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Empirical study of journal impact factors obtained using the classical two-year citation window versus a five-year citation window

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  • Juan Miguel Campanario

    (Universidad de Alcalá)

Abstract

In this article I study characteristics of the journal impact factor (JIF) computed using a 5-year citation window as compared with the classical JIF computed using a 2-year citation window. Since 2007 ISI-Thomson Reuters has published the new 5-year impact factor in the JCR database. I studied changes in the distribution of JIFs when the citation window was enlarged. The distributions of journals according their 5-year JIFs were very similar all years studied, and were also similar to the distribution according to the 2-year JIFs. In about 72% of journals, the JIF increased when the longer citation window was used. Plots of 5-year JIFs against rank closely followed a beta function with two exponents. Thus, the 5-year JIF seems to behave very similarly to the 2-year JIF. The results also suggest that gains in JIF with the longer citation window tend to distribute similarly in all years. Changes in these gains also tend to distribute similarly from 1 year to the following year.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Miguel Campanario, 2011. "Empirical study of journal impact factors obtained using the classical two-year citation window versus a five-year citation window," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(1), pages 189-204, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:87:y:2011:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-010-0334-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0334-1
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    4. 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.
    5. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    6. Mingers, John & Yang, Liying, 2017. "Evaluating journal quality: A review of journal citation indicators and ranking in business and management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(1), pages 323-337.
    7. Liu, Xuan Zhen & Fang, Hui, 2020. "A comparison among citation-based journal indicators and their relative changes with time," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
    8. De Filippo, Daniela & Gorraiz, Juan, 2020. "Is the Emerging Source Citation Index an aid to assess the citation impact in social science and humanities?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    9. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2017. "JIF-Plots: using plots of citations versus citable items as a tool to study journals and subject categories and discover new scientometric relationships," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 1141-1154, November.
    10. Erwin Krauskopf, 2020. "Sources without a CiteScore value: more clarity is required," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1801-1812, March.
    11. Mu-Hsuan Huang & Chia-Pin Chang, 2016. "A comparative study on three citation windows for detecting research fronts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1835-1853, December.
    12. Vanessa Martins Valcanover & Igor Bernardi Sonza & Wesley Vieira da Silva, 2020. "Behavioral Finance Experiments: A Recent Systematic Literature Review," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, November.
    13. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    14. Campanario, Juan Miguel, 2015. "Providing impact: The distribution of JCR journals according to references they contribute to the 2-year and 5-year journal impact factors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 398-407.
    15. Henk F. Moed, 2016. "Comprehensive indicator comparisons intelligible to non-experts: the case of two SNIP versions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 51-65, January.
    16. Keshra Sangwal, 2013. "Some citation-related characteristics of scientific journals published in individual countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 719-741, December.
    17. Daniela Filippo & Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent & Elías Sanz-Casado, 2020. "Toward a classification of Spanish scholarly journals in social sciences and humanities considering their impact and visibility," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1709-1732, November.
    18. Schmal, W. Benedikt, 2024. "The X Factor: Open Access, New Journals, and Incumbent Competitors," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302342, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Peter Jacso, 2012. "Grim tales about the impact factor and the h-index in the Web of Science and the Journal Citation Reports databases: reflections on Vanclay’s criticism," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 325-354, August.
    20. Elías Sanz-Casado & Daniela Filippo & Rafael Aleixandre Benavent & Vidar Røeggen & Janne Pölönen, 2021. "Impact and visibility of Norwegian, Finnish and Spanish journals in the fields of humanities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 9031-9049, November.
    21. William Cabos & Juan Miguel Campanario, 2018. "Exploring the Hjif-Index, an Analogue to the H-Like Index for Journal Impact Factors," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-11, April.
    22. Mike Thelwall, 2017. "Are Mendeley reader counts useful impact indicators in all fields?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1721-1731, December.
    23. Sangwal, Keshra, 2013. "Citation and impact factor distributions of scientific journals published in individual countries," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 487-504.
    24. Pajić, Dejan, 2015. "On the stability of citation-based journal rankings," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 990-1006.
    25. Danielle Lee, 2023. "Bibliometric analysis of Asian ‘language and linguistics’ research: A case of 13 countries," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-23, December.

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    Journal impact factor; Citation window;

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