Comment: Stegmann J. "Building a list of journals with constructed impact factors"

[Gretchen Whitney]

August 30, 1999

These comments by Eugene Garfield supplement the abstract of the Stegmann
paper reported in the July 14 mailing of SIG-Metrics
(url: http://listserv.utk.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9907&L=sigmetrics&P=R2498)

Last year a  series of misinformed editorials concerning the alleged
injustice of journal impact factors appeared in a group of German language
medical journals.  The editor not only agreed to  publish my rebuttal
(http://165.123.33.33/eugene_garfield/papers/derunfallchirurg_v101(6)p413y19
98english.html)
but also translated it to German ..
http://165.123.33.33/eugene_garfield/papers/derunfallchirurg_v101(6)p413y199
8.pdf
At that time I first encountered and cited the letter  of Johannes  Stegmann
in Nature 390:550, 1997.  He has now reported in greater detail his
methodology for estimating the impact factors for journals not covered as
sources in the SCI and SSCI. (Stegmann, J. "Building a list of journals with
constructed impact factors," Journal of Documentation, 55(3) p.310-324, June
1999
E-mail: stegmann at ukbf.fu-berlin.de).

ISI might well emulate his work and expand the scope of JCR to include
non-source journals and simply add an estimated 15% to 20% for self-citation
to calculate their impact factors.  ISI has already added some of the
highest impact journals Stegmann identified.  I imagine that  the remainder
will be evaluated in due course.  His complete list of 338 titles  is
available at url: http://www.medizin.fu-berlin.de/medbib/CIF/cif.html
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Eugene Garfield, Ph.D.
Chairman Emeritus, ISI, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Publisher, THE SCIENTIST, 3600 Market St,
Philadelphia, PA 19104 (www.the-scientist.com)
Tel: 215-243-2205 // Fax: 215-387-1266
email:  garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu
Home Page: http://165.123.33.33/eugene_garfield

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