Journal Citation Reports Science Edition Research Articles

Abstract TP309: Hemorrhagic Stroke Citation Classic: Bibliometric Analysis of the 100 Most Influential Articles

Background: Citation analysis studies are used to assess the characteristics of impact a particular disease or topic levied over time in the medical community. We analyzed the top-100 most influential articles on hemorrhagic stroke. Methods: We used Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports Science Edition 2015 to identify all the pertinent articles using key words hemorrhagic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, epidural hemorrhage and subdural hemorrhage. All original articles were evaluated by two independent reviewers for: publication year, journal category, journal and its impact factor (IF), number of total and annual citations, topic, author names and institution affiliations, publishing country and institution affiliations. Results: Top-100 citation classics in hemorrhagic stroke were published between 1940-2014, with the maximum publications in the decade of 2000-2009 (n=37). Total citations ranged from 1817 to 204 (mean 340.55± 209.77, median 273.50) and annual citations ranged from 82.0 to 3.10 (mean 19.1 ± 13.8, median 15.4). Majority of the articles were published from the United States (n=60), with Harvard University and University of Cincinnati (n=10 each) as the leading institutions in our analysis. The mean IF for the journals with the citation classics was 14.73 ±14.479 (range 59.56 to 1.43). The most cited article was published in Neurosurgery journal (IF 3.780), while the majority of the citation classics were published in Stroke journal (n=28). Clinical neurology and peripheral vascular disease were the top ISI categories in which articles were published. The mechanism of hemorrhagic stroke (n=42) was the most published topic (Figure). Conclusion: This analysis provides insight into research trends in hemorrhagic stroke with detailed information on the most influential articles published.

Citation classics in central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating disease.

ObjectivesTo identify and analyze the characteristics of the most influential articles about central nervous system (CNS) inflammatory demyelinating disease.Materials and MethodsThe Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science database and the 2014 Journal Citation Reports Science Edition were used to retrieve the top 100 cited articles on CNS inflammatory demyelinating disease. The citation numbers, journals, years of publication, authorships, article types, subjects and main issues were analyzed. For neuromyelitis optica (NMO), articles that were cited more than 100 times were regarded as a citation classic and described separately.ResultsThe top 100 cited articles were published between 1972 and 2011 in 13 journals. The highest number of articles (n = 24) was published in Brain, followed by The New England Journal of Medicine (n = 21). The average number of citations was 664 (range 330–3,897), and 64% of the articles were from the United States and the United Kingdom. The majority of the top 100 cited articles were related to multiple sclerosis (n = 87), and only a few articles reported on other topics such as NMO (n = 9), acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (n = 2) and optic neuritis (n = 2). Among the top 100 cited articles, 77% were original articles. Forty‐one citation classics were found for NMO.ConclusionsOur study provides a historical perspective on the research progress on CNS inflammatory demyelinating disease and may serve as a guide for important advances and trends in the field for associated researchers.

Inappropriate use of standard error of the mean when reporting variability of study samples: A critical evaluation of four selected journals of obstetrics and gynecology

ObjectiveThe study was designed to investigate the frequency of misusing standard error of the mean (SEM) in place of standard deviation (SD) to describe study samples in four selected journals published in 2011. Citation counts of articles and the relationship between the misuse rate and impact factor, immediacy index, or cited half-life were also evaluated. Materials and methodsAll original articles in the four selected journals published in 2011were searched for descriptive statistics reporting with either mean ± SD or mean ± SEM. The impact factor, immediacy index, and cited half-life of the journals were gathered from Journal Citation Reports Science edition 2011. Scopus was used to search for citations of individual articles. The difference in citation counts between the SD group and SEM group was tested by the Mann–Whitney U test. The relationship between the misuse rate and impact factor, immediacy index, or cited half-life was also evaluated. ResultsThe frequency of inappropriate reporting of SEM was 13.60% for all four journals. For individual journals, the misuse rate was from 2.9% in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica to 22.68% in American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Articles using SEM were cited more frequently than those using SD (p = 0.025). An approximate positive correlation between the misuse rate and cited half-life was observed. ConclusionInappropriate reporting of SEM is common in medical journals. Authors of biomedical papers should be responsible for maintaining an integrated statistical presentation because valuable articles are in danger of being wasted through the misuse of statistics.

