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Impact factor: History, Measurement, Applications & Science

The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact-factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field. Impact factor is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate's Web of Science. The impact factor of a journal reflects the yearly mean…

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Impact factor topic overview

The analysis highlights History, Measurement, Applications and Science as prominent areas in the source structure around Impact factor.

Related topics
64
Source areas
7
Connected nodes
71
Extracted relationships
164
Concept neighborhoods
29
Bridge connections
71

What this topic covers Research coverage

Source areas are shown by the number of related topics found in each part of the analysis. Use smaller areas too: they can reveal specialized angles and content gaps.

Criticism · 22 topics
Related indices · 19 topics
Institutional responses to criticism of the impact factor · 8 topics
History · 7 topics
Overview · 6 topics
Calculation · 1 topics
Use · 1 topics

Smaller areas are not necessarily less important. They contain fewer connections in this analysis and can be useful for finding specialized angles or coverage gaps.

Explore all related topics Closing gaps

Browse the complete topic structure, not only the most central items. Less prominent entities and concepts can reveal missing angles, specialized context and useful research gaps. Each item opens a new analysis centered on that subject.

Overview

History

Calculation

Use

Criticism

Institutional responses to criticism of the impact factor

Related indices

Advanced semantic analysis

Deeper signals for content research, entity SEO and topical coverage. The plain-language headings explain what each technical view is useful for.

How Impact factor connects Entity context

The extracted context around Impact factor shows recurring relationship patterns in the source. For example, Impact factor → According, Another, As, Because, By, Citefactor, Commons Science, Conduct, Consulting Journal Citation Reports, EASE, Electronic Physician, England, Eugene Garfield, European Association, Fake, False, For, Freedom, Furthermore, Given Another extracted example is Impact factor → Aggregate, AHCI, BCI, Cited, CPCI, ESCI, For, Immediacy, JCI, JIF, Journal, Journal Citation Reports, June, Paper, SCIE, Science Core Collection, Scopus, Some, Source Normalized Impact, SSCI. Use these groups to spot repeated connection types before inspecting the individual relationships.

Impact factor

Top relations

has impact · 54
Impact factor → According, Another, As, Because, By, Citefactor, Commons Science, Conduct, Consulting Journal Citation Reports, EASE, Electronic Physician, England, Eugene Garfield, European Association, Fake, False, For, Freedom, Furthermore, Given
related to Related indices · 22
Impact factor → Aggregate, AHCI, BCI, Cited, CPCI, ESCI, For, Immediacy, JCI, JIF, Journal, Journal Citation Reports, June, Paper, SCIE, Science Core Collection, Scopus, Some, Source Normalized Impact, SSCI
related to history · 18
Impact factor → Baring Private Equity Asia, Clarivate, Eugene Garfield, Healthcare, Impact, In, Institute, ISI, JCR, Journal Citation Reports, Onex Corporation, Philadelphia, Scientific Information, The, They, Thomson ISI, Thomson Scientific, Thomson-Reuters
related to Distribution skewness · 14
Impact factor → Acta Crystallographica Section, As, Because, Bruker AXS, For, Furthermore, Nature, Nature's, Science, SHELX, SHELXTL, The, This, Thus
related to Reproducibility · 13
Impact factor → Google Scholar, However, It, JCR, JIF, Just, ResearchGate, Science, Scopus, This, Thomson Scientific's, Web, While
related to Use · 10
Impact factor → As, Cell Biology, Despite, Eugene Garfield, Hoeffel, In, JIF, The Journal, This, While
related to Criticism · 9
Impact factor → Criticism, Further, Numerous, Other, Some, There, This, While, Younger
related to Negotiated values · 7
Impact factor → Clarivate, FASEB Journal, One, Publishers, Results, Such, The
is a · 3
Impact factor → metric for journals and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions, metric for journals and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions.Questionable editorial policies that affect the impact factorBecause impact factor is…, scientometric index calculated by Clarivate's Web of Science
related to Calculation · 3
Impact factor → In, Journal, Pub

Important terminology

Use these terms to understand the vocabulary surrounding the topic, not as a checklist for keyword stuffing.

