The impact of the impact factor ¿myth or reality?.

Abstract

The evaluation of scientific production in Latin America has had several eras being the numerical impact factor (FIN) the one that became the most popular one in recent years; unfortunately, the FIN measures journal popularity more than journal prestige. Thus, a lot of idiomatic, mathematical and scientific biases prevent the use of the FIN as a Latin American bibliometric measurement. New scienciometric methods such as webometrics and the like developed in more scientific way that than obtained by the Institute of Scientific Information must be considered from now on. It includes the Page Rank and the Y Factor both of which seem to give more consistent results than those obtained with the FIN. Due to this, it is mandatory to continue the analysis and, hopefully, to get a re-evaluation of the FIN as an universal scienciometric measure, mostly in Spanish-speaking countries as it has already been advanced in some academic and scientific circles of the so-called first world.