Publication Impact Factor Research Articles

Tracking the development of China’s top universities using scientometric indicators, 1997–2005

This study reviews the developments of 9 Chinese top universities supported by “985 Project” during 1997–2005 based on the analysis of a series of scientometric indicators, including the total number of publications indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, the cumulated impact factor of publications, the number of publications divided by the number of faculty members, the average impact factor of publications, percentage of publications in top 20 percent journals, the percentage of internationally collaborative publications, the number of publications in six broad subject fields and the Index of Disciplinary Balancing. The findings are helpful to the understanding of the achievements of Chinese top universities during this period as well as the remaining gaps between them and world-class universities.

Fate of abstracts presented at the 2002 IFCC meeting

Poster presentations at major meetings serve to rapidly present and share study results with the scientific community. On the other hand, full-text publication of abstracts in peer-reviewed journals provides dissemination of knowledge. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the publication rate of abstracts presented at the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) Meeting, to assess the factors influencing publication and determine the impact factor of these journals. All poster abstracts presented at the 2002 IFCC Meeting were included in the study. A Medline search was performed to identify a matching journal article. Topics, country of origin, study type, study center and publication year were tabulated. Journals and impact factors of publication were noted. Out of 900 presented abstracts, 125 (13.9%) were published as full-text articles. Publication rates according to topics of the meeting, country of origin and university affiliation demonstrated significant differences. Abstracts from multi-centered studies had higher publication rates, and the journals they were published in had higher impact factors than single center studies. The median impact factor of the journals was 2.093. According to regression analysis, the major predictors for publication were interventional research and university affiliation (odds ratios 2.916 and 1.782, respectively; p < 0.05). The publication rate for abstracts of this clinical chemistry meeting was lower than rates from other fields of medicine. Factors leading to failure require elucidation. Encouraging authors to submit their presentations for full-text publication might improve the rate of publication.

Space Weather Receives First Impact Rating

Journal Citation Reports, published by Thomson Scientific (http://scientific.thomson.com/isi/), has issued its first impact factor for Space Weather. The number is 1.610. I consider this to be very good, strongly validating the impact that Space Weather has already made in its short life within the community of Space Weather professionals. The impact factor for science and engineering publications is important for authors and readers of journals and related publications. The factor provides authors with a comparative measure of how many readers their papers can expect to attract and how their papers subsequently influence others’ research. Readers of journals with high impact factors recognize that the papers they view likely represent high-quality, influential work. The impact rating for Space Weather is determined by the total number of citations in 2006 for articles published in 2005 and 2004 (when Thomson Scientific began monitoring Space Weather, 3 months after its launch) in the journal category of Space Weather divided by the total number of articles published in the category in 2004 and 2005. As readers know, Space Weather is an unusual journal in several respects and thus does not fit readily into the categories that Journal Citation Reports use. Space Weather is not a typical technical journal, but more of a technical magazine because it also includes features, news, opinions, and meeting reports as well as science papers. The magazine is also not purely a “geophysics” or an “astrophysics” or an “engineering” publication: The papers in Space Weather attempt to build bridges between the science of space research and the applications of this research. And, in addition to Space Weather being an online journal, a print digest (Space Weather Quarterly) is published each season with selected technical and news articles. The 2006 impact factor for Space Weather places it approximately in the median of impact factors for the three categories geochemistry and geophysics, astronomy and astrophysics, and meteorology and atmospheric sciences. As a relative measure, Space Weather's companion and preeminent geophysical publication, the Journal of Geophysical Research, has a 2006 impact factor of 2.800, and the factor for Geophysical Research Letters is 2.602. There are several technical publications with some overlaps with Space Weather's coverage and with which Space Weather might be considered to be competing. The 2006 impact factors for those publications that I have examined are a factor of 2–3 below the factor for Space Weather. The high regard for Space Weather by professionals is due to many things, not the least of which are you, the readers and contributors. Your contributions to the journal in terms of papers, commentaries, and suggestions have made Space Weather indispensable reading for professionals. Also important, the support and advice of the publication staff of the journal at AGU deserve special mention for Space Weather's success to date. Thank you to everyone who has helped make Space Weather a success.

Fator de impacto e pós-graduação stricto sensu em alimentos, nutrição e ciência e tecnologia de alimentos

Com o objetivo de analisar a relação entre o fator de impacto de publicações e o conceito da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior para os programas de pós-graduação stricto sensu envolvidos com Alimentos e Nutrição, foram selecionados 39 programas do triênio 2001-2003, de 4 Comitês (Agrárias, Alimentos, Medicina II e Nutrição e Zootecnia). Apesar de a publicação científica ser muito valorizada, sua aplicação na conceituação de programas é limitada. Uma correlação muito pobre (r²= 0,0611) entre o conceito atribuído ao programa e a média anual de fator de impacto por docente, por programa, foi encontrada. Por outro lado, 48,6% dos artigos produzidos no triênio 2001-2003 por esses programas foram enviados para periódicos não indexados pelo Institute of Scientific Information. Houve, nos programas de pós-graduação analisados neste período, 1149 (51%) trabalhos publicados em 231 revistas não indexadas na base Institute of Scientific Information, e 1216 (49%) trabalhos publicados em 331 periódicos indexados no Institute of Scientific Information. Esses dados sugerem a necessidade de aprimorar a avaliação da produção intelectual na área de Alimentos e Nutrição, no sentido de ajustar as medidas de produção para reconhecer as particularidades da produção científica dessa área. É preciso, também, desenvolver mecanismos de inclusão da medida de fator de impacto de publicações nacionais.

