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Web of Science, the index responsible for Journal Impact Factors, has paused indexing eLife Versions of Record as they reevaluate our model against their editorial evaluation criteria. We continue to be fully indexed in all other major scholarly indexes.
elifesciences.org/inside-elife…
in reply to eLife

This is much more a reflection of Web of Science than it is on eLife.
in reply to Mike Taylor 🦕

@mike I was annoyed at first but then realised that web of science is in charge of giving an #ImpactFactor to journals, and so I guess it actually makes sense since the #eLife model goes against the principle of impact factor... Right?

#academia #Publication #Neuroscience

in reply to El Duvelle

@elduvelle Actually, I don't see how eLife goes against the notion of impact factor. That's only a ratio between citations and citeable articles, and conceptually makes just as much sense for eLife, or indeed an IR or a blog, as it does for a traditional journal.
in reply to Mike Taylor 🦕

@mike
From the point of view of the actual computation, sure, but ideologically the goal of the new eLife system is to show us that an article shouldn't be judged by the journal it's published in (since they're removing the publication decision) but by the reviews it got.
So, they're going against the idea that journal impact factor matters for anything (and I think they're right).
@eLife
in reply to El Duvelle

@elduvelle On that score, I agree 100%. Impact Factors are an abomination — or, at least, the uses that they are put to have become abominable. See also @StephenCurry's "Sick of Impact Factors" occamstypewriter.org/scurry/20… (now twelve years old!)

"If you are judging grant or promotion applications and find yourself scanning the applicant’s publications, checking off the impact factors, you are statistically illiterate."

El Duvelle reshared this.

in reply to eLife

^^^° @eLife
on the other hand, the practice of impact factors inherently antiscientific as it conflates notoriety and quality of the papers, it incites to fraud, and it makes the bed of these monopolistic companies. they should simply be banned.
This entry was edited (4 weeks ago)