<aside> đź’ˇ This page contains info about impact factors, from potential new factors to research about existing factors and academic metrics.
</aside>
The Paper Impact Factor (PIF) should take into account the following features of a research paper:
For more details about why those features have been chosen, check What Makes a Research Paper Impactful?
In order to establish the PIF as a standard index during the reviewing and assessment process, each feature must be carefully defined and characterised.
The PIF may be presented in 2 different formats: a spider diagram as shown above or a numerical index calculated from the web’s area (purple area in diagram), normalised so that the index value is comprised between 0 and 1 (0 being “not impactful at all” and 1 being “extremely impactful”).
The terms reproducibility, replicability, and repeatability are often used interchangeably. However, there are subtle yet important differences between them. Sally McArthur, editor in chief of the journal Biointerphases, defines each term as follows:
Repeatability (same team, same experimental setup):Â The measurement can be obtained with stated precision by the same team using the same measurement procedure, the same measuring system, under the same operating conditions, in the same location on multiple trials.
Replicability (different team, same experimental setup):Â The measurement can be obtained with stated precision by a different team using the same measurement procedure, the same measuring system, under the same operating conditions, in the same or a different location on multiple trials.
Reproducibility (different team, different experimental setup):Â The measurement can be obtained with stated precision by a different team, a different measuring system, in a different location on multiple trials.
Different research fields also tend to have different definitions as experimental protocols vary conceptually. For example, reproducibility in the field of biomedical research, where live subjects are often involved, will most likely not be defined the same as in the field of computer science.