Visualizing Citation Cartels
Citation network maps may indicate when gaming is taking place. Proving intention is a different story.
How to Manipulate a Citation Histogram
Citation indexes need to provide standardized citation histograms for editors and publishers. Without them, it is unlikely that they will be widely adopted. At worse, it will encourage the production of histograms that selectively highlight or obscure the data.
On Moose and Medians (Or Why We Are Stuck With The Impact Factor)
If Thomson Reuters can calculate Impact Factors and Eigenfactors, why can’t they deliver a simple median score?
Can Scopus Deliver A Better Journal Impact Metric? Response from Scopus
An official response from Wim Meester, Head of Content Strategy for Scopus.
Can Scopus Deliver A Better Journal Impact Metric?
While offering real improvements over Thomson Reuters, Scopus may be suffering from serious data integrity issues and communication problems with its third-party publishers.
Citable Items: The Contested Impact Factor Denominator
Thomson Reuters’ approach of indexing by journal section and revising by demand leads to great inconsistencies across journals and inflates the Impact Factors of elite journals. The solution: remove the human element.
As PLOS ONE Shrinks, 2015 Impact Factor Expected to Rise
How a shrinking journals receives an artificial boost to its leading citation indicator.
Network-based Citation Metrics: Eigenfactor vs. SJR
Can network-based metrics allow us to separate true scientific influence from mere popularity?
2014 Journal Impact Factors
Journal additions, suppressions, new metrics and an improved user interface are included in this year’s Journal Citation Report (JCR).
Data Curation–The New Killer App
Establishing new citation benchmarks and an international board of academics, Elsevier is poised to take on Thomson Reuters for dominance in the citation metrics market.
Knockoffs Erode Trust in Metrics Market
If the Internet created a burgeoning market of cheap academic journal knockoffs, should we be surprised to witness new knockoff ratings companies?
When a Journal Sinks, Should the Editors Go Down with the Ship?
This year, Thomson Reuters suspended six business journals for engaging in a citation cartel. Should the authors be held responsible for the malfeasance of their editors? We propose a new solution to punishing the community for the poor decisions of the few.
The Mystery of a “Partial” Impact Factor
The lack of an Impact Factor is one reason that new journals have difficulty attracting submissions. Some journals, such as eLife and Cell Reports, qualify for an Impact Factor based on partial data. This post explores how that happens.
Stick To Your Ribs: The Impact Factor’s Greatest Hits (and Misses)
Yesterday saw the release of the 2013 Impact Factors for scholarly journals. We present a look back at some favorite posts examining the Impact Factor.
Reinventing the Impact Factor for the 21st century
If we were to build a citation reporting system today, what would it look like? In this post, I propose a solution that would do away with a separate Journal Citation Report (JCR) and propose a suite of services built around the Web of Science, directed to the needs of journal editors and publishers.