The weighted impact factor: the paper evaluation index based on the citation ratio
Aslib Journal of Information Management
ISSN: 2050-3806
Article publication date: 21 September 2021
Issue publication date: 3 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study distinguishes the academic influence of different papers published in journals of the same subject or field based on the modification of the journal impact factor.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking SSCI journals in library and information science (LIS) as the research object, the authors first explore the skewness degree of the citation distribution of journal articles. Then, we define the paper citation ratio as the weight of impact factor to modify the journal impact factor for the evaluation of papers, namely the weighted impact factor. The authors further explore the feasibility of the weighted impact factor in evaluating papers.
Findings
The research results show that different types of skewness exist in the citation distribution of journal papers. Particularly, 94% of journal paper citations are highly skewed, while the rest are moderately skewed. The weighted impact factor has a closer correlation with the citation frequency of papers than the journal impact factor. It resolves the issue that the journal impact factor tends to exaggerate the influence of low-cited papers in journals with high impact factors or weaken the influence of high-cited papers in journals with low impact factors.
Originality/value
The weighted impact factor is constructed based on the skewness of the citation distribution of journal articles. It provides a new method to distinguish the academic influence of different papers published in journals of the same subject or field, then avoids the situation that papers published in the same journal having the same academic impact.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for commenting on earlier versions to improve this paper.
Funding: This research was funded by Project of humanities and social science foundation conducted by the Ministry of Education in China (grant no. 18JHQ043).
Author Contribution: J.D. was involved in conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, the preparation of the initial draft, and the editing of the final draft. R.X. was involved in data collection, formal analysis, methodology, software, and the preparation of the initial draft, and the editing of the final draft. C.L. was involved in formal analysis, review and the editing of the final draft. Y.Q. was involved in the editing of the final draft.
Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Citation
Ding, J., Xie, R., Liu, C. and Yuan, Y. (2022), "The weighted impact factor: the paper evaluation index based on the citation ratio", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 74 No. 1, pp. 37-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-06-2021-0156
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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