DESPITE MISUSE AND ABUSE, JOURNAL IMPACT FACTOR WILL RETAIN ITS IMPACT AND WON'T FADE AWAY SOON

Abstract

Debate on the usefulness or otherwise of JournalImpact Factor continues and in fact it is now being increasinglydiscussed after the announcement of DORAdeclaration. The DORA statement was approved by150 scientists and seventy-five scientific organizationsduring the American Society of Cell Biology meetingheld at San Francisco in December 2012. Main objectiveof DORA was to stop the use of journal impactfactor (IF) so as to correct distortions in evaluation ofscientific research to judge an individual scientist work.DORA Guidelines call for eliminating the use of JournalImpact Factor in Funding, appointments and consideringscientist for academic promotions (www.ascb.org/SFdeclaratin.html). It was pointed out that Impact Factorwas initiated to measure the journal quality rather thanassess and evaluate the individual scientists. Even somescientists are of the view that this Impact Factor maniamakes no sense.