Have you heard about the journal that was responsible for 85% of the citations of its own articles? Or about the practice of encouraging authors to "look at some recent issues of the Journal of ... and add citations to any relevant papers you might find. This helps our authors by drawing attention to their work, and also adds internal integrity to the Journal's themes." As the demand for academics worldwide to not only publish but to place their work in the most prestigious journals the use of ISI's Journal Citation Reports impact factors has become the most widely recognised measure of the standing of scientific journals. In a balanced and thoughtful article in the most recent Chronicle of Higher Education Richard Monastersky looks at the internal forces within academia that have lead to this situation and describes some of the ways in which editors and publishers try to massage their impact factors. He concludes that "scientists have little choice but to accept the system — although competitors are emerging that could alter the situation."
Read the full article here
If you want to understand what JCR impact factors are, how they are used and also what alternatives there are, sign up to this training session run by the Library though the Massey Training and Development Unit
Knowledge Management in Research 2: Publishing for PBRF
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