Article impact calculated over arbitrary periods: Research Articles

  • Authors:

  • Tove Faber Frandsen;Ronald Rousseau

  • Affiliations:

  • Royal School of Library and Information Science, Birketinget 6, DK 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark;KHBO, Industrial Sciences and Technology, Zeedijk 101, B-8400, Belgium and Antwerp University, IBW, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

In this paper we address the various formulations of impact of articles, usually groups of articles as gauged by citations that these articles receive over a certain period of time. The journal impact factor, as published by ISI (Philadelphia, PA), is the best-known example of a formulation of impact of journals (considered as a set of articles) but many others have been defined in the literature. Impact factors have varying publication and citation periods and the chosen length of these periods enables, e.g., a distinction between synchronous and diachronous impact factors. It is shown how an impact factor for the general case can be defined. Two alternatives for a general impact factor are proposed, depending on whether different publication years are seen as a whole, and hence treating each one of them differently, or by operating with citation periods of identical length but allowing each publication period different starting points. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.