IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v3y2009i4p363-366.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Some comments on Egghe's derivation of the impact factor distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Waltman, Ludo
  • van Eck, Nees Jan

Abstract

In a recent paper, Egghe [Egghe, L. (in press). Mathematical derivation of the impact factor distribution. Journal of Informetrics] presents a mathematical analysis of the rank-order distribution of journal impact factors. The analysis is based on the central limit theorem. We criticize the empirical relevance of Egghe's analysis. More specifically, we argue that Egghe's analysis relies on an unrealistic assumption and we show that the analysis is not in agreement with empirical data.

Suggested Citation

  • Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan, 2009. "Some comments on Egghe's derivation of the impact factor distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 363-366.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:3:y:2009:i:4:p:363-366
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2009.05.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157709000388
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2009.05.004?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. Mansilla, R. & Köppen, E. & Cocho, G. & Miramontes, P., 2007. "On the behavior of journal impact factor rank-order distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 155-160.
    2. 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.
    3. Beirlant, Jan & Glänzel, Wolfgang & Carbonez, An & Leemans, Herlinde, 2007. "Scoring research output using statistical quantile plotting," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 185-192.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anthony F. J. Raan, 2021. "Laudation on the occasion of the presentation of the Derek de Solla Price Award 2021 to Prof. Ludo Waltman at the ISSI conference, Leuven, 2021," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8235-8238, October.
    2. Balakrishnan, N. & Sarabia, José María & Kolev, Nikolai, 2010. "A simple relation between the Leimkuhler curve and the mean residual life," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 602-607.
    3. Bárbara S. Lancho-Barrantes & Vicente P. Guerrero-Bote & Félix Moya-Anegón, 2010. "The iceberg hypothesis revisited," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(2), pages 443-461, November.
    4. L. Egghe, 2011. "The impact factor rank-order distribution revisited," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 683-685, June.
    5. Copiello, Sergio, 2019. "Peer and neighborhood effects: Citation analysis using a spatial autoregressive model and pseudo-spatial data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 238-254.
    6. Brzezinski, Michal, 2014. "Empirical modeling of the impact factor distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 362-368.
    7. Huang, Ding-wei, 2017. "Impact factor distribution revisited," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 482(C), pages 173-180.
    8. Sarabia, José María & Prieto, Faustino & Trueba, Carmen, 2012. "Modeling the probabilistic distribution of the impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 66-79.

    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. Waltman, L. & van Eck, N.J.P., 2009. "Some Comments on Egghe’s Derivation of the Impact Factor Distribution," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2009-016-LIS, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    2. Antonia Ferrer-Sapena & Susana Díaz-Novillo & Enrique A. Sánchez-Pérez, 2017. "Measuring Time-Dynamics and Time-Stability of Journal Rankings in Mathematics and Physics by Means of Fractional p -Variations," Publications, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-14, September.
    3. Loet Leydesdorff & Ping Zhou & Lutz Bornmann, 2013. "How can journal impact factors be normalized across fields of science? An assessment in terms of percentile ranks and fractional counts," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 96-107, January.
    4. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2010. "Distribution of changes in impact factors over time," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 35-42, July.
    5. A. Ferrer-Sapena & J. M. Calabuig & L. M. García Raffi & E. A. Sánchez Pérez, 2020. "Where Should I Submit My Work for Publication? An Asymmetrical Classification Model to Optimize Choice," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 37(2), pages 490-508, July.
    6. Lorenzo Ductor & Sanjeev Goyal & Anja Prummer, 2018. "Gender & Collaboration," Working Papers 856, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    7. Matteo Migheli & Giovanni Battista Ramello, 2018. "The market of academic attention," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 113-133, January.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2018. "Are leaders really leading? Journals that are first in Web of Science subject categories in the context of their groups," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 111-130, April.
    12. Battiston, Pietro & Sacco, Pier Luigi & Stanca, Luca, 2022. "Cover effects on citations uncovered: Evidence from Nature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    13. 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.
    14. J. Martin Zyl, 2013. "The generalized Pareto distribution fitted to research outputs of countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(3), pages 1099-1109, March.
    15. Shahd Al-Janabi & Lee Wei Lim & Luca Aquili, 2021. "Development of a tool to accurately predict UK REF funding allocation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 8049-8062, September.
    16. Jerome K. Vanclay, 2012. "Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 211-238, August.
    17. Jing Li & Qiushuang Long & Xiaoli Lu & Dengsheng Wu, 2023. "Citation beneficiaries of discipline-specific mega-journals: who and how much," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Bertoli-Barsotti, Lucio & Lando, Tommaso, 2019. "How mean rank and mean size may determine the generalised Lorenz curve: With application to citation analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 387-396.
    19. Dorta-González, P. & Dorta-González, M.I., 2013. "Impact maturity times and citation time windows: The 2-year maximum journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 593-602.
    20. Mutz, Rüdiger & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2012. "Skewed citation distributions and bias factors: Solutions to two core problems with the journal impact factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 169-176.

    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:3:y:2009:i:4:p:363-366. 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.