Publication of Material Presented at Radiologic Meetings: Authors' Country and International Collaboration

To estimate the influence of the authors' country and collaboration on the probability of subsequent full publication of material from oral presentations at the 2000 European Congress of Radiology (ECR). After searching the Medline database for articles published between 2000 and 2003, all articles that originated from presentations at the ECR in 2000 and were published in journals indexed in the Journal Citation Report were evaluated. Relative likelihood of full publication depending on the country in which an abstract originated was compared with that of Austria, which is the host country of the ECR. The chi(2) test was used to compare publication rates according to country of origin and collaboration. The median and interquartile range of the impact factor of publications according to country of origin and collaboration in the abstract were analyzed by using the Kruskal-Wallis test. The percentage of articles published in journals ranked in the top quartile (top 25% of journals according to impact factor) was calculated. Of 1020 presentations, 403 articles (39%) with significant (P < .001) variations according to country of origin were identified. Studies originating from the United States had the highest percentage of full publication (62%; relative likelihood, 1.41), median impact factor (4.5), and percentage of articles in the top quartile (54%). Radiology was the top quartile journal, with the most articles published (60%). Impact factor differed according to country of origin (P < .001). Abstracts submitted with collaboration between (a) European countries and countries outside of Europe (other than the United States) and (b) different European countries had the highest publication rates (83% and 52%, respectively; P = .03). The country of origin of an abstract was useful in predicting the chances of full publication of the abstract, with the United States having the highest publication rate. Authors were more likely to publish an article if it had been prepared with international collaboration.

Productivity, impact and publication habits by gender in the area of Materials Science

A comparative analysis of the scientific performance of male and female scientists in the area of Materials Science at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is presented. Publications of 333 scientists during 1996-2000 are downloaded from the international database Science Citation Index and the national one ICYT. Scientific performance of scientists is studied through different indicators of productivity (number of SCI and ICYT publications), international visibility (average impact factor of publications, percentage of documents in “top journals”) and publication practices (%international publications, signing order of authors in the documents and different collaboration measures). Inter-gender differences in the research performance of scientists are studied. Influence of professional category and age are analysed. Although women are less productive than men, no significant differences in productivity are found within each professional category. However, a different life-cycle of productivity is found for men and woman and the most important inter-gender differences in productivity occur at the ages of 40-59.

Worldwide trends in quantity and quality of published articles in the field of infectious diseases

BackgroundTrying to confront with the widespread burden of infectious diseases, the society worldwide invests considerably on research. We evaluated the contribution of different world regions in research production in Infectious Diseases.MethodsUsing the online Pubmed database we retrieved articles from 38 journals included in the "Infectious Diseases" category of the "Journal Citation Reports" database of the Institute for Scientific Information for the period 1995–2002. The world was divided into 9 regions based on geographic, economic and scientific criteria. Using an elaborate retrieval system we obtained data on published articles from different world regions. In our evaluation we introduced an estimate of both quantity and quality of research produced from each world region per year using: (1) the total number of publications, (2) the mean impact factor of publications, and (3) the product of the above two parameters.ResultsData on the country of origin of the research was available for 45,232 out of 45,922 retrieved articles (98.5 %). USA and Western Europe are by far the most productive regions concerning publications of research articles. However, the rate of increase in the production of articles was higher in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia during the study period. The mean impact factor is highest for articles originating in the USA (3.42), while it was 2.82 for Western Europe and 2.73 for the rest of the world (7 regions combined).ConclusionUSA and Western Europe make up a striking 80% of the world's research production in Infectious Diseases in terms of both quantity and quality. However, all world regions achieved a gradual increase in the production of Infectious Diseases articles, with the regions ranking lower at present displaying the highest rate of increase.

India’s Collaboration with Australia in Science and Technology: A Scientometric Study of Co-Authored Papers During 1995-1999

International collaborations are being viewed as an important instrument for the advancement of science throughout the world, particularly by the developing countries. India could well realise the significance of international collaboration in science and hence has, therefore, signed various S&T collaboration agreements with many developed and developing countries. With Australia also such collaboration is starting to take off at the government level, but at the institutional level it already exists. In this study the scientific collaboration between India and Australia has been studied on the basis of the number of joint publications brought out by Indian and Australian scientists, as reflected through co-authored papers during the period 1995-1999. The study reveals the extent, mode, and direction of collaborative research between the two nations. It also has been attempted to crystallise and identify the priority S&T areas for collaborative research between the two countries. The impact of such collaborative research has been studied through the analysis of impact factor of publications where this joint research is published. It has been revealed that the average value of impact factor per paper for multilateral papers is far above the average impact factor of all papers. It is also found that in about 38% of the India-Australian collaborated papers the other countries were also involved, which included the USA, the UK, Russia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, and even Italy, Japan and China. The study revealed the present status of collaboration between Australia and India in S&T, and such a study can help the policy makers to identify and explore the future areas of collaboration between the two countries. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dbit.22.6.3580