Subfield problems in applying the Garfield (Impact) Factors in practice

The assessment of the publications of research teams working on different subfields raises concerns because of the different scientometric features of the subfields. For equalizing the differences in the Garfield (Impact) Factors of journals, several methods applied in practice have been described. A new indicator – Specific Impact Contribution (SIC) relating the citation share of a respective team (or journal) in the total citations of the teams (or journals) evaluated to its share in publications – was introduced. It has been realized that the normalized Garfield Factors and the normalized SIC values are identical measures within any selected set of journals. Consequently, the Garfield Factor of a journal should be assumed as an indicator characterizing the contribution of the information channel as a whole, appropriately.

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