Research Counts, Not the Journal

Abstract

‘If there is one thing every bibliometrician agrees, is that you should never use the journal impact factor (JIF) to evaluate research performance for an article or an individual – that is a mortal sin’. Few sentences could define so precisely the uses and misuses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) better than Anthony van Raan’s. This manuscript presents a critical overview on the international use, by governments and institutions, of the JIF and/or journal indexing information for individual research quality assessment. Interviews given by Nobel Laureates speaking on this matter are partially illustrated in this work. Furthermore, the authors propose complementary and alternative versions of the journal impact factor, respectively named Complementary (CIF) and Timeless (TIF) Impact Factors, aiming to better assess the average quality of a journal – never of a paper or an author. The idea behind impact factors is not useless, it has just been misused.