. Microsoft Academic took a similar view, stating that h-index, EI/SCI and journal impact factors are not shown because "the research literature has provided abundant evidence that these metrics are at best a rough approximation of research impact and scholarly influence." In 2021, Utrecht University promised to abandon all quantitative bibliometrics, including

940-429: A narrow focus on publishing in top-tier journals, potentially compromising the diversity of research topics and methodologies. Further criticisms argue that emphasis on impact factor results from the negative influence of neoliberal politics on academia. Some of these arguments demand not just replacement of the impact factor with more sophisticated metrics but also discussion on the social value of research assessment and

1034-1411: A new corporation, Clarivate, which is now the publisher of the JCR. In any given year, the two-year journal impact factor is the ratio between the number of citations received in that year for publications in that journal that were published in the two preceding years and the total number of "citable items" published in that journal during the two preceding years: IF y = Citations y Publications y − 1 + Publications y − 2 . {\displaystyle {\text{IF}}_{y}={\frac {{\text{Citations}}_{y}}{{\text{Publications}}_{y-1}+{\text{Publications}}_{y-2}}}.} For example, Nature had an impact factor of 41.577 in 2017: IF 2017 = Citations 2017 Publications 2016 + Publications 2015 = 74090 880 + 902 = 41.577. {\displaystyle {\text{IF}}_{2017}={\frac {{\text{Citations}}_{2017}}{{\text{Publications}}_{2016}+{\text{Publications}}_{2015}}}={\frac {74090}{880+902}}=41.577.} This means that, on average, its papers published in 2015 and 2016 received roughly 42 citations each in 2017. 2017 impact factors are reported in 2018; they cannot be calculated until all of

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1128-440: A number of the journals on this list, threatened to sue Beall in 2013 and Beall stopped publishing in 2017, citing pressure from his university. A US judge fined OMICS $ 50 million in 2019 stemming from an FTC lawsuit. Some academic journals use the registered report format, which aims to counteract issues such as data dredging and hypothesizing after the results are known. For example, Nature Human Behaviour has adopted

1222-453: A print journal in structure: there is a table of contents which lists the articles, and many electronic journals still use a volume/issue model, although some titles now publish on a continuous basis. Online journal articles are a specialized form of electronic document : they have the purpose of providing material for academic research and study, and they are formatted approximately like journal articles in traditional printed journals. Often,

1316-468: A profit. They often accept advertising, page and image charges from authors to pay for production costs. On the other hand, some journals are produced by commercial publishers who do make a profit by charging subscriptions to individuals and libraries. They may also sell all of their journals in discipline-specific collections or a variety of other packages. Journal editors tend to have other professional responsibilities, most often as teaching professors. In

1410-431: A protest against the "absurd scientific situation in some countries" related to use of the impact factor. The large number of citations meant that the impact factor for that journal increased to 1.44. As a result of the increase, the journal was not included in the 2008 and 2009 Journal Citation Reports . Coercive citation is a practice in which an editor forces an author to add extraneous citations to an article before

1504-519: A scientific paper without seeing the primary data, so should they not rely on Thomson Scientific's impact factor, which is based on hidden data". However, a 2019 article demonstrated that "with access to the data and careful cleaning, the JIF can be reproduced", although this required much labour to achieve. A 2020 research paper went further. It indicated that by querying open access or partly open-access databases, like Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Scopus, it

1598-437: A study in a given field, or for current awareness of those already in the field. Reviews of scholarly books are checks upon the research books published by scholars; unlike articles, book reviews tend to be solicited. Journals typically have a separate book review editor determining which new books to review and by whom. If an outside scholar accepts the book review editor's request for a book review, he or she generally receives

1692-458: Is "a wide variation [of citations] from article to article within a single journal". Despite this warning, the use of the JIF has evolved, playing a key role in the process of assessing individual researchers, their job applications and their funding proposals. In 2005, The Journal of Cell Biology noted that: Impact factor data ... have a strong influence on the scientific community, affecting decisions on where to publish, whom to promote or hire,

1786-611: Is accessible to all registered users, who can independently verify the number of citable items for a given journal. In contrast, the number of citations is extracted not from the WoS database, but from a dedicated JCR database, which is not accessible to general readers. Hence, the commonly used "JCR Impact Factor" is a proprietary value, which is defined and calculated by ISI and can not be verified by external users. New journals, which are indexed from their first published issue, will receive an impact factor after two years of indexing; in this case,

