Evaluation system of new and old journals: citescore & journal impact factor

In June every year, the impact factors will be a hot topic in academic discussion, and this year is no exception In addition to the newly updated journal impact, which has dominated the scientific research evaluation system for many years Factor (journal impact factor, hereinafter referred to as jif), earlier, academic publishing giant Elsevier (Elsevier) also published the 2016 Journal Citation score list citescore in early June after coming up with its own scientific research evaluation system at the end of last year The coexistence of two sets of scientific research evaluation systems has aroused a lot of discussions in the industry: who is more effective for the new and old indicators? Does the academic publishing need new indicators? Heavyweight competitors born since the publication of Journal Citation Report (JCR) and jif in 1975, although there are many competitors, these indicators are either too complex to calculate (such as eigenfactor and Scimago journal rank), or not influential enough (such as altmetrics and Google Scholar's) H5 index, or relying on jif completely (such as the journal partition table of the literature and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), cannot pose a real threat to the status of jif On December 8, 2016, the Scopus database, which claims to be larger and more complete than web of science, published its own journal evaluation index: citescore index 12 years after its establishment At the end of 2004, Elsevier officially launched the Scopus database, which almost completely imitated the construction of web of Science (including SCI, SSCI and AHCI, hereinafter referred to as WOS) Since its launch, Scopus has more than wos (about 10000 journals included) with about 14000 journals After more than 10 years of expansion, Scopus has more than 22000 journals To some extent, the citescore index evaluation system is similar to jif, but it has its own characteristics There are six aspects as follows: in terms of the number of journals included, the number of journals included by Scopus is about twice that of wos; in terms of time window selection, the time window of jif is two years, and citescore is three years; Jif publishes only once a year, citescore publishes forecast once a year; wos is a charging platform, and Scopus is completely free; jif distinguishes article types, citescore does not distinguish article types Jif has no subject area differentiation, citescore has subject area differentiation Is citescore the optimized version of jif? In the view of some analysts, citescore is essentially the same as jif, and there is no difference in concept At most, it can be said to be the optimized version First, citescore's advantage in sample size comes from the Scopus database Regardless of Google Scholar, Scopus is the largest academic literature database in the world However, the large sample size is a double-edged sword, and many scientists are worried about whether the Scopus database is "flooded" But according to Elsevier's statistics, these "unknown" journals also have the remains of SCI, and more than 300 journals without influencing factors have entered the top 10% of citescore discipline
Secondly, according to the age range and article type of the inspected papers, the jif calculation method is: the number of citations of papers in the third year of the journal for two consecutive years is excluded, and editorial comments, letters from readers, corrected information, news, case reports, etc are included in the denominator; while the citescore calculation method is: the number of citations of papers in the fourth year of the journal for three consecutive years is not excluded, and no category is excluded Type According to Elsevier, this evaluation method can avoid "index manipulation" of some journals In addition to the above two points, for ordinary scientific research workers, free or fee opening is also a problem Web of science is a charging platform Most universities in China have purchased the right to use it, but it is not convenient for researchers to use it outside the university or for non University (such as enterprises, hospitals, independent research institutions) personnel Different from this, at present, the Scopus database is completely free (some functions must be registered for use, but registration is also free), and all data are open to query Will the critics of jif welcome citescore? Elsevier believes that publishing its own journal impact factors is popular, and it is a positive response to the requirements of authors and editors However, there are some comments that a publisher with more than 2500 journals should not launch citescore According to Joseph Esposito, a publishing consultant, jif is at least not controlled by publishers Other scientists said that such improvement could not reverse the negative impact of "influence factors" on academic evaluation Neither jif nor citescore can represent the academic contribution of a paper, nor can they reflect the academic level of a specific academic paper For example, Stephen curry, a biologist at King's College London, one of the signatories of San Francisco Declaration on research assessment, said that the evaluation of journal based should be cancelled and article based should be replaced Because, speaking of the original intention of influencing factors, Dr Eugene Garfield initially proposed that the purpose of journal influencing factors is to select journals for the database But more than half a century later, it is often used to assess the impact of individual research, and even the academic authority of researchers.