Abstract
In this study the issue of the validity of the argument against the applied length of citation windows in Journal Impact Factors calculations is critically re-analyzed. While previous studies argued against the relatively short citation window of 1–2 years, this study shows that the relative short term citation impact measured in the window underlying the Journal Impact Factor is a good predictor of the citation impact of the journals in the next years to come. Possible exceptions to this observation relate to journals with relatively low numbers of publications, and the citation impact related to publications in the year of publication. The study focuses on five Journal Subject Categories from the science and social sciences, on normal articles published in these journals, in the 2 years 2000 and 2004.
Highlights
In earlier studies, criticism on Journal Impact Factors was centered around a number of key problems when it comes to the famous Journal Impact Factors, produced annually by Thomson Reuters in their Journal Citation Reports
T. van Leeuwen methodological critique on Journal Impact Factors was somewhat related to the topic of citeable items, as the Journal Impact Factors do not take into consideration the composition of a journal in terms of its documents, resulting in journal listings in the Journal Citation Reports in which journals that contain only or many reviews dominate the rankings in the respective Journal Subject Categories
This paper presents the results of a study on the development of citation impact over time, and more in particular on the validity of the increasing impact in time, in comparison with short term impact measurement as applied in the impact measurement of the classical Journal Impact Factor
Summary
Criticism on Journal Impact Factors was centered around a number of key problems when it comes to the famous Journal Impact Factors, produced annually by Thomson Reuters in their Journal Citation Reports. As the formula of the Journal Impact Factor, at least the classical version, dictates a citation window of 1–2 years, that is, the years t-1 and t-2 (Garfield 1976) This short window of counting citation impact was considered to be disadvantageous for these fields in which citation impact starts to increase after a somewhat longer period, due to the nature of the research conducted in these fields, e.g., the laboratory-based research in biomedicine and the natural sciences, contrary to more clinical-practice or application oriented technical research as well as the social sciences (Moed et al 1998; van Leeuwen et al 1999; Vanclay 2009)
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