1880-557: Is integrated into the educational framework of Aix-Marseille University . Participation in the CIML program requires enrollment in the Master's-PhD program at the Ecole Doctorale des Sciences de la Vie. A unique part of the program is a student exchange scheme with Harvard Medical School . In immunology, more than in any other discipline, physiology is often revealed by pathology . Therefore,

1974-408: Is possible to calculate approximate impact factors without the need to purchase Web of Science / JCR. Just as the impact factor has attracted criticism for various immediate problems associated with its application, so has there also been criticism that its application undermines the broader process of science. Research has indicated that bibliometrics figures, particularly the impact factor, decrease

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2068-521: Is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and discussion of research . They nearly universally require peer review for research articles or other scrutiny from contemporaries competent and established in their respective fields. Content usually takes the form of articles presenting original research , review articles , or book reviews . The purpose of an academic journal, according to Henry Oldenburg (the first editor of Philosophical Transactions of

2162-408: Is reporting "alternative impact factors", calculated as the average number of citations per article using citation indices other than JCR such as Google Scholar (e.g., "Google-based Journal Impact Factor") or Microsoft Academic . Academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline

2256-621: The SCImago Journal Rank , CiteScore , Eigenfactor , and Altmetrics . In the Anglo-American humanities , there is no tradition (as there is in the sciences) of giving impact-factors that could be used in establishing a journal's prestige. Recent moves have been made by the European Science Foundation (ESF) to change the situation, resulting in the publication of preliminary lists for the ranking of academic journals in

2350-693: The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Released in May 2013, DORA has garnered support from thousands of individuals and hundreds of institutions, including in March 2015 the League of European Research Universities (a consortium of 21 of the most renowned research universities in Europe), who have endorsed the document on the DORA website. Publishers, even those with high impact factors, also recognised

2444-511: The h-index and the impact factor". The UK's Research Assessment Exercise for 2014 also banned the journal impact factor although evidence suggested that this ban was often ignored. In response to growing concerns over the inappropriate use of journal impact factors in evaluating scientific outputs and scientists themselves, the American Society for Cell Biology together with a group of editors and publishers of scholarly journals created

2538-494: The immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif (ITIM)-containing KARAP/DAP12 that is important for NK cell function and characterized the key function of the killer activated receptor NKp46. Other recent advances include the discovery of early precursors of B-cell follicular lymphoma in apparently healthy individuals, and of dendritic cell aggresome-like induced structures (DALIS) in dendritic cells, thought to play an important role in regulating antigen presentation, as well as

2632-468: The median of these data. There is also a more general debate on the validity of the impact factor as a measure of journal importance and the effect of policies that editors may adopt to boost their impact factor (perhaps to the detriment of readers and writers). Other criticism focuses on the effect of the impact factor on behavior of scholars, editors and other stakeholders. Criticism of impact factors also extends to its impact on researcher behavior. While

2726-436: The quantitative social sciences vary in form and function from journals of the humanities and qualitative social sciences; their specific aspects are separately discussed. The first academic journal was Journal des sçavans (January 1665), followed soon after by Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (March 1665), and Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences (1666). The first fully peer-reviewed journal

2820-572: The 2017 publications have been processed by the indexing agency. The value of impact factor depends on how to define "citations" and "publications"; the latter are often referred to as "citable items". In current practice, both "citations" and "publications" are defined exclusively by ISI as follows. "Publications" are items that are classed as "article", "review" or "proceedings paper" in the Web of Science (WoS) database; other items like editorials, corrections, notes, retractions and discussions are excluded. WoS

2914-511: The CIML also published the first nucleotide sequence of a gene encoding a human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene and described how the TCR recognizes its MHC ligand. The functions of these T cells were also investigated, leading in particular to the identification of Granzyme A and GZMB (then called CTLA-1 and CTLA-3) and the demonstration of their playing a role in the perforin-granzyme-based mechanism of T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and to

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3008-623: The Conduct of Science issued a "statement on publication practices and indices and the role of peer review in research assessment", suggesting many possible solutions—e.g., considering a limit number of publications per year to be taken into consideration for each scientist, or even penalising scientists for an excessive number of publications per year—e.g., more than 20. In February 2010, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) published new guidelines to reduce

