Journal weighted impact factor: A proposal

Farrokh Habibzadeh and Mahboobeh Yadollahie

Journal of Informetrics, 2008, vol. 2, issue 2, 164-172

Abstract: The impact factor of a journal reflects the frequency with which the journal's articles are cited. It is the best available measure of journal quality. For calculation of impact factor, we just count the number of citations, no matter how prestigious the citing journal is. We think that impact factor as a measure of journal quality, may be improved if in its calculation, we not only take into account the number of citations, but also incorporate a factor reflecting the prestige of the citing journals relative to the cited journal. In calculation of this proposed “weighted impact factor,” each citation has a coefficient (weight) the value of which is 1 if the citing journal is as prestigious as the cited journal; is >1 if the citing journal is more prestigious than the cited journal; and is <1 if the citing journal has a lower standing than the cited journal. In this way, journals receiving many citations from prestigious journals are considered prestigious themselves and those cited by low-status journals seek little credit. By considering both the number of citations and the prestige of the citing journals, we expect the weighted impact factor be a better scientometrics measure of journal quality.

Keywords: Journal impact factor; Scientometrics; Citation analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175115770800014X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:2:y:2008:i:2:p:164-172

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2008.02.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Informetrics is currently edited by Leo Egghe

More articles in Journal of Informetrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().