BioMed Central Blog

Retrovirology editorial compares impact factors and H-factors

In a new editorial, the Editor-in-Chief of Retrovirology, Kuan-Teh Jeang,  discusses various approaches to citation metrics including author-focused metrics such as the H-factor, and asks:

"There is a natural tendency to judge a gift by the attractiveness of its wrapping. In some respect, this reflects current mores of measuring the gravitas of a scientific paper based on the journal cover in which the work appears. Most journals have an impact factor (IF) which some proudly display on their face page. Although historically journal IF has been a convenient quantitative shorthand, has its (mis)use contributed to inaccurate perceptions of the quality of scientific articles? Is now the time that equally convenient but more individually accurate metrics be adopted?"

Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 19:30    Comments (0)