3102-411: The JIF as part of such review, promotion, and tenure processes. And a 2017 study of how researchers in the life sciences behave concluded that "everyday decision-making practices as highly governed by pressures to publish in high-impact journals". The deeply embedded nature of such indicators not only effect research assessment, but the more fundamental issue of what research is actually undertaken: "Given

3196-461: The JIF is still useful, and that omitting it "will lead to randomness and a compromising of scientific quality". Some related metrics, also calculated and published by the same organization, include: A given journal may attain a different quartile or percentile in different categories. As with the impact factor, there are some nuances to this: for example, Clarivate excludes certain article types (such as news items, correspondence, and errata) from

3290-497: The JIF state that use of the arithmetic mean in its calculation is problematic because the pattern of citation distribution is skewed and citation distributions metrics have been proposed as an alternative to impact factors. However, there have also been pleas to take a more nuanced approach to judging the distribution skewness of the impact factor. Ludo Waltman and Vincent Antonio Traag, in their 2021 paper, ran numerous simulations and concluded that "statistical objections against

3384-536: The JIF to cultivate a competition regime in academia has been shown to have deleterious effects on research quality. A number of regional and international initiatives are now providing and suggesting alternative research assessment systems, including key documents such as the Leiden Manifesto and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Plan S calls for a broader adoption and implementation of such initiatives alongside fundamental changes in

3478-470: The Royal Society ), is to give researchers a venue to "impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences." The term academic journal applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this article discusses the aspects common to all academic field journals. Scientific journals and journals of

3572-636: The article produce reports upon the content, style, and other factors, which inform the editors' publication decisions. Though these reports are generally confidential, some journals and publishers also practice public peer review . The editors either choose to reject the article, ask for a revision and resubmission, or accept the article for publication. Even accepted articles are often subjected to further (sometimes considerable) editing by journal editorial staff before they appear in print. The peer review can take from several weeks to several months. Review articles, also called "reviews of progress", are checks on

3666-821: The author deposits a paper in a disciplinary or institutional repository where it can be searched for and read, or via publishing it in a free open access journal , which does not charge for subscriptions , being either subsidized or financed by a publication fee . Given the goal of sharing scientific research to speed advances, open access has affected science journals more than humanities journals. Commercial publishers are experimenting with open access models, but are trying to protect their subscription revenues. The much lower entry cost of on-line publishing has also raised concerns of an increase in publication of "junk" journals with lower publishing standards. These journals, often with names chosen as similar to well-established publications, solicit articles via e-mail and then charge

3760-468: The author to publish an article, often with no sign of actual review . Jeffrey Beall , a research librarian at the University of Colorado , has compiled a list of what he considers to be "potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers"; the list numbered over 300 journals as of April 2013, but he estimates that there may be thousands. The OMICS Publishing Group , which publishes

3854-424: The best journals in our specialty....In conclusion, prestigious journals publish papers of high level. Therefore, their impact factor is high, and not the contrary. As impact factors are a journal-level metric, rather than an article- or individual-level metric, this use is controversial. Eugene Garfield, the inventor of the JIF agreed with Hoeffel, but warned about the "misuse in evaluating individuals" because there

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3948-536: The calendar year. This gives those papers more time to gather citations. Several methods, not necessarily with nefarious intent, exist for a journal to cite articles in the same journal which will increase the journal's impact factor. Beyond editorial policies that may skew the impact factor, journals can take overt steps to game the system . For example, in 2007, the specialist journal Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica , with an impact factor of 0.66, published an editorial that cited all its articles from 2005 to 2006 in

4042-788: The case of the article "A short history of SHELX", which included this sentence: "This paper could serve as a general literature citation when one or more of the open-source SHELX programs (and the Bruker AXS version SHELXTL) are employed in the course of a crystal-structure determination". This article received more than 6,600 citations. As a consequence, the impact factor of the journal Acta Crystallographica Section A rose from 2.051 in 2008 to 49.926 in 2009, more than Nature (at 31.434) and Science (at 28.103). The second-most cited article in Acta Crystallographica Section ;A in 2008 had only 28 citations. Critics of

4136-410: The case of the largest journals, there are paid staff assisting in the editing. The production of the journals is almost always done by publisher-paid staff. Humanities and social science academic journals are usually subsidized by universities or professional organization. The cost and value proposition of subscription to academic journals is being continuously re-assessed by institutions worldwide. In

