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Do journals raise their impact factor or SCImago ranking by self‐citing in editorials? A bibliometric analysis of trauma and orthopaedic journals
Author(s) -
Jain Aanchal,
Khor Keng Suan,
Beard David,
Smith Toby O.,
Hing Caroline B.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
anz journal of surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.426
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-2197
pISSN - 1445-1433
DOI - 10.1111/ans.16546
Subject(s) - citation , impact factor , medicine , ranking (information retrieval) , bibliometrics , library science , information retrieval , computer science , political science , law
Background Impact factor (IF) is widely accepted as a measure of a journal's quality but it can be influenced by self‐citation. However, the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is based on journal prestige, excludes self‐citation and considers quality of citations of a journal. This study aimed to investigate journal editors' use of self‐citation and whether this correlated with IFs or SJR in trauma and orthopaedic (T&O) journals. Methods T&O journals on the SJR database were identified. From each journal, data including country of publication, number of annual issues, IF, SJR indicator and citable articles were extracted. The editorial(s) of each issue in 2018 were reviewed. The total number of times the editors cited their own previous work or their journal (in the preceding 2 years, 2016–2017) were identified. Regression analyses were performed to investigate the association of editorial self‐citation with journal IF or SJR indicator. Results Of the 270 journals identified, 43 T&O journals with 151 editorials were included in the final analysis. A positive correlation between journal self‐citation in the editorial and IF ( P = 0.02) and SJR indicator ( P = 0.02) was found. Citation by editors of their own publications within editorials also positively correlated with IF ( P = 0.04) but not for SJR indicator ( P = 0.19). There was a positive linear relationship between journal IF and SJR indicators ( P < 0.01). Conclusion Editor self‐citation influences the IF and SJR indicators in T&O journals. Therefore, these metrics should be considered in conjunction with other factors such as audience, topics included and international presence when evaluating journals.