CiteScore–Flawed But Still A Game Changer
The real innovation of CiteScore is not another performance metric, but a new marketing model focused on editors.
Visualizing Citation Cartels
Citation network maps may indicate when gaming is taking place. Proving intention is a different story.
Will Citation Distributions Reduce Impact Factor Abuses?
Publishing a histogram of a journal’s citation distribution won’t alleviate Impact Factor abuse. At best, it will be ignored. At worse, it will generate confusion.
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?
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.
The Open Syllabus Project, Altmetrics, and a New Dataset
The Open Syllabus Project has created a database of over 1 million college syllabuses and extracted the names of the materials used in these courses. These materials are analyzed quantitatively and ranked. The creators of the service propose a new metric for the evaluation of academic publications.
The Terrible Burden of a Prestigious Brand
While all publishers like to have a strong brand, some brands are so prestigious that they actually serve to paralyze the managements responsible for them, making it impossible to introduce innovations and to develop the business. Vast bureaucracies arrive whose purpose is not to develop the business but to protect the vaunted brand. This is a management problem, not a marketing one, but it can stymie a publisher from pursuing a progressive agenda.
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.
PeerJ — A PLOS ONE Contender in 2015?
PeerJ’s first Impact Factor is not expected to surpass 2.000. Without the scale of PLOS ONE, PeerJ may need to seek a larger, diversified buyer. What the journal has to offer other publishers is less clear.
PLOS ONE Output Falls Following Impact Factor Decline
Are authors leaving PLOS ONE for higher performing journals?
Stick to Your Ribs: Altmetrics — Replacing the Impact Factor Is Not the Only Point
Revisiting Todd Carpenter’s 2012 post on the value of altmetrics.
Visualizing Article Performance — Altmetrics Searches for Appropriate Display
The design and construction of article performance measures can reveal deeply held biases.