Bibliometric Indicators of Russian Journals by JCR-Science Edition, 1995-2010

A representative empirical bibliometric analysis of Russian journals included in the Journal Citation Reports-Science Edition (JCR-SE) for the time period 1995-2010 was conducted at the macro level (excluding the subject categories). It was found that the growth in the number of articles covered by JCR (a 1.8-fold increase compared to 1995) is ahead of the growth rates of Russian publications (1.2-fold increase). Hence, the share of Russian articles covered by JCR-SE was down from 2.5% in 1995 to 1.7% in 2010. It was determined that the number of articles published in an average Russian journal reduced by 20% as compared to the number of articles in an average journal of the full data set. These facts could partly shed light on the question why Russian research performance is staggering (approximately 30,000 articles per year), although the coverage of Russian journals has expanded to 150 titles. Over the past 15 years, a twofold increase in the impact factor of the Russian journals has been observed, which is higher than that for the full data set of journals (a 1.4-fold increase). Measures to improve the quality of Russian journals are proposed.

Quality of the published qualitative dental research is mediocre

Journal selection was from the 2003 Journal Citation Reports Science Edition (for dental journals) and the 2005 Journal Citation Reports Science and Social Science Edition (for the non-dental journals). The database searched was the Ovid version of Medline. Studies had to be in English, with a predominantly qualitative approach, published between 1999 and 2004 (for dental journals) and between 2002 and 2006 (for non-dental journals) Articles were screened by a research team experienced in sociology, psychology and oral health qualitative research. Two researchers independently appraised each paper and reached consensus, involving a third researcher to resolve disagreements where necessary. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) appraisal framework for qualitative research was used to assess the quality of the papers and this was one of the outcomes. The main outcome was the percentage of the CASP criteria which were fully met for each study, and these were then grouped under journal impact factor range. Forty-three qualitative research papers were appraised. Twenty-five were in dental journals and 18 in non-dental journals. There was a gradient in the number of studies published according to the journal impact factor, with the highest impact factor journals publishing the least qualitative research. There was a general lack of detail in reporting within the papers, with 35% of the studies providing little or no details about the analysis process, such as the stages involved or derivation of themes. Methodological rigour was considered deficient in many of the studies and in a number of areas: eg data saturation was mentioned in only 25% of studies; how contradictory data were managed was discussed in 25%; and a third of the studies gave little justification for the methods chosen. The quality of much of the published qualitative dental research is mediocre when assessed using the CASP framework, and several specific areas have been identified for targeting improvement, including better methodological rigour and increased detail in reporting.

25 Years in nutrition and food research in the Iberoamerican knowledge area

Research is usually considered a reliable indicator of the degree of development. Research in a problematic area such as food and nutrition for a given region, should have an impact on scientific production in agreement with the importance of the problem, the research capacity and the available resources for generating such a research. To identify some indicators of Iberoamerican research in nutrition and food. Retrospective study of Iberoamerican scientific production in nutrition and food in the last 25 years. The data were obtained from the bibliographic database Science Citation Index Expanded, Journal Citation Reports Science Edition Database 2011, both included in the Web of Knowledge (Thomson Reuters), and the database of the World Bank. 49,808 papers were registered, the 3.20% of the Health Sciences collection in SCI. The evolution was fitted to an exponential model, N&D (R² 0.962) and FS&T (R² 0.995). The average production in N&D per average population was higher in Spain with 0.659 papers/million. The highest rates of productivity and profitability were found in Guatemala with 12.963 papers/1000 researchers and 1.486 papers/million $ respectively. The average production in FS&T of the different countries per average population was higher in Cuba with 21.624 papers/million. The productivity index was higher in Uruguay with 25.999 papers/thousand researchers. The profitability index was higher in Guatemala with 0.271 papers/million $. There is exponential growth in the two categories studied N&D and FS&T. Productivity and profitability was higher in countries with low R&D (Research & Development) budget.

