Eigenfactor
Encyclopedia
The Eigenfactor score, developed by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom
at the University of Washington
, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal
. In a manner reminiscent of Google's Pagerank
algorithm, journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from highly ranked journals weighted to make a larger contribution to the eigenfactor than those from poorly ranked journals. As a measure of importance, the Eigenfactor score scales with the total impact of a journal. All else equal, journals generating higher impact to the field have larger Eigenfactor scores.
Eigenfactor scores and Article Influence scores are calculated by eigenfactor.org, where they can be freely viewed. Eigenfactor scores are intended to give a measure of how likely a journal is to be used, and are thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal.
The Eigenfactor approach is thought to be more robust than the impact factor
metric, which purely counts incoming citations without considering the significance of those citations. While the Eigenfactor scores is correlated with total citation count for medical journals, these metrics provide significantly different information. For a given number of citations, citations from more significant journals will result in a higher Eigenfactor score.
Eigenfactor scores are measures of a journal's importance. It can be used in combination with H-index
to evaluate the work of individual scientists. The H-index is sometimes considered the most robust indicator of a scientist's productivity, but a number of shortcomings of the index have been much-debated and corrected indices proposed.
Carl Bergstrom
Carl T. Bergstrom is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist and a professor at the University of Washington , with a secondary appointment at the Santa Fe Institute. His work concerns the flow of information through biological and social networks and the ecology and evolution, including the...
at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
. In a manner reminiscent of Google's Pagerank
PageRank
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set...
algorithm, journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from highly ranked journals weighted to make a larger contribution to the eigenfactor than those from poorly ranked journals. As a measure of importance, the Eigenfactor score scales with the total impact of a journal. All else equal, journals generating higher impact to the field have larger Eigenfactor scores.
Eigenfactor scores and Article Influence scores are calculated by eigenfactor.org, where they can be freely viewed. Eigenfactor scores are intended to give a measure of how likely a journal is to be used, and are thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal.
The Eigenfactor approach is thought to be more robust than the impact factor
Impact factor
The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...
metric, which purely counts incoming citations without considering the significance of those citations. While the Eigenfactor scores is correlated with total citation count for medical journals, these metrics provide significantly different information. For a given number of citations, citations from more significant journals will result in a higher Eigenfactor score.
Eigenfactor scores are measures of a journal's importance. It can be used in combination with H-index
H-index
The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications...
to evaluate the work of individual scientists. The H-index is sometimes considered the most robust indicator of a scientist's productivity, but a number of shortcomings of the index have been much-debated and corrected indices proposed.