Journal diffusion factors – a measure of diffusion?

Abstract

This paper shows that the measure of diffusion introduced by Ian Rowlands called the journal diffusion factor (JDF) is highly negatively correlated with the number of citations, leading highly cited journals to get a low JDF, whereas less cited journals get a high JDF. This property reduces the utility of the JDF as a tool for evaluation of research influence. The paper presents a new definition of the JDF in order to attempt to improve it. This new JDF corrects the strong correlation with the number cited, but has a strongly statistically positive correlation with journal impact factors (JIF). However, the new JDF may still be used as an evaluation tool since, for journals with similar JIF values, the new JDF can be used to differentiate between them. Thereby, journal evaluation will be based on more than one aspect of journal influence when assessing journal influence with similar journal impact factor values.