BMJ  2007;334:561-564 (17 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39142.454086.AD

Feature

How impact factors changed medical publishing—and science

Cambridge

Hannah Brown investigates the use and abuse of journal rankings

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

George Lundberg spent the early 1980s lamenting the loss of his journal's once great reputation. JAMA (the Journal of the AmericanMedical Association), which he had taken over in 1982, had been in decline since its peak of popularity in the 1960s. And a new set of rankings that pitted medical journals against each other on the basis of article citations now seemed to confirm that JAMA was a long way behind the best. To make his editorship successful, Dr Lundberg needed a recovery strategy.

So, while other medical journals continued to dismiss as an irrelevance their citation rankings—labelled "impact factor" by the data crunching company that devised and compiled the system—Dr Lundberg seized the opportunity to make them work in JAMA's favour. Recognising that impact factors were derived from citations, Dr Lundberg reasoned that chasing high profile authors and institutions could help boost JAMA's rank and, . . . [Full text of this article]

Counting citations

Working the system

Distorting influence?

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Articles

Should we ditch impact factors?

Gareth Williams
BMJ 2007 334: 568. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Should we ditch impact factors?

Richard Hobbs
BMJ 2007 334: 569. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Advice to a new editor

Christopher Martyn
BMJ 2007 334: 586. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Coverdale, J. H., Weiss Roberts, L., Balon, R., Louie, A. K., Beresin, E. V. (2008). Improving the "Impact" of Academic Psychiatry. Acad. Psychiatry 32: 169-172 [Full text]  
• Brumback, R. A. (2008). Worshiping False Idols: The Impact Factor Dilemma. J Child Neurol 23: 365-367  
• Schreuder, M. F., Oosterveld, M. J. S. (2008). Who ever said size doesn't matter? The association between journal title length and impact factor. NDT Plus 1: 126-127 [Full text]  
• Fritzsche, F R, Oelrich, B, Dietel, M, Jung, K, Kristiansen, G (2008). European and US publications in the 50 highest ranking pathology journals from 2000 to 2006. J. Clin. Pathol. 61: 474-481 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• van Driel, M. L., Maier, M., Maeseneer, J. D. (2007). Measuring the impact of family medicine research: scientific citations or societal impact?. Fam Pract 24: 401-402 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Impact factors and clinical academics

Paul D Pharoah
bmj.com, 16 Mar 2007 [Full text]

ISI Impact

Joan McClusky
bmj.com, 16 Mar 2007 [Full text]

Are there good alternatives for the “Impact Factor” algorithm?

Gianluca Castelnuovo, et al.
bmj.com, 19 Mar 2007 [Full text]

Australia to use indices for research quality

Peter J Woolf
bmj.com, 21 Mar 2007 [Full text]

Individualised impact factors: the true endpoint

Gabriele Pollara
bmj.com, 21 Mar 2007 [Full text]

Impact of the impact factor in Spain

Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, et al.
bmj.com, 20 Apr 2007 [Full text]