{"id":2480,"date":"2022-08-19T19:45:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T19:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researcher.life\/blog\/?p=2480"},"modified":"2024-02-19T12:07:39","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T12:07:39","slug":"using-impact-factors-when-choosing-a-target-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/researcher.life\/blog\/article\/using-impact-factors-when-choosing-a-target-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"Importance of Using Impact Factors When Choosing Your Target Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Yevgeniya Fedorova from Pexels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Selecting a journal in which to publish their study is an important and difficult decision for researchers. With more than 80,000 academic, peer-reviewed English language journals active as of July 20191<\/sup>, the question of how to choose the right journal for your manuscript is complex. Many factors play into the final selection, including the researcher\u2019s familiarity with the publication, opinions of colleagues, and overall journal reputation. For decades, the journal impact factor (IF) has been used as a metric to evaluate journal prestige and influence and has helped numerous authors choose a target journal. But does the impact factor matter?<\/p>\n

Although it is the oldest and most popular indicator of journal prestige, the IF has been subject to criticism lately due to its limitations and inappropriate use2<\/sup>. This has led the academic research community to search for new metrics that might better indicate the strength and influence of research journals. Thus, new evaluation tools such as the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR), Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), Eigenfactor score (ES), and Article Influence Score (AIS) have emerged as alternatives for evaluating the impact of research journals.<\/p>\n

Journal Impact Factor (IF)<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, what exactly is this IF metric that has influenced the publication intentions of so many researchers over the years? The IF, a product of the Journal Citation Report, is simply the average number of times each article in a specific journal has been cited in the past two years.<\/p>\n

Despite its long-term popularity, the IF has limitations that have come increasingly under scrutiny by researchers. One of these limitations is the small, two-year time window. Another issue is the annual nature of the measure. For example, a 2018 IF of 2.153 means that the average article in this journal was cited an average of 2.153 times in 2017 and 2016 combined3<\/sup>. It also means that the 2018 IF numbers were not available until 2019, a year-long lag. In addition, the IF does not account for variations in citation averages across disciplines4<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

As you can see, the IF measures the impact of the collection of all the articles in a journal and has nothing to say about an individual article or author. Thus, the recent use of this metric as an evaluation tool for a single article or researcher is misleading.<\/p>\n

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Other metrics to evaluate journal impact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to these limitations, researchers have been turning to other metrics to evaluate the quality and impact of a journal and to help them choose a target journal. Here are brief descriptions of a few of the indicators currently being used.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n