Campanario, JM. 2010. Self-Citations That Contribute to the Journal Impact Factor: An Investment-Benefit-Yield Analysis. JASIST. 61 (12): 2575-2580

[Eugene Garfield]

Campanario, JM. 2010. Self-Citations That Contribute to the Journal Impact 
Factor: An Investment-Benefit-Yield Analysis. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN 
SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 61 (12): 2575-2580..

Author Full Name(s): Miguel Campanario, Juan
Language: English
Document Type: Article
KeyWords Plus: LABELED EDITORIAL MATERIAL; INDEX

Abstract: The variables investment, benefit, and yield were defined to study 
the influence of journal self-citations on the impact factor. Investment 
represents the share of journal self-citations that contribute to the impact 
factor. Benefit is defined as the ratio of journal impact factor including self-
citations to journal impact factor without self-citations. Yield is the relationship 
between benefit and investment. I selected all journals included in 2008 in the 
Science Citation Index version of Journal Citation Reports. After deleting 482 
records for reasons to be explained, I used a final set of 6,138 journals to 
study the distribution of the variables defined above. The distribution of benefit 
differed from the distribution of investment and yield. The top 20-ranked 
journals were not the same for all three variables. The yield of self-citations on 
the journal impact factor was, in general, very modest.

Addresses: Univ Alcala De Henares, Dept Fis, Madrid 28871, Spain

Reprint Address: Campanario, JM, Univ Alcala De Henares, Dept Fis, Madrid 
28871, Spain.

E-mail Address: Juan.campanario at uah.es
ISSN: 1532-2882
DOI: 10.1002/asi.21439
fulltext: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21439/abstract