4230-546: The citations to the year prior to volume 1, and the number of articles published in the year prior to volume 1, are known zero values. Journals that are indexed starting with a volume other than the first volume will not get an impact factor until they have been indexed for three years. Occasionally, Journal Citation Reports assigns an impact factor to new journals with less than two years of indexing, based on partial citation data. The calculation always uses two complete and known years of item counts, but for new titles one of

4324-612: The context of the big deal cancellations by several library systems in the world, data analysis tools like Unpaywall Journals are used by libraries to estimate the specific cost and value of the various options: libraries can avoid subscriptions for materials already served by instant open access via open archives like PubMed Central. The Internet has revolutionized the production of, and access to, academic journals, with their contents available online via services subscribed to by academic libraries . Individual articles are subject-indexed in databases such as Google Scholar . Some of

4418-509: The current ways of evaluation and valuing research, risky, lengthy, and unorthodox project rarely take center stage." Numerous critiques have been made regarding the use of impact factors, both in terms of its statistical validity and also of its implications for how science is carried out and assessed. A 2007 study noted that the most fundamental flaw is that impact factors present the mean of data that are not normally distributed , and suggested that it would be more appropriate to present

4512-687: The denominator. Additional journal-level metrics are available from other organizations. For example, CiteScore is a metric for serial titles in Scopus launched in December 2016 by Elsevier . While these metrics apply only to journals, there are also author-level metrics , such as the h-index , that apply to individual researchers. In addition, article-level metrics measure impact at an article level instead of journal level. Other more general alternative metrics, or " altmetrics ", that include article views, downloads, or mentions in social media , offer

4606-545: The denominator. One notorious example of this occurred in 1988 when it was decided that meeting abstracts published in FASEB Journal would no longer be included in the denominator. The journal's impact factor jumped from 0.24 in 1988 to 18.3 in 1989. Publishers routinely discuss with Clarivate how to improve the "accuracy" of their journals' impact factor and therefore get higher scores. Such discussions routinely produce "negotiated values" which result in dramatic changes in

4700-837: The discovery of MafB / M-CSF circuits in hematopoietic stem cell commitment, and macrophages . The CIML is mainly supported by direct and indirect funding from INSERM , the CNRS , and Aix-Marseille University , covering for example the salaries of more than 125 permanent staff members. Other major funders include the European Research Council , European Union , the Agence Nationale de la Recherche , Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer, Fondation Recherche Medicale, Human Frontier Science Program , Institut National du Cancer, La Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer, as well as CIML's industrial partners. The CIML's Master's and PhD program

4794-518: The discovery of the second, Fas ligand / Fas receptor based pathway of cytotoxicity. Other biologically important regulatory molecules identified at the CIML include interleukins such as interleukin-17 (as CTLA-8) and cell surface molecules, such as CTLA-4 regulating T cells. Subsequently, research at the CIML expanded to other cells of the immune system , including B cells , dendritic cells and natural killer cells , as well as other models systems, such as C. elegans . CIML researchers identified

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4888-400: The emphasis on high-impact journals may lead to strategic publishing practices that prioritize journal prestige over the quality and relevance of research, it's important to acknowledge the "privilege paradox". Younger researchers, particularly those from under-represented regions, often lack the established reputation or networks to secure recognition outside of these metrics. This can lead to

4982-466: The end of the 18th century, nearly 500 such periodicals had been published, the vast majority coming from Germany (304 periodicals), France (53), and England (34). Several of those publications, in particular the German journals, tended to be short-lived (under five years). A.J. Meadows has estimated the proliferation of journals to reach 10,000 journals in 1950, and 71,000 in 1987. Michael Mabe wrote that

5076-484: The estimates will vary depending on the definition of what exactly counts as a scholarly publication, but that the growth rate has been "remarkably consistent over time", with an average rate of 3.46% per year from 1800 to 2003. In 1733, Medical Essays and Observations was established by the Medical Society of Edinburgh as the first fully peer-reviewed journal. Peer review was introduced as an attempt to increase

5170-434: The first megajournal . There are two kinds of article or paper submissions in academia : solicited, where an individual has been invited to submit work either through direct contact or through a general submissions call, and unsolicited, where an individual submits a work for potential publication without directly being asked to do so. Upon receipt of a submitted article, editors at the journal determine whether to reject

