Akizawa T. "The Impact Factor" Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis 8(5):353, 2004

[Eugene Garfield]

The author and Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Therapeutic Apheresis and
Dialysis" has kindly permitted us to send a full-text version of this editorial.

Tadao Akizawa
Editor-in-Chief
Email: akizawa at wakayama-med.ac.jp

TITLE :  The Impact Factor
AUTHOR:  Akizawa T.
SOURCE:  Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis 8(5):353, 2004
         Blackwell Publishing, Inc. 2004 International Society for Apheresis


Editorial

The Impact Factor

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has released the 2003 Impact
Factors and rankings for various journals in the sciences and social
sciences. The very first Impact Factor for our Journal, Therapeutic
Apheresis and Dialysis, was 1.229, making it one of the top rankings of its
peer category! From the beginning of publication of our Journal, we have
expected that it will grow and receive an Impact Factor. It took seven and a
half years to realize that goal. During this period, our Journal name
changed from Therapeutic Apheresis to Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis
and the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy (JSDT) chose Therapeutic
Apheresis and Dialysis as its official English language journal, joining the
International Society for Apheresis (ISFA) and the Japanese Society for
Apheresis (JSFA). We deeply appreciate these society members for their
cooperation and contributions towards the publication of Therapeutic
Apheresis and Dialysis.

The Impact Factor of 1.229 is a very good result considering that this is
the first Impact Factor for the Journal. It is comparable to other journals
in the apheresis field and in the field of artificial organs. The Impact
Factor is one method to evaluate a journal. The Impact Factor for a given
year is defined as the total number of citations received in that year to
articles published in the previous two years divided by the total number of
citable items published in those two years.

          Impact Factor 2003 =          Citations received in 2003
                                        to article published in 2001/2002
                                        _________________________________

                                        Number of source items published
                                        in 2001 & 2002

While Impact Factor is considered by some to be an important rating for a
journal, with evidence in existence suggesting that Impact Factors continue
to have increasing influence on researchers and librarians, it is still only
one measure of importance. Additional measures include: the frequency with
which articles from a given journal are cited by other journals, the average
number of times each article is viewed online (each of the 431 articles
published in Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis in 2003 has been viewed an
average of 83 times), and the total number of online accesses the Journal
receives in a given period (in 2003, there were 18 585 full text views of
Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis articles).

We must put forth much effort to realize the goal of being the top journal
in the field. I ask all the ISFA, JSFA and JSDT members and researchers in
this field to contribute to the further development of our Journal.

Tadao Akizawa
Editor-in-Chief
Email: akizawa at wakayama-med.ac.jp