Scholarly Communication 

H-Index

Eigenfactor

Scimago Journal Rank

Traditionally, Universities have used Thomson’s Institute for Scientific Information impact factor calculations to measure the prestige of the journal and the university’s scholarly output.  Over the past several years, research has indicated that the impact factor may not  be a valid and reliable measure of the quality of a journal.  In 2004, the UK Parliament Committee on Science and Technology created a report advising the Higher Education Funding Council for England to assess the quality of the content of individual articles, rather than the reputation of the journals in which they are published.

Rossner, Mike, Heather Van Epps & Emma Hill.  “Show me the Data.”  Journal of Cell Biology.  Vol. 179, No. 6 (2007):  1091-2.

Monastersky, Richard.  “The Number That’s Devouring Science.”  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  October 14 2005.   http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i08/08a01201.htm. 

Seglen, P.O.  “Why the Impact Factor of Journals Should not be Used for Evaluating Research.” BMJ.  Vol 314, No. 7079 (1997): 498–502.

“Not-so-deep impact". Nature Vol. 435, No. 7045 (2005): 1003–4.

Palacios, Huerta, I. & O. Volij.  "The measurement of intellectual influence". Econometrica . Vol. 72 (2004): 963–977.

Although scholars themselves are rapidly moving to online and open-access modes of collaboration and communication (think of the Human Genome Project), universities are still lagging in recognizing and integrating  this new model of scholarship. The focus needs to be on the quality of the work, not the prestige or format of the journal.   Open access journals are no different than traditional journals in that the journal is only as good as its peer review process, editorial board, and content of its articles.  An example of an exemplary open access editorial board is the PLoS Biology board .  Journal based evaluation of a scholar’s work, which is often based on the journal’s citation impact factor is fraught with problems.  Just because research is cited does not mean the research is of high quality.  Citation measures include all citations to a work – good, bad and self-citations – potentially skewing the measurement (Monastersky, 2005).  Over the past several years, other measures of the quality of journals have been used and offer valid alternatives to impact factors