title: Impact of the impact factor in biomedical research: its use and misuse.
abstract: The impact factor was created in the biomedical research field in order to measure a journal's value by calculating the average number of citations per article over a period of time. It was initially developed to help libraries decide which highly-cited journals to subscribe to. However, at present, it is being misused to judge the quality of a researcher or medical scientist as well as the quality of the work done. It contains serious sources of errors and flaws, resulting in strong biases against culture- and language-bound medical subspecialties. The present article is aimed to highlight the impact of the impact factor in the biomedical research, as well as its use and misuse.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Panjab University, Sector 14, Chandigarh 160014, India.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Upadhyay
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Medhi
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011643:Publishing / Q000592:standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors