THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: NURTURING A MEDICAL JOURNAL'S QUEST FOR INTERNATIONAL INDEXATION AND IMPACT FACTOR

Abstract

Journal Impact Factor (JIF), proposed by Eugene Garfield in early 1960s, is considered as the one of the most widely recognized and influential metrics for scholarly journal ranking in the world. It provided a standardized measure based on the citation data for evaluation of journals. In 1975, the Institute for Scientific Information introduced the initial version of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) as an essential part of the Science Citation Index, spearheaded by Eugene Garfield. First JCR was based on 4,248,065 citations of around 400,OOO source items published during 1974 in 2400 journals.1 Since then, JCR & JIF have undergone significant developments and transformations. They became widely adopted tools for evaluating research impact and journal prestige. Over the years, the IF and JCR expanded their coverage, incorporating more journals and disciplines. Recently released JCR 2023 comprised of 21,522 journals (including 13,668 science journals) from 112 countries across 254 research disciplines.2