V The Wall Street Journal je objavljena zgodba o tem, kako nekateri uredniki skusajo dvigniti faktor vpliva (Impact Factor -IF) svojim znanstvenim casopisom. Iz clanka ni povsem jasno, kako razsirjena je ta praksa, a poda nekaj pomenjivih primerov in podatkov

In July, a publication called Scientific World Journal retracted two papers about regenerative medicine, saying
they had excessively cited another journal, Cell Transplantation. 

…In the blog, Mr. Davis noted that a review article published in another journal, Medical Science Monitor, had cited a total of 490 articles in the field, of which 445 were articles that had appeared in Cell Transplantation alone, in 2008 and 2009. …Mr. Davis notes three of the four editors of the Medical Science Monitor review article were also on Cell Transplantation’s editorial board. Also, two MSM editors wrote a review in another journal, The Scientific World Journal, citing 124 papers. Of those, 96 were from Cell Transplantation in 2008 and 2009. 

“Those two review articles alone were responsible for a more-than-50% increase in Cell Transplantation’s impact factor for 2010,” says Mr. Davis.

Stvar je pomembna, ker znanstvene agencije uporabljajo IF za ovrednotenje znanstvenikov (med drugim tudi ARRS v svoji “formuli”). Prav strasljiv je naslednji podatek:

The IF is easily gamed, too. One in five academics in economics, sociology, psychology and business said they had been asked by editors to pad their papers with unnecessary citations to articles in the same journal, according to a study published in Science in February.

In ponekod ze reagirajo:

Such occurrences have spurred a backlash. In 2010, for example, the Australian government said it would no longer use IFs in judging grant applications.

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Andrej
Andrej
11 - št. let nazaj

Gotovo obstaja še nekaj takih zgodb. Tisto z "Chaos, Solitons & Fractals" ter "International Journal of Nonlinear Sciences and …" bi moralo biti na tem blogu znano. Imamo tudi domačo revijo "Materiali in Tehnologije", ki sicer nima ravno visokega IF (0.8), ampak je v zadnjih letih hitro rasel v glavnem na račun samocitatov. Obstajajo pa še bolj perfidne metode manipulacije IF. O tem, da pri Nature določeni članki (komentarji, mogoče celo Letters?) ne štejejo v imenovalcu, štejejo pa v števcu, je bilo tudi že dosti napisanega. Ali pa še ena bolj nedolžna: le zakaj je PRL omejitev s 4 strani… Beri dalje »

shrink
shrink
11 - št. let nazaj

O manipulacijah IF (za centralni primer je izbral prav CSF in IJNSNS) je pisal (2 članka) že nekdanji predsednik SIAM Arnold: Integrity Under Attack: The State of Scholarly Publishing Nefarious Numbers V zvezi s tem je bilo tudi govora leta 2010 na mednarodnem kongresu matematikov: How good is your maths? O "farmi citatov" nekdanjega urednika IJNSNS Ji Huan He-ja je pisal Die Zeit: Manipulation bei Wissensmagazinen: Professor Hes Zitate-Farm Do česa lahko privedejo manipulacije, je recimo poročal New York Times: Questionable Science Behind Academic Rankings (Na kratko: urednik CSF El Naschie je izstrelil egiptovsko univerzo v Aleksandriji na 4. mesto… Beri dalje »

shrink
shrink
11 - št. let nazaj

Seveda je El Naschie nekdanji urednik CSF, ki je tožil Nature zaradi razžalitve, a je tožbo nedavno klavrno izgubil (in bo moral plačati astronomske stroške za obrambo reviji Nature ocenjene na 1.5 milijona britanskih funtov):

Nature journal libel victory prompts libel reform call