Home More discussion on journal impact factor
Article Publicly Available

More discussion on journal impact factor

  • Eleftherios P. Diamandis EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: August 2, 2013
Download Article (PDF)
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill
Submit Manuscript Author Information
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)
From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) Volume 51 Issue 12

Keywords: citation counts; Declaration of Research Assessment; impact; journal impact factor

In 2009, Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine published two ‘opinion’ papers, one by myself [1] and another one by Favaloro [2], debating the usefulness and longevity of the journal impact factor. At that time, I predicted that journal impact factor will fade away soon, while Dr. Favaloro expressed a different, opposing opinion.

Recently, during the 2012 American Society for Cell Biology meeting, the usefulness of the journal impact factor has been debated [3]. These deliberations led to the preparation of a document known as The San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA), which has been sponsored/signed by more than 150 leading scientists and 75 scientific organizations. DORA stipulates that the journal impact factor must not be used as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or used in hiring, promotion and funding decisions. The declaration further recommends alternative metrics for evaluating researchers, including citation counts of individual articles. Essentially, these recommendations endorse the central message of my previous editorial [1], which states that the impact of an individual paper is not necessarily related to the impact factor of the journal that published it.

I believe that the readers of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine who have read the previous commentaries on journal impact factor [1, 2], should be interested to look at these latest recommendations (www.ascb.org/SFdeclaration.html).

Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ conflict of interest disclosure: The authors stated that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article.

Research funding: None declared.

Employment or leadership: None declared.

Honorarium: None declared.

Corresponding author: Eleftherios P. Diamandis, MD, PhD, FRCP(C), FRSC, Hold’em for Life Chair in Prostate Cancer Biomarkers, Division Head of Clinical Biochemistry, Mount Sinai Hospital and University Health Network, Professor & Head, Division of Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Mount Sinai Hospital, Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Ctr., 60 Murray St [Box 32], Flr 6 – Rm L6–201 Toronto, ON, M5T 3L9, Canada, E-mail:

References

1. Diamandis EP. Journal impact factor: it will go away soon. Clin Chem Lab Med 2009;47:1317–8.10.1515/CCLM.2009.327Search in Google Scholar PubMed

2. Favaloro EJ. The journal impact factor: don’t expect its immediate demise any time soon. Clin Chem Lab Med 2009;47:1319–24.http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=000272257700018&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=b7bc2757938ac7a7a821505f8243d9f3Search in Google Scholar

3. Alberts B. Impact factor distortions. Science 2013;340:787.10.1126/science.1240319Search in Google Scholar PubMed

Received: 2013-07-08
Accepted: 2013-07-10
Published Online: 2013-08-02
Published in Print: 2013-12-01

©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Letters to the Editor
  2. The addition of MESNA in vitro prolongs prothrombin time similar to N-acetyl cysteine
  3. Detection of unknown β-thalassemia cases from atypical HbA1c chromatograms
  4. Analytical study of a new turbidimetric assay for urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) determination
  5. The rare bipolar-contracted red cell significance and correlation with red cell volume
  6. Howell-Jolly body interference in reticulocyte counts
  7. PBMC expressed adiponectin mRNA is predictive of survival in patients with gastric cancer
  8. Comparison study of two commercially available methods for the determination of infliximab, adalimumab, etanercept and anti-drug antibody levels
  9. Development and validation of a rapid and reliable high-performance liquid chromatography method for methadone quantification in human plasma and saliva
  10. Reply to Ruiz-Argüello et al.: Comparison study of two commercially available methods for the determination of infliximab, adalimumab, etanercept and anti-drug antibody levels
  11. Still more discussion on the journal impact factor
  12. The order of draw, myth or science
  13. Masthead
  14. Masthead
  15. Editorial
  16. Multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity at work: the prenatal diagnosis
  17. Research Articles
  18. Prenatal diagnosis of inherited diseases: 20 years’ experience of an Italian Regional Reference Centre
  19. Prenatal diagnosis of haemoglobinopathies: our experience of 523 cases
  20. Prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis: an experience of 181 cases
  21. Prenatal diagnosis of haemophilia: our experience of 44 cases
  22. Prenatal molecular diagnosis of inherited neuromuscular diseases: Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy type 1 and spinal muscular atrophy
  23. Editorials
  24. Journal impact factor: the debate continues
  25. Estimation of uncertainty in measurements in the clinical laboratory
  26. Review
  27. Searching for genes involved in hypertension development in special populations: children and pre-eclamptic women. Where are we standing now?
  28. Opinion Paper
  29. More discussion on journal impact factor
  30. General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
  31. Category-specific uncertainty modeling in clinical laboratory measurement processes
  32. The order of draw: myth or science?
  33. Planned variation in preanalytical conditions to evaluate biospecimen stability in the National Children’s Study (NCS)
  34. Longitudinal evaluation of thyroid autoimmunity and function in pregnant Korean women
  35. Evaluation of the N Latex free light chain assay in the diagnosis and monitoring of AL amyloidosis
  36. Identification of an important potential confound in CSF AD studies: aliquot volume
  37. Cancer Diagnostics
  38. Double heterozygosity in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in Italian family
  39. Quantification of EGFR autoantibodies in the amplification phenomenon of HER2 in breast cancer
  40. Diabetes
  41. SAA1 genetic polymorphisms are associated with plasma glucose concentration in non-diabetic subjects
  42. Acknowledgment
  43. Acknowledgment
https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2013-0515
Keywords for this article
citation counts; Declaration of Research Assessment; impact; journal impact factor

