NDPLS Citation Report 2005

(compiled by Stephen Guastello & Meghan Doyle, Marquette University).

Impact and Immediacy factors are now available for NDPLS current through December 2004. We compiled Impact and Immediacy Factors based on information available in ISI’s Web of Science. Journal Citation Report produces Immediacy and Impact factors for the Science edition journals (4500 journals), but not for the Social Sciences Citation Index (1400 journals). Our manual computation of the two factors is based on SSCI citations should be compared with values for journals that are listed in the JCR. It appears that some prominent psychology journals are listed in both indices. The results for NDPLS are encouraging once again.

Impact Factor -- This is the number of citations of NDPLS articles over a 5-year period divided by the number of articles published during that period. This year we made a procedural change in our computation of the Impact Factor to maintain consistency with ISI’s computational method. This year we counted the citations to NDPLS articles that were published in 1999-2003 that appeared in articles that were published in 2000-2004. NDPLS published 91 articles from 1999-2003. We found 127 citations of NDPLS articles in SSCI journals during the SSCI reporting period 2000-2004. We also found 46 citations to the 91 NDPLS articles in NDPLS 2000-2004. The total of 173 citations divided by 91 articles produces a current impact factor of 1.90.

It is noteworthy, however, that the current Impact Factor does not reflect citations to NDPLS articles that were originally published before 1999. Several of those early articles continue to receive recognition in other journals.

Immediacy Factor -- This is the number of citations of NDPLS articles within one year of the date of publication of each article. In other words, citations for 1999 articles that would count for this index would have had to be published in 1999 or 2000, and could possibly include citations to an NDPLS article in press insofar as that information could be ascertained from the data base.

For articles published in 1999-03, there were 60 qualifying citations in the ISI-SSCI data base, with citations to 2003 articles that appeared through the end of 2004. There were 12 additional citations within NDPLS for NDPLS articles. The total of 72 citations divided by 91 articles renders an immediacy factor of 0.79.

Neither of the foregoing indices includes citations in journals that are not in SSCI (except NDPLS for obvious reasons), nor does it include citations in books or in journals outside the social sciences that might be included in JCR.