Write a PREreview

There is a steady rise in both the number of venues and the level of competition. One way to evaluate a journal’s quality is by looking at its impact factor. ”The higher the impact factor, the better the journal is”: This is the belief held by numerous research experts. The truth behind a journal’s impact factor, however, is unknown to them. In order to boost their impact factor, some journals are resorting to unethical practices in order to enhance the number of citations published in their journal. Researchers will thus have a hard time settling on a prestigious journal. The caliber of the research is directly proportional to the journal’s caliber. At present, citations to other papers are used to determine the impact factor. Journal quality is a deciding factor for eminent scholars when publishing an article. Thus far, the paper-to-paper citation network has been the sole determinant of the impact factor. In order to dismantle this type of problem, this article proposes a new impact factor for journals that is based on the authors’ metrics (IFa). Having a renowned researcher on the editorial board raises the bar for the entire journal. Collecting and analyzing all publishing records from 40 journals, 20 of which have high publication rates and 20 of which have low publication rates, this study uses co-author metrics as well as a proposed impact factor based on the author’s H-index and attributions. The impact factor based on the author’s H-index correctly predicts that 70% of venues will see a fluctuation in IF throughout the years, 20% will see a consistent decline, and 10% will see an increase. Compared to the impact factors based on paper citations or author’s citations, the impact factors based on the author’s H-index are superior for journals.