Shaping the landscape of research in information systems from the perspective of editorial boards: A scientometric study of 77 leading journals

Characteristics of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology and 76 other journals listed in the Information Systems category of the Journal Citation Reports–Science edition 2009 were analyzed. Besides reporting usual bibliographic indicators, we investigated the human cornerstone of any peer‐reviewed journal: its editorial board. Demographic data about the 2,846 gatekeepers serving in information systems (IS) editorial boards were collected. We discuss various scientometric indicators supported by descriptive statistics. Our findings reflect the great variety of IS journals in terms of research output, author communities, editorial boards, and gatekeeper demographics (e.g., diversity in gender and location), seniority, authority, and degree of involvement in editorial boards. We believe that these results may help the general public and scholars (e.g., readers, authors, journal gatekeepers, policy makers) to revise and increase their knowledge of scholarly communication in the IS field. The EB_IS_2009 dataset supporting this scientometric study is released as online supplementary material to this article to foster further research on editorial boards.

Collection Assessment in Response to Changing Curricula: An Analysis of the Biotechnology Resources at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Increasing demand for biotechnology and biomedical resources prompted the Engineering Library at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) to complete a collection assessment of the journals, books, and other resources provided by the University Libraries. This paper presents a variety of methods for evaluating library collections and describes several online collection analysis tools that can facilitate the process. UCB's collection was compared to other university libraries and several bibliographic review sources. Various collection analysis tools including the Journal Citation Reports Science Edition 200: Ulrich's Serials Analysis System, and Spectra Dimension were used to evaluate the collection. This collection analysis fostered awareness of the resources that UCB already owned and informed the University Libraries about gaps in the existing collection. The findings led to the revision and expansion of the collection development policies for several subjects related to biotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are Article Influence Scores Comparable across Scientific Fields?

The Impact Factors provided in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) have been used as a tool for librarians, authors and administrators to assess the relative importance of journals. One limitation of the Impact Factor is that the values are not comparable across different fields of research. JCR now also includes Article Influence Scores. One of the reputed advantages of the Article Influence Score is that it takes into account differences in the citation patterns between fields, allowing for better comparisons across different fields. This study investigates the ability of the Article Influence Score to provide this advantage by comparing the Impact Factors and Article Influence Scores of 172 fields listed in the JCR Science Edition. Although the range of Article Influence Scores across different fields is less extreme than the range of Impact Factors, Article Influence Scores still display large differences across fields. The Article Influence Scores of scientific fields correlate with their Impact Factors. The scientific fields that have journals with higher Impact Factors also have journals with higher Article Influence Scores. For practical applications, the large disciplinary differences that persist in the Article Influence Score limit its utility for comparing journals across different fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Sleep Medicine Foundation: New Resources, New Structure, New Goals

