Editing Impact factor (section)

==Use==
While originally invented as a tool to help university librarians to decide which journals to purchase, the impact factor soon became used as a measure for judging academic success. This use of impact factors was summarised by Hoeffel in 1998:<ref name=":1">{{cite journal |vauthors=Hoeffel C |title=Journal impact factors |journal=Allergy |volume=53 |issue=12 |pages=1225 |date=December 1998 |pmid=9930604 |doi=10.1111/j.1398-9995.1998.tb03848.x |s2cid=5773127}}</ref>

<blockquote>Impact Factor is not a perfect tool to measure the quality of articles but there is nothing better and it has the advantage of already being in existence and is, therefore, a good technique for scientific evaluation. Experience has shown that in each specialty the best journals are those in which it is most difficult to have an article accepted, and these are the journals that have a high impact factor. Most of these journals existed long before the impact factor was devised. The use of impact factor as a measure of quality is widespread because it fits well with the opinion we have in each field of the best journals in our specialty....In conclusion, prestigious journals publish papers of high level. Therefore, their impact factor is high, and not the contrary.</blockquote>

As impact factors are a journal-level metric, rather than an article- or individual-level metric, this use is controversial. Eugene Garfield, the inventor of the JIF agreed with Hoeffel,<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Garfield E |title=The history and meaning of the journal impact factor |journal=JAMA |volume=295 |issue=1 |pages=90–3 |date=January 2006 |pmid=16391221 |doi=10.1001/jama.295.1.90 |bibcode=2006JAMA..295...90G|s2cid=31183037 }}</ref> but warned about the "misuse in evaluating individuals" because there is "a wide variation [of citations] from article to article within a single journal".<ref name="garfield98">{{cite journal |vauthors=Garfield E |title=[The impact factor and its proper application] |journal=Der Unfallchirurg |volume=101 |issue=6 |pages=413–4 |date=June 1998 |pmid=9677838 |url=http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/derunfallchirurg_v101(6)p413y1998english.html}}</ref> Despite this warning, the use of the JIF has evolved, playing a key role in the process of assessing individual researchers, their job applications and their funding proposals. In 2005, ''The Journal of Cell Biology'' noted that:

<blockquote>Impact factor data ... have a strong influence on the scientific community, affecting decisions on where to publish, whom to promote or hire, the success of grant applications, and even salary bonuses.<ref name="Rossner 2007"/></blockquote>

More targeted research has begun to provide firm evidence of how deeply the impact factor is embedded within formal and informal research assessment processes. A review in 2019 studied how often the JIF featured in documents related to the review, promotion, and tenure of scientists in US and Canadian universities. It concluded that 40% of universities focused on academic research specifically mentioned the JIF as part of such review, promotion, and tenure processes.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=McKiernan EC, Schimanski LA, Muñoz Nieves C, Matthias L, Niles MT, Alperin JP |date=July 2019 |title=Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations |journal=eLife |volume=8 |doi=10.7554/eLife.47338 |pmc=6668985 |pmid=31364991 |doi-access=free }}</ref> And a 2017 study of how researchers in the life sciences behave concluded that "everyday decision-making practices as highly governed by pressures to publish in high-impact journals". The deeply embedded nature of such indicators not only effect research assessment, but the more fundamental issue of what research is actually undertaken: "Given the current ways of evaluation and valuing research, risky, lengthy, and unorthodox project rarely take center stage."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Müller |first1=Ruth |last2=de Rijcke |first2=Sarah |date=2017-07-01 |title=Thinking with indicators. Exploring the epistemic impacts of academic performance indicators in the life sciences |url=https://academic.oup.com/rev/article/26/3/157/3933574 |journal=Research Evaluation |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=157–168 |doi=10.1093/reseval/rvx023 |issn=0958-2029}}</ref>