| Abstract: |
Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact
Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its
controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality.
This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its
role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from
annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The
descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50
journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on
average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the
group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by
14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble
period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other
stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality
assessment to ensure more efficient science management. |