The American Sleep Medicine Foundation (ASMF) was created by THE American Academy Of Sleep Medicine (AASM) in 1998, growing out of the AASM's commitment to advancing the fields of sleep research and sleep medicine. The seeds for the foundation were planted, however, when the AASM was formed more than 30 years ago. When the AASM was established in 1975, its founders agreed that the organization should combine a sleep-center focus with an emphasis on clinical practice and research.1 This fundamental commitment to sleep science led the AASM to partner with the Sleep Research Society in forming the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS), which publishes the journal SLEEP and organizes the SLEEP Annual Meeting of the APSS. Now in its 31st volume, SLEEP is recognized as the leading scientific journal in the field with an impact factor of 5.126 that places it in the top six percent of more than 6,100 journals ranked in the Journal Citation Reports Science Edition 2006.2 The SLEEP Annual Meeting is the premier gathering of sleep scientists in the world, with more than 1,100 scientific abstracts presented this past June at SLEEP 2007 in Minneapolis, Minn. At each annual meeting the AASM also presents the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award, which recognizes members of the sleep field who have displayed exceptional initiative and progress in the area of academic sleep research, and the Young Investigator Award, which honors the outstanding contributions of young sleep scientists. Recognizing the insufficient level of funding that was available to sleep scientists, the AASM board of directors, led by Dr. Wolfgang Schmidt-Nowara formed the ASMF to provide tangible support for the advancement of sleep research. Originally called the Sleep Medicine Education and Research Foundation (then known as SMERF), the goal of the ASMF was to support education as well as clinical and basic research. The ASMF awarded its first grants in 2000, and among the research supported by these inaugural grants were studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University that provided preliminary data for major studies subsequently funded by the National Institutes of Health. Since its inception the ASMF has awarded nearly $3 million to fund 37 projects ranging from computational modeling of the human pharyngeal airway to genomics of the zebrafish hypocretin/narcolepsy pathway. The results of these studies have been published in prestigious journals such as SLEEP,3 Journal of the American Medical Association,4 and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.5 Young investigators were able to work with mentors at the most respected educational institutions, including Harvard University (5 grants), the University of Pennsylvania (5 grants) and Stanford University (3 grants). In 2007 the ASMF awarded funding of “Portable Monitoring in the Diagnosis and Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea” to a consortium of researchers led by Case Western Reserve University. This large-scale, multi-center, randomized, head-to-head study comparing unattended portable monitoring and auto-titrating positive airway pressure with attended polysomnography will produce much-needed scientific evidence that will be of critical importance to the field. The AASM provides the funding for all of the foundation's administrative costs and has funded most of the ASMF grants. A few projects have been funded by unrestricted industry grants, including an ongoing study of sleep in heart-failure patients. Individual donations and a portion of the proceeds from the annual Discovering the Secrets of Sleep fundraising dinner also have supported the ASMF. The AASM contributed $500,000 to the ASMF in 2007 for the establishment of an endowment to support future research efforts. This is in addition to $360,000 in grant support the AASM already committed to the foundation for 2007. The ASMF also received a recent donation of $2 million from the American Board of Sleep Medicine for the creation of an endowment, separate from the AASM endowment, for future initiatives. In August 2007 the ASMF Board of Directors met to assess the foundation's resources, adopt changes to its bylaws, and refocus its goals. The Board created an Executive Board charged with development of application materials, grant review and management, budget development and fundraising. The members appointed to the Executive Board are: Richard Berry, MD, President of the ASMF David Bruce, DDS, MD, Treasurer of the ASMF Andrew Chesson Jr., MD, Chair, Academic Affairs Committee Nancy Collop, MD, AASM Director at Large Flavia Consens, MD, Chair, Fellowship Training Committee Jason Mateika, PhD, Chair, Research Committee Michael Sateia, MD, AASM Member at Large The Executive Board will support the day-to-day operation of the ASMF and become a resource for strategies and ideas to advance the fields of sleep medicine and sleep research, while the Board of Directors will continue to provide oversight and direction for the ASMF. At the August meeting the Board of Directors also adopted these new mission and vision statements that will provide direction for future initiatives of the ASMF:

The American Sleep Medicine Foundation: New Resources, New Structure, New Goals

THE AMERICAN SLEEP MEDICINE FOUNDATION (ASMF) WAS CREATED BY THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF SLEEP MEDICINE (AASM) IN 1998, GROWING OUT of the AASM's commitment to advancing the fields of sleep research and sleep medicine. The seeds for the foundation were planted, however, when the AASM was formed more than 30 years ago. When the AASM was established in 1975, its founders agreed that the organization should combine a sleep-center focus with an emphasis on clinical practice and research.1 This fundamental commitment to sleep science led the AASM to partner with the Sleep Research Society in forming the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS), which publishes the journal SLEEP and organizes the SLEEP Annual Meeting of the APSS. Now in its 31st volume, SLEEP is recognized as the leading scientific journal in the field with an impact factor of 5.126 that places it in the top six percent of more than 6,100 journals ranked in the Journal Citation Reports Science Edition 2006.2 The SLEEP Annual Meeting is the premier gathering of sleep scientists in the world, with more than 1,100 scientific abstracts presented this past June at SLEEP 2007 in Minneapolis, Minn. At each annual meeting the AASM also presents the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award, which recognizes members of the sleep field who have displayed exceptional initiative and progress in the area of academic sleep research, and the Young Investigator Award, which honors the outstanding contributions of young sleep scientists. Recognizing the insufficient level of funding that was available to sleep scientists, the AASM board of directors, led by Dr. Wolfgang Schmidt-Nowara formed the ASMF to provide tangible support for the advancement of sleep research. Originally called the Sleep Medicine Education and Research Foundation (then known as SMERF), the goal of the ASMF was to support education as well as clinical and basic research. The ASMF awarded its first grants in 2000, and among the research supported by these inaugural grants were studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University that provided preliminary data for major studies subsequently funded by the National Institutes of Health. Since its inception the ASMF has awarded nearly $3 million to fund 37 projects ranging from computational modeling of the human pharyngeal airway to genomics of the zebrafish hypocretin/narcolepsy pathway. The results of these studies have been published in prestigious journals such as SLEEP,3 Journal of the American Medical Association,4 and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.5 Young investigators were able to work with mentors at the most respected educational institutions, including Harvard University (5 grants), the University of Pennsylvania (5 grants) and Stanford University (3 grants). In 2007 the ASMF awarded funding of “Portable Monitoring in the Diagnosis and Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea” to a consortium of researchers led by Case Western Reserve University. This large-scale, multi-center, randomized, head-to-head study comparing unattended portable monitoring and auto-titrating positive airway pressure with attended polysomnography will produce much-needed scientific evidence that will be of critical importance to the field. The AASM provides the funding for all of the foundation's administrative costs and has funded most of the ASMF grants. A few projects have been funded by unrestricted industry grants, including an ongoing study of sleep in heart-failure patients. Individual donations and a portion of the proceeds from the annual Discovering the Secrets of Sleep fundraising dinner also have supported the ASMF. The AASM contributed $500,000 to the ASMF in 2007 for the establishment of an endowment to support future research efforts. This is in addition to $360,000 in grant support the AASM already committed to the foundation for 2007. The ASMF also received a recent donation of $2 million from the American Board of Sleep Medicine for the creation of an endowment, separate from the AASM endowment, for future initiatives. In August 2007 the ASMF Board of Directors met to assess the foundation's resources, adopt changes to its bylaws, and refocus its goals. The Board created an Executive Board charged with development of application materials, grant review and management, budget development and fundraising. The members appointed to the Executive Board are: Richard Berry, MD, President of the ASMF David Bruce, DDS, MD, Treasurer of the ASMF Andrew Chesson Jr., MD, Chair, Academic Affairs Committee Nancy Collop, MD, AASM Director at Large Flavia Consens, MD, Chair, Fellowship Training Committee Jason Mateika, PhD, Chair, Research Committee Michael Sateia, MD, AASM Member at Large The Executive Board will support the day-to-day operation of the ASMF and become a resource for strategies and ideas to advance the fields of sleep medicine and sleep research, while the Board of Directors will continue to provide oversight and direction for the ASMF. At the August meeting the Board of Directors also adopted these new mission and vision statements that will provide direction for future initiatives of the ASMF:

International Collaboration of Clinical Medicine Research in Taiwan, 1990-2004: A Bibliometric Analysis

The number of publications in journals indexed in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) database of the Thomson Corporation is generally used to assess the research performance of individuals, institutions and countries in scientific fields. The aim of this study was to analyze the trends in Taiwan's ISI publications in clinical medicine from 1990 to 2004. Special attention was paid to internationally collaborated works that were identified based on the countries of co-authors' affiliations. The bibliographic records of articles with an author's affiliation in Taiwan were downloaded from the Web of Science on the Internet. The analysis was then limited to the journals of clinical medicine defined as such in the ISI Essential Science Indicators. International collaboration was deemed to exist in an article if any co-author's affiliation was located outside Taiwan. The impact factors in the 2004 Journal Citation Reports Science Edition were arbitrarily adopted to estimate the quality of articles. Taiwan's ISI publications in clinical medicine increased from 315 articles in 1990 to 2,636 in 2004. Only 7.4% (n=1,494) of the 20,207 articles published during the study period were published in journals with an impact factor equal to or greater than 5. The share of articles with international collaboration was 13.6% (n=2,752) on average. Taiwan's researchers collaborated with colleagues in 76 countries. The USA, as the most important collaborating partner of Taiwan's clinical medicine researchers, had contributed to 69.9% of articles with international collaboration. Generally, articles with international collaboration were published in journals with higher impact factors or had more citations than those without international collaboration. The number of articles published in each year, in each of selected subject categories and from each of selected domestic institutions did not correlate with the percentage of articles with international collaboration, respectively. Taiwan has achieved a significant increase in the number of ISI publications in clinical medicine. Yet there exists opportunity for improvement in international collaboration.