5264-424: The flaws. Nature magazine criticised the over-reliance on JIF, pointing not just to its statistical flaws but to negative effects on science: "The resulting pressures and disappointments are nothing but demoralizing, and in badly run labs can encourage sloppy research that, for example, fails to test assumptions thoroughly or to take all the data into account before submitting big claims." Various publishers now use

5358-457: The growing precariousness of scientific careers in higher education. It has been stated that impact factors in particular and citation analysis in general are affected by field-dependent factors which invalidate comparisons not only across disciplines but even within different fields of research of one discipline. The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication also varies highly among disciplines from 1–3% in

5452-424: The humanities. These rankings have been severely criticized, notably by history and sociology of science British journals that have published a common editorial entitled "Journals under Threat". Though it did not prevent ESF and some national organizations from proposing journal rankings , it largely prevented their use as evaluation tools. In some disciplines such as knowledge management / intellectual capital ,

5546-527: The impact factor. The university stated that "it has become a very sick model that goes beyond what is really relevant for science and putting science forward". This followed a 2018 decision by the main Dutch funding body for research, NWO , to remove all references to journal impact factors and the h-index in all call texts and application forms. Utrecht's decision met with some resistance. An open letter signed by over 150 Dutch academics argued that, while imperfect,

5640-406: The impact of therapies on the immune system. Finally, theoretical work which may provide key solutions to medicine are performed at the CIML on inflammatory mechanisms associated with the development of inflammatory bowel. Impact factor The impact factor ( IF ) or journal impact factor ( JIF ) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects

5734-407: The institute is involved in many studies with clinical objectives. A wide range of malignancies are studied at the CIML such as leukemias and hematopoietic cancers , lymphomas and primary immune deficiencies, or brucellosis and juvenile arthritis . Treatments are also a major concern of the institute, such as studies on the prevention, monitoring, and treatment of hematologic malignancies and on

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5828-635: The institutional level. It thus has significant impact on steering research practices and behaviours. By 2010, national and international research funding institutions were already starting to point out that numerical indicators such as the JIF should not be considered as a measure of quality. In fact, research was indicating that the JIF is a highly manipulated metric, and the justification for its continued widespread use beyond its original narrow purpose seems due to its simplicity (easily calculable and comparable number), rather than any actual relationship to research quality. Empirical evidence shows that

5922-605: The journal impact factor. In November 2007 the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) issued an official statement recommending "that journal impact factors are used only—and cautiously—for measuring and comparing the influence of entire journals, but not for the assessment of single papers, and certainly not for the assessment of researchers or research programmes". In July 2008, the International Council for Science Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in

6016-418: The journal will agree to publish it, in order to inflate the journal's impact factor. A survey published in 2012 indicates that coercive citation has been experienced by one in five researchers working in economics, sociology, psychology, and multiple business disciplines, and it is more common in business and in journals with a lower impact factor. Editors of leading business journals banded together to disavow

6110-450: The known counts is zero. Annuals and other irregular publications sometimes publish no items in a particular year, affecting the count. The impact factor relates to a specific time period; it is possible to calculate it for any desired period. For example, the JCR also includes a five-year impact factor , which is calculated by dividing the number of citations to the journal in a given year by the number of articles published in that journal in

6204-627: The lack of a well-established journal ranking system is perceived by academics as "a major obstacle on the way to tenure, promotion and achievement recognition". Conversely, a significant number of scientists and organizations consider the pursuit of impact factor calculations as inimical to the goals of science, and have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment to limit its use. Three categories of techniques have developed to assess journal quality and create journal rankings: Many academic journals are subsidized by universities or professional organizations, and do not exist to make

6298-400: The last 5 years, including 145 in journals with an impact factor ≥ 10. It is located on a science campus that is home to more than 1,500 researchers and 10,000 students, and 15 biotech companies. Early work at CIML was centered on T cells . The study of their antigen receptors lead to the discovery of chromosomal inversion during the formation of the T cell receptor (TCR). Researchers at

6392-409: The marginalization of research in vernacular languages and on locally relevant topics and inducement to unethical authorship and citation practices. More generally, the impact factors fosters a reputation economy, where scientific success is based on publishing in prestigious journals ahead of actual research qualities such as rigorous methods, replicability and social impact. Using journal prestige and

