Impact factor and the Australian Occupational Therapy Journal: A notable achievement

Abstract

Journal quality metrics have been around since the 1960s (Garfield, 2006). Currently the primary journal quality metrics used by universities, research review agencies and research funding bodies are those published by the Thomson Reuters ISI (a private, for-profit company) and reported in the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR). They are based on citation data for journals included in the Science Citation Index/(Expanded) (SCI/(E)) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), which can collectively be searched through the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge database. One key journal quality metric that is calculated in the JCR is the Impact Factor (IF), a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the current year to articles published in the previous two years by the total number of articles published in the previous two years. Another quality metric often reported is the journal ranking of a publication on the JCR database. Three years ago, the AOTJ editorial board with assistance from staff from Wiley-Blackwell prepared an application for submission to Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge for the AOTJ to be included on the database, to receive an IF and journal ranking. Two years ago, the AOTJ submission was accepted. Now for the first time, the AOTJ has an IF of 0.438, an impressive achievement indeed. Currently there are only three other occupational therapy journals in the JCR Reports for 2009. The 2009 IFs for these three journals were: American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT), 1.419; Occupational Therapy Journal of Research (OTJR), 0.358; and Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy (HKJOT), 0.462. The 2009 SJR journal rankings for AOTJ, HKJOT, AJOT and OTJR were 31/36, 30/36, 17/55 and 50/55, respectively. IFs are increasingly being used in academic, research and grant funding arenas as a quality indicator of individual staff members and as an eligibility criteria for promotion, pay increases, grant funding access eligibility and receiving resources within higher education contexts (Saha, Saint & Christakis, 2003). For example, the Australian Government/Australian Research Council (2010) has initiated a programme referred to as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative which will assess ‘research quality within Australia’s higher education institutions using a combination of indicators and expert review by committees comprising experienced, internationally-recognised experts’ (retrieved on 2 August 2010 from http://www.arc.gov.au/era/default.htm). One of the quantitative indicators that will be used to assess universities’ research quality, including those that have occupational therapy education programs, will be the JCR IF and journal ranking. How universities perform in the ERA exercise will have significant implications for the allocation of scarce research funding resources. The ERA has also developed its own journal ranking system where publications from all fields of study (e.g. psychology, physics, law and engineering) are ranked as A, B or C based on their quality indicators such as prestige, quality and rigor. Currently, no occupational therapy journals have been given the ranking of A by ERA, AOTJ and AJOT are ranked level B and other occupational therapy journals are ranked as a level C (such as CJOT, BJOT, SJOT and OTI). IF and other journal quality metrics are points of reference for occupational therapists (and others) who publish and hopefully this will encourage prospective authors to submit high-calibre manuscripts to AOTJ that are relevant to the discipline. In order for the AOTJ to remain competitive (nationally and internationally) and relevant to its readership and the authors who publish in it, achieving an IF is an outstanding accomplishment. The AOTJ editorial board in collaboration with Wiley-Blackwell will continue to work on constructive ways to improve the journal’s IF and journal ranking when it is next calculated and published. This will assist to ensure that the AOTJ continues to be the high-quality, useful, recognised refereed publication it is.