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Letters to the Editor
  2. The addition of MESNA in vitro prolongs prothrombin time similar to N-acetyl cysteine
  3. Detection of unknown β-thalassemia cases from atypical HbA1c chromatograms
  4. Analytical study of a new turbidimetric assay for urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) determination
  5. The rare bipolar-contracted red cell significance and correlation with red cell volume
  6. Howell-Jolly body interference in reticulocyte counts
  7. PBMC expressed adiponectin mRNA is predictive of survival in patients with gastric cancer
  8. Comparison study of two commercially available methods for the determination of infliximab, adalimumab, etanercept and anti-drug antibody levels
  9. Development and validation of a rapid and reliable high-performance liquid chromatography method for methadone quantification in human plasma and saliva
  10. Reply to Ruiz-Argüello et al.: Comparison study of two commercially available methods for the determination of infliximab, adalimumab, etanercept and anti-drug antibody levels
  11. Still more discussion on the journal impact factor
  12. The order of draw, myth or science
  13. Masthead
  14. Masthead
  15. Editorial
  16. Multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity at work: the prenatal diagnosis
  17. Research Articles
  18. Prenatal diagnosis of inherited diseases: 20 years’ experience of an Italian Regional Reference Centre
  19. Prenatal diagnosis of haemoglobinopathies: our experience of 523 cases
  20. Prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis: an experience of 181 cases
  21. Prenatal diagnosis of haemophilia: our experience of 44 cases
  22. Prenatal molecular diagnosis of inherited neuromuscular diseases: Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy type 1 and spinal muscular atrophy
  23. Editorials
  24. Journal impact factor: the debate continues
  25. Estimation of uncertainty in measurements in the clinical laboratory
  26. Review
  27. Searching for genes involved in hypertension development in special populations: children and pre-eclamptic women. Where are we standing now?
  28. Opinion Paper
  29. More discussion on journal impact factor
  30. General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
  31. Category-specific uncertainty modeling in clinical laboratory measurement processes
  32. The order of draw: myth or science?
  33. Planned variation in preanalytical conditions to evaluate biospecimen stability in the National Children’s Study (NCS)
  34. Longitudinal evaluation of thyroid autoimmunity and function in pregnant Korean women
  35. Evaluation of the N Latex free light chain assay in the diagnosis and monitoring of AL amyloidosis
  36. Identification of an important potential confound in CSF AD studies: aliquot volume
  37. Cancer Diagnostics
  38. Double heterozygosity in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in Italian family
  39. Quantification of EGFR autoantibodies in the amplification phenomenon of HER2 in breast cancer
  40. Diabetes
  41. SAA1 genetic polymorphisms are associated with plasma glucose concentration in non-diabetic subjects
  42. Acknowledgment
  43. Acknowledgment
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 28.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cclm-2013-0515/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button