Content area
Full Text
Background
In 2008, Australian Family Physician (AFP) was accepted on the list of journals listed in Science Citation Index Expanded and, thus, will generate an impact factor over the next 2 years. Impact factor is important to authors from research and academic backgrounds and will make AFP an increasingly attractive journal in which to publish.
Aim
To describe the impact factor, its method of calculation, and its flaws.
Discussion
Impact factor is the number of a journal's cited research papers divided by the total number of citable papers it has published. It is distorted by several different factors: sub-discipline, region, basic versus applied research, and whether the journal editor deliberately tries to strategically increase their impact factor.
Conclusion
Impact factor is an oversimplified single measure of 'impact', which may underestimate the contribution of the AFP to society. However, no accepted alternative metric currently exists.
Australian Family Physician (AFP) gained Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) status in 2008. Indexing commenced with the January/February 2007 issue in March 2008.1 This is an important advance, as AFP will attract even better quality papers, its status will rise, and its scientific credibility will improve internationally.
Why? Journals listed on Thomson Scientific's proprietary SCIE database are awarded a score - the 'Impact factor' (IF). This metric attempts to measure the impact a journal has on the scientific community. Impact factors are commonly used to describe the quality of research papers that individuals and institutions publish.2 For AFP, the higher its IF, the more academic authors and researchers will want to publish in it (as this is an acknowledged measure of the academic worth of their work - and is an influential factor in allocation of research funding and in academic promotion). This will lead to an increase in the quality of papers AFP publishes and make the results of Australian research more accessible for Australian general practitioners.
Discussion
Calculating the impact factor
The IF is the number of citations from a journal divided by the total number of citable papers published in that journal in the past 2 years (7aWe 7). A watershed is when a journal's IF is >1; in other words, on average, papers are quoted more often than published. However, there are limitations to this simple...