Evaluating scientific performances by impact factors - the right for equalchances

Background: Regularly the Institute of Scientific Information publishes the impact factor (LF) that plays an increasing role when the scientific quali ty of scientific performances of journals, single publications, scientists, and research groups have to be evaluated in order to support them. Questions: How valid is the IF assigned to journals, single publications, s cientists, and research groups? Have all these the same chance to be evalua ted? How can fairness of evaluation be increased? Can its validity be impro ved? Results: The value of IF equals the average number of citations per article published in the preceding 2 calender years in a journal. The criteria for selection of citing journals and of those with an "official" IF are not fu lly explicated. Although the citations have no equal units of measurement, empirical findings confirm their pragmatic applicability. IF of journals an d even the citation rates of its articles are skewedly distributed to right hand. Additionnally, the citation rates of the articles within a journal v ary. Therefore, the IF of journals rarely equal the actual citation rates o f their articles. Usually, IF overestimates the citation rate and quality o f the articles. Its tendency not to recognize low and high quality even inc reases when IF is administered to individual scientists and small research groups, whereas it decreases in large research groups. Under the premise th at the extent of scientific quality corresponds to the amount of informatio n a paper adds to the state of science, language, actuality etc. are confou nders because English, reviewing, biomedical, and actual articles have pref erred citation rates. Conclusions: Evaluation of scientific performances by IF is to be restricte d to journals and large research groups. Fairness demands comparisons to ho mogeneous journals with respect to confounders such as language, Principall y, no journal should be excluded to obtain an IF if it fullfills the minimu m criteria of an internationally communicating science. For this purpose th ey have to provide a title, key words, and an abstract in English, a peer r eview system etc. Often journals are the centre of science cultures that an able to generate research of highest levels. The users can contribute to i ncrease the IF of "their" journal and to we for the valid application of th is indicator.