eigenfactor

{{Short description|Rating of the total importance of a scientific journal}}

{{distinguish|Eigenvector}}

{{Citation metrics}}

The Eigenfactor score, developed by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom at the University of Washington, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal.{{Cite journal |last1=Bergstrom |first1=C. T. |authorlink=Carl Bergstrom |last2=West |first2=J. D. |last3=Wiseman |first3=M. A. |doi=10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0003-08.2008 |title=The Eigenfactor Metrics |journal=Journal of Neuroscience |volume=28 |issue=45 |pages=11433–11434 |year=2008 |pmid=18987179|doi-access=free |pmc=6671297 }} Journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from highly ranked journals weighted to make a larger contribution to the eigenfactor than those from poorly ranked journals.{{cite journal |last=Bergstrom |first=C. T. |year=2007 |title=Eigenfactor: Measuring the value and prestige of scholarly journals |journal=College & Research Libraries News |volume=68 |issue=5 |pages=314–316 |url=http://crln.acrl.org/content/68/5/314.full.pdf+html|doi=10.5860/crln.68.5.7804 |doi-access=free }} As a measure of importance, the Eigenfactor score scales with the total impact of a journal. All else equal, journals generating higher impact to the field have larger Eigenfactor scores. Citation metrics like eigenfactor or PageRank-based scores reduce the effect of self-referential groups.{{Cite journal |last1=Ma |first1=Nan |last2=Guan |first2=Jiancheng |last3=Zhao |first3=Yi |date=2008 |title=Bringing PageRank to the citation analysis |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306457307001203 |journal=Information Processing & Management |language=en |volume=44 |issue=2 |pages=800–810 |doi=10.1016/j.ipm.2007.06.006}}{{Cite journal |last1=Sun |first1=Ye |last2=Latora |first2=Vito |date=2020 |title=The evolution of knowledge within and across fields in modern physics |journal=Scientific Reports |language=en |volume=10 |issue=1 |page=12097 |doi=10.1038/s41598-020-68774-w |issn=2045-2322 |pmc=7374558 |pmid=32694516|arxiv=2001.07199 |bibcode=2020NatSR..1012097S }}

Eigenfactor scores and Article Influence scores (AIS) are calculated by eigenfactor.org, where they can be freely viewed. The Eigenfactor score is intended to measure the importance of a journal to the scientific community, by considering the origin of the incoming citations, and is thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal. However, the Eigenfactor score is influenced by the size of the journal, so that the score doubles when the journal doubles in size (measured as number of published articles per year).{{cite web |url=http://www.eigenfactor.org/about.php |title=Eigenfactor.org FAQ |date=14 July 2015}} The Article Influence score measures the average influence of articles in the journal, and is therefore comparable to the traditional impact factor.

The Eigenfactor approach is thought to be more robust than the impact factor metric,{{cite journal |arxiv=0902.2183 |first1=Johan |last1=Bollen |first2=Herbert |last2=Van de Sompel |first3=Aric |last3=Hagberg |first4=Ryan |last4=Chute |title=A principal component analysis of 39 scientific impact measures |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=4 |issue=6 |pages=e6022 |year=2009|bibcode=2009PLoSO...4.6022B |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0006022 |pmid=19562078 |pmc=2699100 |doi-access=free }} which purely counts incoming citations without considering the significance of those citations.{{Cite journal |title=The most influential journals: Impact Factor and Eigenfactor |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=106 |issue=17 |last1=Fersht |first1=A. |pages=6883–6884 |date=Apr 2009 |issn=0027-8424 |pmid = 19380731 |pmc=2678438 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0903307106 |bibcode=2009PNAS..106.6883F|doi-access=free }} While the Eigenfactor score is correlated with total citation count for medical journals,{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=P. M. |title=Eigenfactor: Does the principle of repeated improvement result in better estimates than raw citation counts? |journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology |volume=59 |issue=13 |pages=2186–2188 |year=2008 |doi=10.1002/asi.20943 |arxiv=0807.2678|s2cid=11358187 }} these metrics provide significantly different information. For a given number of citations, citations from more significant journals will result in a higher Eigenfactor score.{{cite arXiv |eprint=0911.1807v2 |first1=Jevin D. |last1=West |first2=Theodore |last2=Bergstrom |first3=Carl T. |last3=Bergstrom |title=Big Macs and Eigenfactor Scores: Don't Let Correlation Coefficients Fool You |class=cs.CY |year=2010}} Eigenfactor is similar to Eigenvector centrality and PageRank.

Originally Eigenfactor scores were measures of a journal's importance; it has been extended to author-level.{{cite journal|doi=10.1002/asi.22790 | volume=64 | issue=4 | title=Author-level Eigenfactor metrics: Evaluating the influence of authors, institutions, and countries within the social science research network community | year=2013 | journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology | pages=787–801 | last1 = West | first1 = Jevin D.}} It can also be used in combination with the h-index to evaluate the work of individual scientists.