Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Empirical study of journal impact factors obtained using the classical two-year citation window versus a five-year citation window

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this article I study characteristics of the journal impact factor (JIF) computed using a 5-year citation window as compared with the classical JIF computed using a 2-year citation window. Since 2007 ISI-Thomson Reuters has published the new 5-year impact factor in the JCR database. I studied changes in the distribution of JIFs when the citation window was enlarged. The distributions of journals according their 5-year JIFs were very similar all years studied, and were also similar to the distribution according to the 2-year JIFs. In about 72% of journals, the JIF increased when the longer citation window was used. Plots of 5-year JIFs against rank closely followed a beta function with two exponents. Thus, the 5-year JIF seems to behave very similarly to the 2-year JIF. The results also suggest that gains in JIF with the longer citation window tend to distribute similarly in all years. Changes in these gains also tend to distribute similarly from 1 year to the following year.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Amin, M., & Mabe, M. (2000). Impact factors: Use and abuse. Perspectives in Publishing, 1, 1–6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archambault, E., & Larivière, V. (2009). History of the journal impact factor: Contingencies and consequences. Scientometrics, 79, 635–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bar-Ilan, J. (2008). Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review. Journal of Informetrics, 2, 1–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bensman, S. J. (2007). Garfield and the impact factor. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 41, 93–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, A. (2007). How impact factors changed medical publishing-and science. British Medical Journal, 334, 561–564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campanario, J. M. (2010). Distribution of changes in impact factors over time. Scientometrics, 84, 35–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franceschet, M. (2010). Journal influence factors. Journal of Informetrics, 4, 239–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garfield, E. (1955). Citation indexes to science: A new dimension in documentation through association of ideas. Science, 122, 108–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glänzel, W., & Moed, H. F. (2002). Journal impact measures in bibliometric research. Scientometrics, 53, 171–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gomez-Sancho, J. M., & Mancebon-Torrubia, M. J. (2009). The evaluation of scientific production: Towards a neutral impact factor. Scientometrics, 81, 435–458.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacso, P. (2009). Five-year impact factor data in the Journal Citation Reports. Online Information Review, 33, 603–614.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleijnen, J. P. C., & Van Groenendaal, W. (2000). Measuring the quality of publications: New methodology and case study. Information Processing & Management, 36, 551–570.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuo, W., & Rupe, J. (2007). R-impact factor: Reliability-based citation impact factor. IEEE Transaction on Reliability, 56, 366–367.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mansilla, R., Köppen, E., Cocho, G., & Miramontes, P. (2007). On the behavior of journal impact factor rank-order distribution. Journal of Informetrics, 1, 155–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neuhaus, C., Marx, W., & Daniel, H. D. (2009). The publication and citation impact profiles of Angewandte Chemie and the Journal of the American Chemical Society based on the sections of Chemical Abstracts: A case study on the limitations of the journal impact factor. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60, 176–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rossner, M., Van Epps, H., & Hill, E. (2007). Show me the data. Journal of Cell Biology, 179, 1091–1092.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rossner, M., Van Epps, H., & Hill, E. (2008). Irreproducible results: A response to Thomson Scientific. Journal of Cell Biology, 180, 254–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, R. (1988). Citation distribution of pure mathematics journals. In L. Egghe & R. Rousseau (Eds.), Informetrics 87/88 (pp. 249–262). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

  • Rousseau, R., Jin, B., & Yang, N. (2001). Observations concerning the two- and three-year synchronous impact factor, based on the Chinese science citation database. Journal of Documentation, 57, 349–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowlands, I. (2002). Journal diffusion factors: A new approach to measuring research influence. Aslib Proceedings, 54, 77–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sombatsompop, N., Markpin, T., & Premkamolnetr, N. (2004). A modified method for calculating the Impact Factors of journals in ISI Journal Citation Reports: Polymer Science category in 1997–2001. Scientometrics, 60, 217–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stimulate 9 Group A. (2009). The 5-year synchronous impact factor for large JCR subject areas. Cybermetrics, 13, http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v13i1p5.html. Accessed 11 November 2010.

  • Van Leeuwen, T. N., & Moed, H. F. (2002). Development and application of journal impact measures in the Dutch science system. Scientometrics, 53, 249–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Leeuwen, T. N., Moed, H. F., & Reedijk, J. (1999). Critical comments on Institute for Scientific Information impact factors: A sample of inorganic molecular chemistry journals. Journal of Information Science, 25, 489–498.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanclay, J. K. (2009). Bias in the journal impact factor. Scientometrics, 78, 3–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walter, G., Bloch, S., Hunt, G., & Fisher, K. (2003). Counting on citations: A flawed way to measure quality. Medical Journal of Australia, 178, 280–283.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yu, G., Yang, D. H., & Liang, W. (2010). Reliability-based citation impact factor and the manipulation of impact factor. Scientometrics, 83, 259–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Dirección General de Investigación) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF/FEDER, project SEJ2007-66236/SOCI). I thank K. Shashok for improving the use of English in the manuscript and for suggestions about the content and two anonymous referees for their suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física, Universidad de Alcalá, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

    Juan Miguel Campanario

Authors
  1. Juan Miguel Campanario
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juan Miguel Campanario.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Campanario, J.M. Empirical study of journal impact factors obtained using the classical two-year citation window versus a five-year citation window. Scientometrics 87, 189–204 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0334-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0334-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation