Evaluation of impact factor of the Indian Journal of Gastroenterology.

OBJECTIVE

a) To determine the impact factor (IF) of the Indian Journal of Gastroenterology (IJG) for the years 1987 to 1990. b) To compare the IF of the IJG with those of other gastroenterology journals.

METHODS

For each year (1987 to 1990), the number of citations received in that particular year in the journals included in the Science Citation Index (SCI) phi by items published in the IJG in the previous two years was determined by manual searching of SCI. Similarly, self citations in the IJG of articles published in the IJG were determined manually from the back volumes of the journal. IF was calculated from these data.

RESULTS

The IF of IJG for the years 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 was 0.087, 0.092, 0.098 and 0.192 respectively. The impact factor of IJG for 1990 compared quite poorly with that of other gastroenterology journals.

CONCLUSIONS

The IF of IJG, though low, has shown a progressive improvement with time. Publication of better articles in the IJG should lead to improvement in its IF.