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Research Colloquium: We don't know, but we can measure. Rankings, Impact Factors and Path Dependence
Scientific careers increasingly depend on publications in so-called A-journals, i.e. journals that are classified as high-ranking according to their impact factor or similar constructs. However, because of the skewed distribution of citations of articles in these journals, this is not a very useful criterion for the quality of individual articles. I ask why this criterion has nevertheless prevailed and show that the path dependence approach helps explain it. Subsequently, I discuss suggestions on how the predominance of the impact factor as a quality criterion can be undermined.
Speaker: Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Margit Osterloh