“The source of much anxiety about journal impact factors comes from their misuse in evaluating individuals … I have always warned against this use.”
Eugene Garfield (inventor of the journal impact factor) (1998) ‘The impact factor and using it correctly’, Der Unfallchirurg, 48, 2, p.413.
Prometheus has no journal impact factor.
It has never had a journal impact factor, and it never will.
A journal impact factor, calculated from how often a paper has been cited, says little about the quality of a journal and nothing at all about the quality of individual papers in a journal. Even so, this has become the metric of choice for measuring – and rewarding – academic performance and academics themselves. Over time, the journal impact factor has become distinct and then divorced from what it purports to measure. Academics aim to score hits in top journals rather than disseminate research findings. Indeed, the aim is difficult to achieve without gaming the system, tactics often in conflict with adding anything to knowledge.
Prometheus will have none of this nonsense.
