IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v17y2023i4s1751157723000834.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of COVID-19 on Journal Impact Factor

Author

Listed:
  • Uddin, Shahadat
  • Khan, Arif
  • Lu, Haohui

Abstract

Research related to COVID-19 has grown significantly in recent years and dominated health-related publications. Data-driven explorations, such as analysing the quality of COVID-19 research across journals, how the journals prioritised emerging topics and how their prominence has changed during this time, are critical to understanding the scientific community, especially for prospective researchers and editors. Based on the scoring systems of the Impact Factor and its six years of data (2016-21) for 12,873 journals, this study explores how the journal's impact was affected by COVID-19-related research. We examined the variability between non-pandemic and pandemic periods regarding the effect of COVID-19 on the growth of journal performance. The results indicate that journals with COVID-19-related publications show a significantly higher increase in their Impact Factor (IF) values, and journals with lower IF values contributed most to this increase. Journals prioritising publishing COVID-19 research will likely experience increased visibility and IF growth in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Uddin, Shahadat & Khan, Arif & Lu, Haohui, 2023. "Impact of COVID-19 on Journal Impact Factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:17:y:2023:i:4:s1751157723000834
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2023.101458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157723000834
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2023.101458?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline V Fry & Xiaojing Cai & Yi Zhang & Caroline S Wagner, 2020. "Consolidation in a crisis: Patterns of international collaboration in early COVID-19 research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Denes Szucs & John P A Ioannidis, 2017. "Empirical assessment of published effect sizes and power in the recent cognitive neuroscience and psychology literature," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, March.
    3. Benjamin M. Althouse & Jevin D. West & Carl T. Bergstrom & Theodore Bergstrom, 2009. "Differences in impact factor across fields and over time," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(1), pages 27-34, January.
    4. Massimo Riccaboni & Luca Verginer, 2022. "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific research in the life sciences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Vivek Kumar Singh & Prashasti Singh & Mousumi Karmakar & Jacqueline Leta & Philipp Mayr, 2021. "The journal coverage of Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions: A comparative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5113-5142, June.
    6. Liu, Meijun & Zhang, Ning & Hu, Xiao & Jaiswal, Ajay & Xu, Jian & Chen, Hong & Ding, Ying & Bu, Yi, 2022. "Further divided gender gaps in research productivity and collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from coronavirus-related literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    7. Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva & Panagiotis Tsigaris & Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh, 2021. "Publishing volumes in major databases related to Covid-19," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 831-842, January.
    8. Kwon, Eunrang & Yun, Jinhyuk & Kang, Jeong-han, 2023. "The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    9. Diana Kwon, 2020. "How swamped preprint servers are blocking bad coronavirus research," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7807), pages 130-131, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mengjia Wu & Yi Zhang & Mark Markley & Caitlin Cassidy & Nils Newman & Alan Porter, 2024. "COVID-19 knowledge deconstruction and retrieval: an intelligent bibliometric solution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(11), pages 7229-7259, November.
    2. Thamyres T. Choji & Manuel J. Cobo & Jose A. Moral-Munoz, 2024. "Is the scientific impact of the LIS themes gender-biased? A bibliometric analysis of the evolution, scientific impact, and relative contribution by gender from 2007 to 2022," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(10), pages 6023-6047, October.
    3. Annie Collins & Rohan Alexander, 2022. "Reproducibility of COVID-19 pre-prints," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4655-4673, August.
    4. Carolina Biliotti & Luca Verginer & Massimo Riccaboni, 2024. "The Uneven Access to COVID-19 Research for Women in Science," Papers 2404.04707, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    5. Lorenzo Ductor & Sanjeev Goyal & Anja Prummer, 2018. "Gender & Collaboration," Working Papers 856, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Dima Jamali & Georges Samara & Lokman I. Meho, 2024. "Determinants of research productivity and efficiency among the Arab world’s accredited business schools," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 74(4), pages 2511-2543, December.
    7. Matteo Migheli & Giovanni Battista Ramello, 2018. "The market of academic attention," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 113-133, January.
    8. Wenxuan Shi & Renli Wu, 2024. "Women’s strength in science: exploring the influence of female participation on research impact and innovation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(7), pages 4529-4551, July.
    9. Hudson Pacifico Silva & Pascale Lehoux & Renata Pozelli Sabio, 2024. "Challenges to Responsible Value Creation During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Multiple Case Study on SMEs’ Transformative Responses," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(3), pages 14012-14035, September.
    10. Marek Kwiek & Wojciech Roszka, 2022. "Academic vs. biological age in research on academic careers: a large-scale study with implications for scientifically developing systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3543-3575, June.
    11. Keith Head & Yao Amber Li & Asier Minondo, 2019. "Geography, Ties, and Knowledge Flows: Evidence from Citations in Mathematics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 713-727, October.
    12. Meijun Liu & Sijie Yang & Yi Bu & Ning Zhang, 2023. "Female early-career scientists have conducted less interdisciplinary research in the past six decades: evidence from doctoral theses," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    13. Müller, Harry & Dilger, Alexander, 2011. "Ein Ranking von Hochschulen und (Bundes-)Ländern am Beispiel der Betriebswirtschaftslehre," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 8/2011, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    14. Dunaiski, Marcel & Geldenhuys, Jaco & Visser, Willem, 2019. "On the interplay between normalisation, bias, and performance of paper impact metrics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 270-290.
    15. Rui Liang & Xichuan Zheng & Po-Hsun Wang & Jia Liang & Linhui Hu, 2023. "Research Progress of Carbon-Neutral Design for Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-50, August.
    16. Quan-Hoang Vuong & Tam-Tri Le & Viet-Phuong La & Huyen Thanh Thanh Nguyen & Manh-Toan Ho & Quy Khuc & Minh-Hoang Nguyen, 2022. "Covid-19 vaccines production and societal immunization under the serendipity-mindsponge-3D knowledge management theory and conceptual framework," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.
    17. Battiston, Pietro & Sacco, Pier Luigi & Stanca, Luca, 2022. "Cover effects on citations uncovered: Evidence from Nature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    18. Ana María Gómez-Aguayo & Joaquín M. Azagra-Caro & Carlos Benito-Amat, 2024. "The steady effect of knowledge co-creation with universities on business scientific impact throughout the economic cycle," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(5), pages 2771-2799, May.
    19. BOWERS Dominique & MATLALA Ntswaki & BERHADIEN Moegamat & UMETOR Henry & GONGXEKA Thabo, 2024. "Sustainable Supply Chain Management And Disruptive Theory: A Bibliometric Review," Management of Sustainable Development, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 16(1), pages 11-23, June.
    20. Zhentao Liang & Jin Mao & Kun Lu & Gang Li, 2021. "Finding citations for PubMed: a large-scale comparison between five freely available bibliographic data sources," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9519-9542, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:17:y:2023:i:4:s1751157723000834. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.