Important terminology

impact factor journal research journals citations factors number jif science articles citation article published also use quality scientific metrics papers

Impact factor relationships Subject–Predicate–Object triples

TTTA extracted 164 structured relationships around Impact factor. Examples in this analysis include Impact factor → is a → scientometric index calculated by Clarivate's Web of Science and Impact factor → is a → metric for journals and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions.Questionable editorial policies that affect the impact factorBecause impact factor is…. The table shows each extracted connection, where it came from and its confidence.

SubjectPredicateObjectConfidenceSrc
Impact factoris ascientometric index calculated by Clarivate's Web of Science0.90text
Impact factoris ametric for journals and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions.Questionable editorial policies that affect the impact factorBecause impact factor is…0.90text
Impact factoris ametric for journals and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions0.90text
the JIF should not be considered as a measure of qualityinstance ofnational and international research funding institutions were already starting to point out that numerical indicators0.80text
rigorous methodsinstance ofwhere scientific success is based on publishing in prestigious journals ahead of actual research qualities0.80text
replicabilityinstance ofwhere scientific success is based on publishing in prestigious journals ahead of actual research qualities0.80text
social impactinstance ofwhere scientific success is based on publishing in prestigious journals ahead of actual research qualities0.80text
the Leiden Manifestoinstance ofincluding key documents0.80text
the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessmentinstance ofincluding key documents0.80text
the h-indexinstance ofincreasing importance has been given to numerical indicators0.80text
the impact factorinstance ofincreasing importance has been given to numerical indicators0.80text
Google Scholarinstance ofcalculated as the average number of citations per article using citation indices other than JCR0.80text

Related concept clusters Concept neighborhoods

The concept neighborhoods around Impact factor bring nearby vocabulary together. In this analysis, examples include Impact, Journal and Journals. Use the clusters to find adjacent concepts and terminology that may deserve separate research.

  • Impact factor
    • Impact
    • Journal
    • Journals
    • Factors
    • Research
    • Citations
    • Citation
    • Articles
    • Also
    • Published
    • Number
    • Use
  • impact factor
    • Impact
    • Journal
    • Journals
    • Factors
    • Research
    • Published
    • Citations
    • Articles
    • Number
    • Citation
    • Also
    • Use
  • academic journal
    • Articles
    • Number
    • Published
    • Research
    • Citation
    • Reports
    • Journals
    • Given
    • Quality
    • Assessment
    • Example
    • Factors
  • journal ranking
    • Articles
    • Number
    • Published
    • Research
    • Citation
    • Reports
    • Journals
    • Given
    • Quality
    • Assessment
    • Example
    • Factors
  • citations
    • Number
    • Articles
    • Published
    • Journal
    • Years
    • Factor
    • Two
    • Impact
    • Year
    • Mean
    • Jcr
    • Publications
  • journal citation reports
    • Reports
    • Cited
    • Articles
    • Number
    • Published
    • Research
    • Citation
    • Journal
    • Factors
    • May
    • Publish
    • Impact
  • the journal of cell biology
    • Articles
    • Number
    • Published
    • Research
    • Citation
    • Reports
    • Journals
    • Given
    • Quality
    • Assessment
    • Example
    • Factors
  • research assessment exercise
    • Assessment
    • Research
    • Quality
    • Practices
    • Science
    • Journals
    • Given
    • Researchers
    • Papers
    • Factors
    • Use
    • Journal

Connections between topic areas Semantic bridges

For Impact factor, one of the stronger structural bridges in this analysis connects Impact factor with Criticism. Bridges highlight paths between different parts of the map and can reveal research angles that are easy to miss in a flat list.

Min side: 3
Impact factor — Criticism · splits 49 ⟂ 23
Impact factor — Related indices · splits 52 ⟂ 20
Impact factor — Institutional responses to criticism of the impact factor · splits 63 ⟂ 9
Impact factor — History · splits 64 ⟂ 8
Impact factor — Overview · splits 65 ⟂ 7

Map overview Semantic statistics

Impact factor

Nodes72
Edges71
Triples164
Avg. degree1.97
Density0.027778
Components1

Source & methodology

TTTA analyzes the structure around Impact factor to surface related topics, entities, relationships, concept neighborhoods and bridge connections. Use the map to explore areas such as History, Measurement, Applications & Science, including less central topics that may reveal useful research gaps. Automatically extracted connections are research leads rather than rewritten encyclopedia content.

Source: Wikipedia — Impact factor · EN edition · Analysis: TopicsToTalkAbout

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