PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
20 June 2006
Eleven journals published by BioMed Central, the open access
publisher, received their first Impact Factor this month.
With
nine journals in the top 10 of their 2005 Journal Citation
Report* category, and ten journals with a 2005 Impact Factor
exceeding 3.00, open access journals are confirmed as
publishing
high-quality, highly cited research.
Genome Biology, BioMed Central's flagship title covering
biology
in the post-genomic era, has been assessed as having an
Impact
Factor of 9.71. The journal's first Impact Factor places it
in
the top five of research journals in the highly competitive
Genetics and Heredity field, and the 4th most cited journal
in
the Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology. Matthew
Cockerill,
BioMed Central's Publisher, comments, "Genome
Biology's
impressive Impact Factor is evidence of BioMed Central's
commitment to quality, and shows that top researchers at the
cutting edge of biology are increasingly choosing open
access
publication for their best work."
Malaria Journal, with a first Impact Factor of 2.14, is the
number two journal in the Tropical Medicine field, and
number
five in the Parasitology category. Launched in 2001, Malaria
Journal was one of the first journals started as part of
BioMed
Central's independent journal program, and is the first of
these
independent journals to receive an Impact Factor.
Seven journals in the BMC series also received their first
Impact
Factors this year. BMC Developmental Biology, with an Impact
Factor of 5.41, is ranked at number six in the developmental
biology field. BMC Structural Biology enters the Biophysics
category at number eight, with an Impact Factor of 5.00. BMC
Evolutionary Biology's Impact Factor of 4.45 is the 6th
most
highly cited journal in the evolutionary biology category.
BMC
Biotechnology now has an Impact Factor of 3.05, BMC
Neuroscience
2.73, BMC Microbiology 2.18, BMC Gastroenterology 1.46.
Dr Cockerill continues, "These impressive rankings
demonstrate
that the BMC-series is publishing solid research that is
being
widely cited, across many different areas."
Twenty-five journals
published by BioMed Central now have Impact Factors, and the
average Impact Factor for a BioMed Central journal has
dramatically increased compared to 2004 figures.
A number of BioMed Central's journals have seen their
Impact
Factors increase in the 2005 Journal Citation Report. Breast
Cancer Research's Impact Factor jumped from 2.98 in 2004 to
4.03
this year. BMC Molecular Biology went up to 4.49 from 3.12,
and
BMC Genomics increased from 3.25 to 4.09. BMC Health
Services
Research increased to 1.63, BMC Public Health's Impact
Factor
also went up, to 1.66.
BioMed Central has calculated unofficial Impact Factors for
many
other journals for which official figures not yet available.
Using the same methods as Thomson Scientific, BioMed Central
has
found that these unofficial Impact Factors show show
similarly
high citation rates. BioMed Central continues discussions
with
Thomson Scientific, proposing additional journals to be
considered for citation tracking.
The impact factors, which are calculated by Thomson
Scientific
(ISI), look at citations in 2005 of articles published in
the
journals in the period 2003-2004.
# # #
Press Office Contacts:
Grace Baynes for BioMed Central
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
E-mail: press biomedcentral.com
|