Paper Info
Title
The Impact Factor in non-English-speaking countries
Abstract
The representativeness of the ISI-Thomson Impact Factor rankings and the existing relationship between countries' national languages and the diffusion of scientific publications is analyzed. We discuss literature on the Impact Factor related to language use, publication strategies for authors and editors from non-English-speaking countries, the effects of the inclusion of a new journal in the ISI-Thomson databases and the scientific policies articulated in some non-English-speaking countries. The adoption of the Impact Factor as the valuation criterion for scientific activities has favoured the consolidation of English language journals in the diffusion of scientific knowledge. The vernacular languages only conserve part of their importance in certain disciplines, such as Clinical Medicine or Social Sciences and Humanities. The Impact Factor, invented over 50 years ago now, could be a limitation for non-English authors and scientific journals, and does not consider some widely used practices among the scientific community concerning the development of Internet as a means for the diffusion of knowledge.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1007/s11192-012-0692-y
Scientometrics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Journal Impact Factor,Language,Scientific literature,Publishing
Social science,Data mining,Scientific literature,Vernacular,Sociology of scientific knowledge,Computer science,Representativeness heuristic,Publishing,Valuation (finance),The Internet,Impact factor
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
92
2
0138-9130
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.58
5
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Gregorio González-Alcaide1273.38
Juan Carlos Valderrama-Zurián280.92
Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent3529.53