Earlier this month, Thomson Scientific’s Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) released the 2008 Journal Citation Report (JCR), detailing, among other statistics, individual journals’ Impact Factor and subject category rankings. To better serve its participating publishers, library partners, and end users, BioOne has invested in a subscription to this report, and has collected available statistics for all participating titles.
BioOne’s aggregate presence in ISI continues to be strong, with 106 of 154 participating titles ranked in the 2008 ISI JCR (69%). BioOne ranked titles showed, on average, a 6% increase in Impact Factor from the 2007 to 2008 indices.
In addition, BioOne enhanced its impressive category influence in many of its core fields, including:
- Biodiversity Conservation — 9 BioOne titles out of 28 total ranked;
- Biology — 5 BioOne titles out of 71 total ranked;
- Ecology — 23 BioOne titles out of 124 total ranked;
- Plant Sciences — 18 BioOne titles out of 155 total ranked;
- Zoology — 23 BioOne titles out of 125 total ranked;
- Entomology — 17 BioOne titles out of 72 total ranked; and
- Ornithology — 7 BioOne titles out of 18 total ranked.
The American Museum of Natural History’s Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History earned BioOne’s highest Impact Factor of 16.692, with a #1 ranking in the fields of Biodiversity Conservation and Ecology. In addition, we are pleased to report that the Wildlife Society’s Wildlife Monographs is now ranked #1 in the field of Zoology.
BioOne congratulates all of its publications ranked by ISI, but encourages community members to remember that ISI is just one evaluative body, and Impact Factor but one metric of quality. Unranked BioOne publications—many of them hybrid monographs or bulletins—still represent a wealth of critical bioscience content which enhance the BioOne collections and researcher experience.
In order to provide a metric independent from, yet complementary to, ISI’s Impact Factor, BioOne is now pleased to offer custom links to participating publications’ Eigenfactor (www.eigenfactor.org) pages, where applicable. Eigenfactor, a product of economists and scholarly innovators Carl and Ted Bergstrom, scores and ranks journals according to how their cited articles “network” with other publications both within and outside of their respective disciplines. Due to this unique approach and the fact that Eigenfactor uses five years of citation data (ISI uses only two for calculating the traditional Impact Factor,) many consider Eigenfactor a more comprehensive metric for assessing journal influence. Furthermore, Eigenfactor is free and available to all users across the web.
To access BioOne publications’ rankings according to both ISI and Eigenfactor, please visit the BioOne website and navigate to any BioOne title page. The floating sidebar on the left of the page includes a variety of information and links on a given publication, including ranking statistics.
BioOne publishers are encouraged to contact us for a more detailed analysis of your individual title(s)’ performances. Likewise, we are happy to provide participating librarians with a spreadsheet of titles and relevant rankings.