After receiving a promotional email from Elsevier, DrugMonkey considers what constitutes a noteworthy change in a journal's impact factor at his blog this week. The email, he says, advertises that one of the publisher's many titles saw a 0.336 boost in its impact factor from 2010 to 2011.
"Is this a significant difference? Who gives a hoot if the IF [impact factor] goes up by 0.336?" DrugMonkey asks. "Is this in any way meaningful?"
He then goes on to answer his own questions, posing a hypothetical example:
So, DrugMonkey says, impact factors are relative, depending upon sub-field and authors' actions, among other things. Still, he adds, "that the vast majority of society rank journals that I follow fail to experience dramatic IF gains suggests that nobody is trying to game the system … and that seemingly universal increases are a reflection of overall trends for total number of publications."