[Sigmetrics] Validity of Journal IF

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Stephen, 

 

I learned from you that IFs were developed for fields like bio-medicine with
high turn-over rates at a research front. The model was provided by Martyn,
J., & Gilchrist, A. (1968). An Evaluation of British Scientific Journals.
London: Aslib.

 

Review journals have a long cited half-life time. One would not expect to be
able to predict the citation of review articles within a two-year window,
wouldn't one?

 

Best, 

Loet

 

From: SIGMETRICS [mailto:sigmetrics-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Stephen J
Bensman
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 8:36 PM
To: sigmetrics at mail.asis.org
Subject: [Sigmetrics] Validity of Journal IF

 

Journal IF is a valid measure mainly because of the role of the review
article in the scientific information system.  In general review journals
have the highest IF, and it is for this reason Garfield made it his key
measure.  In general you have to be invited to write a review article, and
you are invited because journal editors know you.  I discuss all these
matter in my articles Gene Garfield has posted on his Web site.  I have
spent my entire career analyzing why Garfield was so important.  Basically I
am a historian, and the role of the historian is to make other people
famous--not yourself.  For example, Garfield was the grandfather of the
Google search engine for showing relationships--not words--are semantically
correct.  I also discuss these matters in papers posted on my Google Scholar
citations page, which I have made public.  If you read these materials, I
only hope you find that I have done him justice.

 

Respectfully,

Stephen J. Bensman, Ph.D.

LSU Libraries (Retired)

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