Journal of

Background and Aim: One of the main criteria in scientometric evaluation of the medical sciences universities is the number of published articles in the journals that have high Impact Factor (IF). The IF is an indicator to evaluate the journals. Many shortcomings of IF were revealed. This review aims to bring out the challenges of IF and the related solutions of them.

Materials and Methods: Required literatures for this review were collected by searching in related databases such as Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, Google Scholar, and also Google search engine as well as SIGMetrics Discussion Group. Determined search strategy limits search to exact phrase and synonyms. Results selected considering relevancy. The review covers the literatures published between 1972- 2007.

Results: We found at least 18 shortcomings of IF which reduce the efficacy of this indicator. In addition, they stated some solutions versus the shortcomings however, there is no suggested resolution for some of the shortcomings.

Conclusions: Considering the shortcoming of IF, however it could not be ignored because of its accessibility and ease of use. Solely, IF cannot solve the researchers' problem of qualified journal selection. Such solution needs awareness about IF challenges. Readers' judgments and journal clubs are valuable qualitative ways, which can help IF in the evaluation of journals.

Background and Aim: Citation is one of the journals ranking factors. Self-Citation rates regarding journals `performance, especially in international databases, is important. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of Journal self-Citation on Impact Factor of Iranian English medical journals indexed in the Web of Science and Islamic World Science Citation Center.

Materials and Methods: The Impact Factor of 12 journals in WoS and 26 in ISC were studied during years 2006-2009 using citation analysis and Journal self-Citation. Self-Citation rate were calculated using cited journals and citing journals tables in ISC. Wilcoxon test and Mann-whiteny test were used for comparison of self-citation rate between two databases. In order to determine any correlation between journal self-citation and IF in WoS, Pearson test was used. In ISC, Spearman test was performed. For comparison of two correlations test, Covariance test was used.

Results: No significant difference between Journal self-citation rates in two databases was noted(p>0.05).There was a significant correlation between Journal self-citation and Impact Factor in WoS(p=0.007, r=0.64). The correlation was not statistically significant in ISC(p>0.05, rsp =0.23). There was not any significant difference between the relations of Journal self-citation and impact factor in two databases(p=0.526).

Conclusion: Attention to the Journal self-citation rates for comparison of Journal Impact Factor in WoS is more important than attention to the comparison of these journals between two Databases.