Page 116 - Academic and Research Book_WEB

Historical Introduction

It is well acknowledged that most quality research is published in peer-reviewed research journals.
With the exponential proliferation of research publications and as a consequence the number of
journals, it becomes important to look for quality markers for journals as well as the research outputs
of the authors. Eugene Garfield took the first step in this direction by, in as early as 1955. In fact,
taking a cue from the legal citations, invented in 1873 that tracked how US court cases cited earlier
ones, Garfield (1955) published a paper in the journal Science wherein for the first time he advocated
the necessity of introducing parameters to assess the quality of scientific journals. In 1960, he founded
the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, Philadelphia, PA, USA); subsequently he published the
Genetics Citation Index in 1963, followed by the first official launch of Science Citation Index (SCI) in
1964 (Garfield, 1979).

Along with the creation of ISI and SCI in the early 1960s, Garfield defined the Impact Factor (IF)
or the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), based on the concept of citations. Simply stated, citations are
the explicit linkages between research papers that share commonality of any kind. A citation index
is built around these linkages. It lists publications that have been cited and identifies the sources of
the citations. Anyone conducting a literature search can find additional papers on a subject just by
knowing one that has been cited. The impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which an
“average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year. For example, the Impact Factor of
a journal is calculated by dividing the number of citations received in a particular year to the source
items published in that journal during the preceding two years.

The concept of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and the related issues created the research discipline
of Bibliometrics, which uses mathematical and statistical methods to analyse scholarly research
publications. Initially, the JIF was used as a proxy for journal quality and a collection tool for
librarians. Since the 1960s, the number of scientific journals has expanded enormously and their
evaluation by the JIF has become a fundamental and universal measure of a journal’s quality. The JIF
eventually became the gold standard for research evaluation, whereby getting one’s paper accepted by
a journal with a high JIF is considered a key accomplishment.
The Science Citation Index, registered remarkable expansion in the coming decades with the inclusion
of Social Sciences and Humanities. Subsequently, from 1972, the ISI published Social Sciences Citation
Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) from 1978. At present in the form of
Web of Science (Web of Knowledge), along with Scopus, it continues to be one of the most prestigious
subscription databases. Simultaneously, several other databases were created, which have played role
in developing this field. The field saw quantum leap in its development with the launch of Google
Scholar in 2004 ,which brought in several other big subscription free databases.

Databases and Indexing

For any serious researcher, whether we are carrying out a research project or thesis, the first most
important step is extensive search of the already existing literature in the field of interest. Laying
our hands on quality research literature is a tedious task and half the job is done if we are able to
find the appropriate literature. This task is enormously simplified if we can have trusted academic
databases, which include the prestigious and most important journals of the field incorporating
the best research papers published in the field. Therefore, database research is the first activity we
as researchers undertake as part of our study, and we naturally look to established and well-known
databases. Therefore, it is essential to know the kind of databases available and their limitations.
Listed here are some of the well-known databases.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND RESEARCH QUALITY | 105