![\"Impact](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Impact-factor-value.jpg?resize=714%2C488&ssl=1\")
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Many academic researchers still consider the journal impact factor a key metric in their career progression, despite long-standing concerns over its use<\/a> in assessing journal quality.<\/p>\n A recent survey<\/a> of 55 universities in the US and Canada showed that 36% of researchers consider the impact factor to be \u2018very valued\u2019 for promotions and tenure, and 27% said they were \u2018very important\u2019 when deciding where to submit their research. Younger and non-tenured researchers put more emphasis on impact factors when deciding where to publish, which the authors link to the perceived tenure process.<\/p>\n In what appears to be misconstrued peer pressure, researchers tended to perceive that their colleagues were more driven by the impact factor than them, and that they valued readership and open access less. In comments made to Nature Index<\/em><\/a>, the lead author, Meredith Niles, calls for more honest conversations in academia: \u201cIf we don\u2019t actually care about the journal impact factor as much as factors such as readership\u2026then let\u2019s stop pretending we care…\u201d<\/p>\n But change needs to come at an institutional level. As reported in Nature Index<\/em>, \u00a0a previous study from the same project<\/a> showed that 23% of the North American universities studied referred to impact factors or related phrases in at least one of their review, promotion, and tenure documents, and nearly 90% of the institutions supported their use. The study authors note this is probably the tip of the iceberg, and call for further research to support efforts such as Humane Metrics in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HuMetricsHSS<\/a>) and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA<\/a>) in changing the values underlying academic evaluation.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Summary by\u00a0Robyn Foster PhD<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Aspire Scientific<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n With thanks to our sponsors, Aspire Scientific Ltd<\/a> and NetworkPharma Ltd<\/a><\/p>\n Researchers continue to use the impact factor as a metric for their career progression, but is it a matter of misconstrued peer pressure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The #impactfactor holds its grip on academia @MeredithNiles1 @DrBrocktagon@bioRxiv @NatureIndex #PubPlan #medcomms #ISMPP #EMWA ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_publicize_connection_overrides":[],"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[108513023,30399336],"tags":[343162440,343162454,343162455],"class_list":["post-6090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journal-selection","category-journal-metrics","tag-academic-publishing","tag-high-tier-journal","tag-impact-factor","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Impact-factor-value.jpg?fit=714%2C488&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Yk5l-1Ae","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6090"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6094,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090\/revisions\/6094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepublicationplan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n
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