6486-630: The mathematical and physical sciences to 5–8% in the biological sciences. Thus impact factors cannot be used to compare journals across disciplines. Impact factors are sometimes used to evaluate not only the journals but the papers therein, thereby devaluing papers in certain subjects. In 2004, the Higher Education Funding Council for England was urged by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee to remind Research Assessment Exercise panels that they are obliged to assess

6580-504: The misuse of the JIF—and journal ranking metrics in general—has a number of negative consequences for the scholarly communication system. These include gaps between the reach of a journal and the quality of its individual papers and insufficient coverage of social sciences and humanities as well as research outputs from across Latin America, Africa, and South-East Asia. Additional drawbacks include

6674-599: The number of "citable items"—i.e., the denominator of the impact factor equation—either by declining to publish articles that are unlikely to be cited (such as case reports in medical journals) or by altering articles (e.g., by not allowing an abstract or bibliography in hopes that Journal Citation Reports will not deem it a "citable item"). As a result of negotiations over whether items are "citable", impact factor variations of more than 300% have been observed. Items considered to be uncitable—and thus are not incorporated in impact factor calculations—can, if cited, still enter into

6768-427: The number of publications that could be submitted when applying for funding: "The focus has not been on what research someone has done but rather how many papers have been published and where." They noted that for decisions concerning "performance-based funding allocations, postdoctoral qualifications, appointments, or reviewing funding proposals, [where] increasing importance has been given to numerical indicators such as

6862-444: The numerator part of the equation despite the ease with which such citations could be excluded. This effect is hard to evaluate, for the distinction between editorial comment and short original articles is not always obvious. For example, letters to the editor may be part of either class. Another less insidious tactic journals employ is to publish a large portion of its papers, or at least the papers expected to be highly cited, early in

6956-428: The observed scores for dozens of journals, sometimes after unrelated events like the purchase by one of the larger publishers. Because citation counts have highly skewed distributions , the mean number of citations is potentially misleading if used to gauge the typical impact of articles in the journal rather than the overall impact of the journal itself. For example, about 90% of Nature ' s 2004 impact factor

7050-611: The overall number of citations, how quickly articles are cited, and the average " half-life " of articles. Clarivate Analytics ' Journal Citation Reports , which among other features, computes an impact factor for academic journals, draws data for computation from the Science Citation Index Expanded (for natural science journals), and from the Social Sciences Citation Index (for social science journals). Several other metrics are also used, including

7144-456: The paper resulting from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study outcomes." Some journals are born digital in that they are solely published on the web and in a digital format. Though most electronic journals originated as print journals, which subsequently evolved to have an electronic version, while still maintaining a print component, others eventually became electronic-only. An e-journal closely resembles

7238-510: The practice. However, cases of coercive citation have occasionally been reported for other disciplines. The journal impact factor was originally designed by Eugene Garfield as a metric to help librarians make decisions about which journals were worth indexing, as the JIF aggregates the number of citations to articles published in each journal. Since then, the JIF has become associated as a mark of journal "quality", and gained widespread use for evaluation of research and researchers instead, even at

7332-448: The previous five years. While originally invented as a tool to help university librarians to decide which journals to purchase, the impact factor soon became used as a measure for judging academic success. This use of impact factors was summarised by Hoeffel in 1998: Impact Factor is not a perfect tool to measure the quality of articles but there is nothing better and it has the advantage of already being in existence and is, therefore,

7426-424: The process of publication and science is slowed down – authors automatically try and publish with the journals with the highest impact factor – "as editors and reviewers are tasked with reviewing papers that are not submitted to the most appropriate venues". Given the growing criticism and its widespread usage as a means of research assessment, organisations and institutions have begun to take steps to move away from

7520-432: The quality and pertinence of submissions. Other important events in the history of academic journals include the establishment of Nature (1869) and Science (1880), the establishment of Postmodern Culture in 1990 as the first online-only journal , the foundation of arXiv in 1991 for the dissemination of preprints to be discussed prior to publication in a journal, and the establishment of PLOS One in 2006 as

7614-401: The quality of peer review an article receives, cause a reluctance to share data, decrease the quality of articles, and a reduce the scope in of publishable research. "For many researchers the only research questions and projects that appear viable are those that can meet the demand of scoring well in terms of metric performance indicators – and chiefly the journal impact factor.". Furthermore,

