In the Editorial of the April issue of Nature Clinical Practice Rheumatology (3, 189; 2007), Editor in Chief Peter E. Lipsky writes: "The IF [Impact Factor] was envisioned over 50 years ago with the purpose of eliminating “the uncritical citation of fraudulent, incomplete or obsolete data by making it possible for the conscientious scholar to be aware of criticisms of earlier work” (Garfield E 1955 Science 122: 108–111). The IF has subsequently morphed into an institutionalized means of ranking the quality of scientific journals and, by implication, the individual articles published within them; for researchers, the IF influences employability, promotion, grant acceptability and bonus payments, and has been likened to a popularity contest."
Dr Lipsky discusses various flaws in the Impact Factor evaluation system, such as the lack of transparency of the formula by which the IF is calculated; that an erroneous but frequently cited article will bolster the ranking; disproportionate representation of review articles; and the differences in publication and citation frequencies in different disciplines. He asks whether his journal even actually wants an IF when it becomes eligible, concluding: “We do not feel that the current IF will reflect either our quality or our potential influence on clinical practice. Only if a new validated metric is developed that can evaluate the true quality and value of journal articles can we make real progress in improving the communication of new information in clinical medicine.”
The full editorial is available at the journal’s website or as a PDF here: Download file.
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