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[Medical-bioscientific databanks and the Impact Factor].
1Deutsches Institut für Medizinische Dokumentation und Information-DIMDI, Köln.
Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (1946)
|January 9, 2001
Summary
Journal Impact Factors (IF) are limited for evaluating medical journals, especially German ones. Comprehensive analysis requires combining multiple databases beyond the Science Citation Index (SCI) for accurate citation metrics.
Area of Science:
- Bibliometrics
- Scientific Publishing
- Information Science
Context:
- Journal Impact Factors (IF) are widely used for academic evaluation.
- IFs are derived from limited databases, primarily the Science Citation Index (SCI).
- The comprehensiveness and objectivity of IFs are subjects of ongoing debate.
Purpose:
- To assess the data basis of IFs by evaluating SCI's sources and output.
- To determine if IFs provide sufficient data for objective medical journal evaluation.
- To compare the retrieval completeness of SCI with other databases like MEDLINE (ME), EMBASE (EM), and BIOSIS Previews (BA).
Summary:
- Journals with IFs ≥ 1 are mostly found in SCI (98%), but coverage is lower in ME, EM, and BA (approx. 60%).
- Conversely, German journals indexed in SCI showed high JCR representation (90%), but lower IF representation in ME, EM, BA (23.5-57%) if not in SCI.
- Combined database searches (SCI + ME + EM + BA) yielded 65% completeness compared to a 38-database cluster, highlighting limitations of single-database searches.
Impact:
- Current IFs may underestimate the citation impact of certain journals, particularly German-language biomedical publications.
- Relying solely on IFs for academic evaluation is insufficient and may require corrective measures.
- For comprehensive citation analysis, combining multiple databases is recommended over single-database searches, including SCI.