7708-515: The quality of the content of individual articles, not the reputation of the journal in which they are published. Other studies have repeatedly stated that impact factor is a metric for journals and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions. Because impact factor is commonly accepted as a proxy for research quality, some journals adopt editorial policies and practices, some acceptable and some of dubious purpose, to increase its impact factor. For example, journals may publish

7802-495: The registered report format, as it "shift[s] the emphasis from the results of research to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them". The European Journal of Personality defines this format: "In a registered report, authors create a study proposal that includes theoretical and empirical background, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (if available). Upon submission, this proposal will then be reviewed prior to data collection, and if accepted,

7896-511: The research published in journals. Some journals are devoted entirely to review articles, some contain a few in each issue, and others do not publish review articles. Such reviews often cover the research from the preceding year, some for longer or shorter terms; some are devoted to specific topics, some to general surveys. Some reviews are enumerative , listing all significant articles in a given subject; others are selective, including only what they think worthwhile. Yet others are evaluative, judging

7990-563: The scholarly communication system. As appropriate measures of quality for authors and research, concepts of research excellence should be remodelled around transparent workflows and accessible research results. JIFs are still regularly used to evaluate research in many countries, which is a problem since a number of issues remain around the opacity of the metric and the fact that it is often negotiated by publishers. Results of an impact factor can change dramatically depending on which items are considered as "citable" and therefore included in

8084-429: The smallest, most specialized journals are prepared in-house, by an academic department, and published only online – this has sometimes been in the blog format, though some, like the open access journal Internet Archaeology , use the medium to embed searchable datasets, 3D models, and interactive mapping. Currently, there is a movement in higher education encouraging open access, either via self archiving , whereby

8178-440: The state of progress in the subject field. Some journals are published in series, each covering a complete subject field year, or covering specific fields through several years. Unlike original research articles, review articles tend to be solicited or "peer-invited" submissions, often planned years in advance, which may themselves go through a peer-review process once received. They are typically relied upon by students beginning

8272-402: The submission outright or begin the process of peer review . In the latter case, the submission becomes subject to review by outside scholars of the editor's choosing who typically remain anonymous. The number of these peer reviewers (or "referees") varies according to each journal's editorial practice – typically, no fewer than two, though sometimes three or more, experts in the subject matter of

8366-513: The success of grant applications, and even salary bonuses. More targeted research has begun to provide firm evidence of how deeply the impact factor is embedded within formal and informal research assessment processes. A review in 2019 studied how often the JIF featured in documents related to the review, promotion, and tenure of scientists in US and Canadian universities. It concluded that 40% of universities focused on academic research specifically mentioned

8460-456: The use of the IF at the level of individual articles are not convincing", and that "the IF may be a more accurate indicator of the value of an article than the number of citations of the article". While the underlying mathematical model is publicly known, the dataset which is used to calculate the JIF is not publicly available. This prompted criticism: "Just as scientists would not accept the findings in

8554-633: The yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as indexed by Clarivate's Web of Science . As a journal-level metric , it is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher impact factor values are given the status of being more important, or carry more prestige in their respective fields, than those with lower values. While frequently used by universities and funding bodies to decide on promotion and research proposals, it has been criticised for distorting good scientific practices. The impact factor

8648-540: Was Medical Essays and Observations (1733). The idea of a published journal with the purpose of "[letting] people know what is happening in the Republic of Letters " was first conceived by François Eudes de Mézeray in 1663. A publication titled Journal littéraire général was supposed to be published to fulfill that goal, but never was. Humanist scholar Denis de Sallo (under the pseudonym "Sieur de Hédouville") and printer Jean Cusson took Mazerai's idea, and obtained

8742-444: Was based on only a quarter of its publications. Thus the actual number of citations for a single article in the journal is in most cases much lower than the mean number of citations across articles. Furthermore, the strength of the relationship between impact factors of journals and the citation rates of the papers therein has been steadily decreasing since articles began to be available digitally. The effect of outliers can be seen in

8836-632: Was devised by Eugene Garfield , the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia. Impact factors began to be calculated yearly starting from 1975 for journals listed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). ISI was acquired by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare in 1992, and became known as Thomson ISI. In 2018, Thomson-Reuters spun off and sold ISI to Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia . They founded

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