Citation journal impact factor as a measure of research quality

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine if the scientific papers published in high impact journals are not only of sufficient "a priori" quality to be accepted by such journals, but acquire further impact because they are cited by journals with at least a similar impact. A normalized impact factor (NIF) is proposed as a measure to compare the visibility of research conducted by different university departments working in different disciplines. This analysis is supplemented by a study of the distribution by quartiles of the journals involved. In addition, the quality of the journals citing the papers in the sample selected for the study is evaluated to determine research prestige. The feasibility of using citation journal impact in the evaluation as an incentive for research quality is posed in this work. This paper will be of interest to those institutions interested in quality research evaluation as well as those involved in science policy.