Jeffrey, while I usually enjoy your posts here, I must disagree with at least one key item in this one. I don’t know if you’re unfamiliar with the Impact Factor’s ins and outs, or if you’re choosing to ignore them, but the biggest reason that these new metrics are being developed is because the IF is (and has proven to be) manipulated by respected journals for decades. The algorithm is not hard to manipulate, and journals have done it over and over again; often even after being called out for having done it.
The other big problem with the IF is that it is always at least a year behind. In today’s data-currency culture, a metric that’s a year old is largely irrelevant.
I’m not saying that the newer metrics are good. I’m just saying that, despite too many academic Deans using IF as a measure of publishing success and tenure allotment, the IF is not in any way a gold standard metric.
