BioMed Central Blog
Official 2007 Impact Factors show excellent performance by BioMed Central journals
The 2007 Journal Citation Report from Thomson Reuters, which has just been released, confirms the excellent performance and growing reputation of BioMed Central's journals.
There are now 42 BioMed Central journals which have official Impact Factors. Highlights of this year's Impact Factors include an impressive showing by BMC Biology, the biological flagship journal of the BMC series, which debuted with an Impact Factor above 5.0, and Molecular Pain, which confirmed its status as one of the leading journals in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine with an impressive Impact Factor of 4.13.
Malaria Journal retained its status as the No 1. ranked journal in the field of Tropical Medicine, while Retrovirology appeared for the first time in the JCR, ranking 5th of 25 journals in the Virology category, ahead of long established titles such as the journal Virology. BMC Plant Biology jumped straight into the upper echelons of the Plant Science rankings, with an Impact Factor of 3.23, which places it 18th of 152 journals in that area.
Overall, the median Impact Factor of a BioMed Central journal has increased from 2.77 to 2.91. Last year, BioMed Central had 4 journals with Impact Factors above 4.0 and 10 journals with Impact Factors above 3.0. This year, we have 8 journals above 4.0, and 19 greater than 3.0.
Full list of 2007 Impact Factors (new/improved Impact Factors are shown in bold)
Journal 2007 Impact Factor Genome Biology 6.59 BMC Biology 5.06 New! Breast Cancer Research 4.37 BMC Genomics 4.18 Molecular Pain 4.13 New! BMC Evolutionary Biology 4.09 Retrovirology 4.04 New! Arthritis Research & Therapy 4.04 Critical Care 3.83 Molecular Cancer 3.69 New! Respiratory Research 3.62 BMC Bioinformatics 3.49 BMC Molecular Biology 3.37 Microbial Cell Factories 3.36 New! BMC Developmental Biology 3.34 Biology Direct 3.29 New! BMC Plant Biology 3.23 New! BMC Cell Biology 3.09 BMC Structural Biology 3.06 BMC Neuroscience 2.99 BMC Microbiology 2.98 Journal of Translational Medicine 2.94 New! BMC Biotechnology 2.75 BMC Cancer 2.71 BMC Immunology 2.67 Malaria Journal 2.47 BMC Medical Genetics 2.42 New! Reproductive Biology & Endocrinology 2.37 New! BMC Infectious Diseases 2.02 BMC Gastroenterology 1.98 BMC Neurology 1.90 New! Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance 1.87 Geochemical Transactions 1.84 Algorithms for Molecular Biology 1.63 New! BMC Public Health 1.63 BMC Genetics 1.58 Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 1.50 Trials 1.44 BMC Health Service Research 1.36 BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 1.32 Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases 1.30 New! Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 0.72
* In the case of Microbial Cell Factories, the Impact Factor released in the 2007 JCR appears to be in error, under-reporting citations as a result of a technical issue. Thomson Reuters have confirmed this issue and have indicated that they will release a corrected official Impact Factor shortly. In the meantime, a predicted 2007 Impact Factor is shown, based on Web of Science citation counts.
In addition to the 40 journals listed above, many more BioMed Central journals are already tracked by Thomson Reuters and are due to receive official Impact Factors in the next year or two. For information on the expected timing of future Impact Factors, as well as unofficial Impact Factors for journals not yet tracked by Thomson Reuters, see BioMed Central's Impact Factor FAQ page. Another valuable resource is SCImago, a recently launched free set of journal citation metrics based on citation data from Scopus, which offers a more comprehensive picture of citation metrics for journals than that provided by the Journal Citation Report.
Update 2nd July 2008: Thomson Reuters have just released two additional official 2007 Impact Factors, for Biology Direct (3.29) and Algorithms for Molecular Biology (1.63). These new Impact Factors will be included in the maintenance release of the JCR later this year.
Update 29th July 2008: Thomson Reuters have confirmed the correct Impact Factor for Microbial Cell Factories, which had an erroneously low Impact Factor in the initial release of the JCR. The correct Impact Factor is 3.36.
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 15:29 Comments (4)
Posted by Phyllis Leppert on July 02, 2008 at 02:10 PM BST #
I would like to congratulate the BMC journals for the impressive performance.
Keep up with the good work!
Best,
Márcio L. Grossi, DDS, MS, PhD
Associate Professor
Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil
Posted by Márcio Lima Grossi on July 02, 2008 at 07:13 PM BST #
Posted by Matthew Cockerill on July 02, 2008 at 07:20 PM BST #
More journals may be added to thir list,
Jitendra Narayan Dash, MSc, MLIS
NII, New Delhi-110067
Posted by Jitendra Narayan Dash on July 03, 2008 at 07:24 AM BST #