eScience Earned High Impact Factor but Lacks International Authorship
Up to the date of July the 4th, 2024, the China-based journal “eScience” has published 210 articles, of which 185 (88%) articles have the first author affiliated to Chinese institutions. The proportion of article with the Chinese 1st author decreased from 90% in volume 1 (2021) to 84% in volume 4 (for volume 4, only issues 1-3 were included in this analysis) (2024).
These 210 articles were assigned to volume 1-4, as well as the section of “in press”. 21 articles were assigned to volume 1 (with issue 1 and issue 2), 58 articles were assigned to volume 2 (with issues 1-6), 58 articles were assigned to volume 3 (with issues 1-6), 30 articles were assigned to volume 4 (only issues 1-3 were included in this analysis), and 43 articles were assigned to the section of “in press”. Since the articles in the section of “in press” did not provide the number of citations, they were excluded for the following analysis, which focused on the remaining 167 articles assigned to volume 1-4.
The 167 articles assigned to volume 1-4 earned 7892 citations (up to the date of July the 4th, 2024), each article earned an average number of 47 citations. The 21 articles on volume 1 earned 2214 citation, with each articles earned an average of 105 citations. The 58 articles on volume 2 (2022) earned 4234 citations, with each article earned an average of 73 citations. The 58 articles on volume 3 (2023) earned 1255 citations, with each article earned an average of 22 citations. The 30 articles on volume 4 (issues 1-3 only) (2024) earned 189 citations, with each article earned an average 6 citations.
The numbers of citations were obtained on the original web-pages for the papers, provided by the journal. Please note that the numbers may vary on different datasets.
In total, 62 editorial, perspective and review articles were assigned to volume 1-4, and they earned 3023 citations, with each editorial, perspective and review article earned an average of 49 citations. Meanwhile, 105 research articles, including short communications, were assigned to volume 1-4, they earned 4869 citations, with each research article earned an average of 46 citations, lower than that from editorial, perspective and review articles, but the difference was small.
Recently, eScience earned its first Impact Factor of 42.9. Why could it success? Can it earn a higher Impact Factor in the coming years? Questions raised in the scientific community.
