Rising Publication Delays Inflate Journal Impact Factors

Journal impact factors have become an important criterion to judge the quality of scientific publications over the years, influencing the evaluation of institutions and individual researchers worldwide. However, they are also subject to a number of criticisms. Here we point out that the calculation of a journal’s impact factor is mainly based on the date of publication of its articles in print form, despite the fact that most journals now make their articles available online before that date. We analyze 61 neuroscience journals and show that delays between online and print publication of articles increased steadily over the last decade. Importantly, such a practice varies widely among journals, as some of them have no delays, while for others this period is longer than a year. Using a modified impact factor based on online rather than print publication dates, we demonstrate that online-to-print delays can artificially raise a journal’s impact factor, and that this inflation is greater for longer publication lags. We also show that correcting the effect of publication delay on impact factors changes journal rankings based on this metric. We thus suggest that indexing of articles in citation databases and calculation of citation metrics should be based on the date of an article’s online appearance, rather than on that of its publication in print.

Um estudo sobre a concepção de paradoxo segundo o pensamento de Augustus de Morgan

This work aims to analyze the concept of "paradox" posed in the work of The Budget Paradox (1872) of mathematical and logical English Augustus De Morgan (1806-1871). Here it is important to note that a large part of this book consists of re-prints of a series of writings by the author in journal Athenaeum, where its performance as auditor of literature. The tests refer to some scientific work produced between the years 1489 and 1866 and the rules of selection for the composition of the work is, basically, the methodological aspects used in the completion or disclosed by such scholars. The concept of paradox is presented in two distinct moments. At first, we found a study of definitions for the term in a philosophical approach, characterizing it as something that requires further investigation; which was complemented with the classic examples of a scientific context. In the second, we present a concept advocated by De Morgan and, under this perspective, that he conceptualized the "paradox" is directly related to the non-usual methods employed in the formulation of new scientific theories. In this study some of these scientific concepts are detailed, where, through the redemption history, engaging in issues of our study Mathematics, Physics, of Logic, among others. Possession of the preliminary analysis and comparison with the design of De Morgan, it became possible to diagnose some limitations in the conceptualization suggested by the author. Further, evidenced, in front of the cases, the nonlinearity of the process of production of knowledge and hence the progress of science