Eigenfactor

Scientific Productivity and Idea Acceptance in Nobel Laureates

“…Objective measures of academic influence such as journal impact factor, article citation count, Eigenfactor score and journal‐cited half‐life have been used to evaluate journal quality, scientific impact and individual proliferation. Measures of academic influence play an important role in the distribution of government research funds, research grant funding, and academic tenure track positions (Crisp, ; Garfield, , ; Roediger, ). Some creativity reflects this view by saying “A science of creativity propounds the laws which govern the behaviors and thought processes of such individuals and the principles by which certain products come to be judged as creative; such a science also seeks to quantify creativity with measures like citation counts, expert's ratings, or indices of impact within a discipline or a culture” (Gardner, , p. 9).…”

“…Eigenfactor score addresses citing journal quality by assigning journals an “importance” weight that weighs the article citations received by that journal (Thomson Reuters, ). Eigenfactor also addresses the field of research within which a journal exists by creating networks of journal citations (Crisp, ). Therefore, by weighing a score similar to impact factor by discipline, Eigenfactor score specifically seeks to address the “total importance of a scientific journal” (Roediger, ). Journal‐cited half‐life attempts to account for the recency of article citations in a journal, by providing a median age of articles in a given journal for a given year (Thomson Reuters, ).…”

“…However, journal‐cited half‐life, like other journal quality assessment measures based on article citation rate in a specific journal, is not without its drawbacks. Similar to other journal article citation rate‐based measures (i.e., article citation count, journal impact factor), cited half‐life does not take into account the field of research within which a given journal exists (Crisp, ).…”