Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28233146›Full record

ArticleScience and engineering ethics2018

Clarivate Analytics: Continued Omnia vanitas Impact Factor Culture.

Jaime A Teixeira da Silva, Sylvain Bernès

Abstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Science and engineering ethics, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. [Evaluation of research activity in Microbiology: the role of the Spanish Journal of Chemotherapy].Revista espanola de quimioterapia : publicacion oficial de la Sociedad Espanola de Quimioterapia · 2019
    Article
  3. Impact factor impacts on early-career scientist careers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Jaime A Teixeira da Silva, P. O. Box 7, Miki-cho Post Office, Ikenobe 3011-2, Miki-cho, Kagawa-ken, 761-0799, Japan. jaimetex@yahoo.com.
Sylvain BernèsInstituto de Física, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, San Claudio y 18 Sur s/n, 72570, Puebla, Mexico.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This opinion paper takes aim at an error made recently by Clarivate Analytics in which it sent out an email that congratulated academics for becoming exclusive members of academia's most cited elite, the Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs). However, that email was sent out to an undisclosed number of non-HCRs, who were offered an apology shortly after, through a bulk mail, which tried to down-play the importance of the error, all the while praising the true HCRs. When Clarivate Analytics senior management was contacted, the company declined to offer an indication of the number of academics who had been contacted and erroneously awarded the HCR status. We believe that this regrettable blunder, together with the opacity offered by the company, fortify the corporate attitude about the value of the journal impact factor (JIF), and what it represents, namely a marketing tool that is falsely used to equate citations with quality, worth, or influence. The continued commercialization of metrics such as the JIF is at the heart of their use to assess the "quality" of a researcher, their work, or a journal, and contributes to a great extent to driving scientific activities towards a futile endeavor.

Indexed as

Ethics, BusinessJournal Impact FactorMarketingOrganizationsPublishingResearchHumansResearch PersonnelGamed metricsHighly cited researchersJournal impact factorThomson Reuters

Identifiers

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.