Scrambling for higher metrics in the Journal Impact Factor bubble period: a real-world problem in science management and its implications

Trung Tran, Hoang Khanh Linh, La Phuong (), Ho Toan and Quan Hoang Vuong

No dmsp9, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management.

Date: 2020-02-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:dmsp9

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/dmsp9

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