Life and times of the impact factor: retrospective analysis of trends for seven medical journals (1994-2005) and their Editors’ views

(1) To analyse trends in the journal impact factor (IF) of seven general medical journals (Ann Intern Med, BMJ, CMAJ, JAMA, Lancet, Med J Aust and N Engl J Med) over 12 years; and (2) to ascertain the views of these journals' past and present Editors on factors that had affected their journals' IFs during their tenure, including direct editorial policies. Retrospective analysis of IF data from ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports-Science Edition, 1994 to 2005, and interviews with Editors-in-Chief. Medical journal publishing. Ten Editors-in-Chief of the journals, except Med J Aust, who served between 1999 and 2004. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES IFs and component numerator and denominator data for the seven general medical journals (1994 to 2005) were collected. IFs are calculated using the formula: (Citations in year z to articles published in years x and y)/(Number of citable articles published in years x and y), where z is the current year and x and y are the previous two years. Editors' views on factors that had affected their journals' IFs were also obtained. IFs generally rose over the 12-year period, with the N Engl J Med having the highest IF throughout. However, percentage rises in IF relative to the baseline year of 1994 were greatest for CMAJ (about 500%) and JAMA (260%). Numerators for most journals tended to rise over this period, while denominators tended to be stable or to fall, although not always in a linear fashion. Nine of ten eligible editors were interviewed. Possible reasons given for rises in citation counts included: active recruitment of high-impact articles by courting researchers; offering authors better services; boosting the journal's media profile; more careful article selection; and increases in article citations. Most felt that going online had not affected citations. Most had no deliberate policy to publish fewer articles (lowering the IF denominator), which was sometimes the unintended result of other editorial policies. The two Editors who deliberately published fewer articles did so as they realized IFs were important to authors. Concerns about the accuracy of ISI counting for the IF denominator prompted some to routinely check their IF data with ISI. All Editors had mixed feelings about using IFs to evaluate journals and academics, and mentioned the tension between aiming to improve IFs and 'keeping their constituents [clinicians] happy.' IFs of the journals studied rose in the 12-year period due to rising numerators and/or falling denominators, to varying extents. Journal Editors perceived that this occurred for various reasons, including deliberate editorial practices. The vulnerability of the IF to editorial manipulation and Editors' dissatisfaction with it as the sole measure of journal quality lend weight to the need for complementary measures.

Some bibliometric indexes for members of the Scientific Association of Animal Production (ASPA)

This study calculated several bibliometric indexes to analyze the scientific output of 363 members of the Scientific Association of Animal Production (ASPA) in Italy, based on their publications listed by ISI-Thompson, Web of Science database (search period from 1989 until 2006). Five main research areas were considered: AGR/17 (Animal genetics and breeding), AGR/18 (Animal nutrition and feeding), AGR/19 (Animal husbandry), AGR/20 (Poultry, rabbits and fish production) and External researcher (Ere). Position groups were: FP (Full Professor), AP (Associate Professor), Re (Researcher), EReUni (scientists working temporarily at the University or professors of an area different from AGR/17-20), and EReInst (scientists working at other institutions). Each institution was classified according to three geographical areas of Italy: North, Centre and South. Main calculated bibliometric indexes were: Ni = total number of papers published by member i over yi years; yi = number of years publishing of member i; Ci. = total number of citations of member i; IFpersonal. = Ci./Ni, Personal Impact factor of member i; Total IFjournal. = Sum of impact factor reported by the ISI-Thompson database of the journal in which a paper of member i was published (Journal Citation Reports Science Edition, 2004); Mean IFjournal. = Mean impact factor of all papers published in journals having a recognized IFjournal. by the ISI-Thompson database for member i; h = number of papers with at least h citations; m = h/y, i.e. average increase of h over the yi years publishing; and a = Ci./h2. Among the studied bibliometric indexes, Ni, Ci., Total IFjournal. and h are reliable, while IFpersonal. and Mean IFjournal. are not, to evaluate the scientific career of Animal Scientists in Italy. FP and members of AGR/17 tend to show the highest values of bibliometric indexes. Most ASPA members work in the North of Italy, which shows the highest median and highest percentage of scientists with maximum values for most bibliometric parameters. The scientific system of Animal Science in Italy has a fairly good degree of internationalization, but greater efforts should be made to increase the productivity and impact of Animal Scientists.