{"id":134,"date":"2013-06-25T15:23:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T19:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coro.etsmtl.ca\/blog\/?p=134"},"modified":"2013-06-25T15:24:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T19:24:22","slug":"impact-factors-2012-in-the-field-of-mechanisms-and-robotics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coroblog.etsmtl.ca\/?p=134","title":{"rendered":"Impact factors 2012 in the field of mechanisms and robotics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomson Reuters\u00a0announced last week the\u00a02013 release of its Journal Citation Reports (JCR), the source of the annual Journal Impact Factors. In comparison to the last time I asked myself “Should we take journal impact factors seriously?<\/a>,” there are generally no significant\u00a0changes in the impact factors of the journals in the field of mechanisms and robotics.\u00a0An interesting exception, though, is\u00a0the\u00a0International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems<\/a>\u00a0(ARS Journal), whose 2012\u00a0impact factor\u00a0is\u00a0now a respectable 0.821.\u00a0The ARS Journal\u00a0is the only open-access journal in the field that is covered by the JCR. Does that mean that open-access journals have finally made it in our field?<\/p>\n

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A closer look at the ARS journal entry in JCR, reveals that 59% of all citations used in the 2012 impact factor calculations were due to self citations. This rate is way beyond the typical\u00a010% , which means that the editor of the journal\u00a0most probably\u00a0encourages authors of accepted articles to cite recent papers in the ARS Journal.\u00a0I like the idea of open-access journals and don’t mind paying the 870 euro (~1130US$) article processing charge, but this year too, I have no intention to submit a paper to the ARS Journal or\u00a0review papers\u00a0for it.<\/p>\n

I was also disappointed to learn that both Meccanica and the Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics rely on extremely high rates of\u00a0self citation: 38% and 47%, respectively. As the managing editor of the Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering<\/a>, I know how tempting is this practice, but I have resisted so far.<\/p>\n

Now, here is the list of journals\u00a0that publish papers in the field of mechanisms and robotics with their 2012 (and 2011) impact factors:<\/p>\n