ATTENTION AAPG BULLETIN AUTHORS: Just want you to know, you are being quoted “out there.”
A lot.
That bit of good information comes via statistics gathered by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), a division of Thomson Scientific, publisher of the “Journal Citation Report,” which tracks and calculates citations and ranks the publications.
ISI tracks over 9,500 of the “world’s most highly cited, peer-reviewed journals.”
The findings are important – especially in the world of academia and research – because the more a journal is cited in similar journals the more its impact on literature within that particular field, according to Karen Piqune of the AAPG Energy Library.
“This annual report helps librarians and publishers track what journals are being read by measuring how the journals are being cited,” Piqune said, “particularly within journals in similar content.”
AAPG Science Director Jim Blankenship, who requested the information, said there are three categories on which publications are tracked, analyzed, assigned a numerical value and compared:
- Impact Factor – Calculated in a three-year period by dividing the number of current citations of items published in the two previous years by the total number of citable items (usually articles, reviews, proceedings or notes, abstracts of talks, but not editorials or letters to the editor) published in the two previous years.
Piqune noted the Impact Factor is calculated by comparing a science journal with all other sciences and is only relevant when a journal is ranked in a subject category of its peers.
- Immediacy Factor – Measures how quickly the average article in a journal is cited, calculated by dividing the number of citations to articles published in a given year by the number of articles published in that same year
- Cited Half-Life – Indicates the staying power of a journal; it is the median age of the articles cited in the current year.
The Cited Half-Life is calculated by finding the number of years back from the current year that accounts for 50 percent of the total citations received by the journal.
Because of the archival value of geological literature, a higher number here is probably more desirable than the Immediacy Index, Piqune said.
The BULLETIN listed in three categories. OK. So how did the BULLETIN rank?
Engineering, Petroleum Category
(21 journals)
- Impact Factor: #1.
- Immediacy Index: #1.
- Cited Half Life: Tied #1 with 8 others.
Energy and Fuels Category
(62 journals)
- Impact Factor: #10.
- Immediacy Index: #1.
- Cited Half-life: Tied for #1 with 9 others.
Geoscience, Multidisciplinary
(131 journals)
- Impact Factor: #44.
- Immediacy Index: Tied #4 with one other.
- Cited Half Life: Tied #1 with 30 others.
“These three measurements demonstrate that the BULLETIN serves academicians and researchers well,” AAPG Elected Editor Gretchen Gillis said in a report to the House of Delegates at the San Antonio convention. “These rankings position the BULLETIN among the elite of high-impact journals.
“We also know that AAPG members are reading the BULLETIN and using what they learn to find oil,” she said. “Few journals are able to serve two distinct audiences so effectively.
Gillis noted that the BULLETIN actively encourages authors to submit manuscripts for consideration.
“The more manuscripts from which we choose, the higher the quality of the BULLETIN,” she said.
Gillis thanked authors, associate editors and reviewers for their dedication to the BULLETIN.
“The work of many volunteers and a lean group of headquarters staff makes the BULLETIN what it is,” she said.
And to the BULLETIN authors, thank you for your willingness to be quoted.