Requiem for impact factors and high publication charges is written by a group of biomedical scientists regarding the use of various metrics for publication assessment. It is important for librarians to keep in mind that social scientists usually do not approach research assessment in the same way that biomedical science departments often do. This article is focused on quantitative measures of quality rather than qualitative. The authors explore whether the increasing use of preprints and post publication review dramatically changes the quality of articles and how one might assess preprints which have not been peer reviewed before their publication online. The authors point out that higher cost of author processing charges (APCs) is correlated with higher Journal Impact Factor (JIF), which has apparently led to scholars viewing higher cost of publishing as a proxy for journal quality. Since neither the JIF nor the cost of APCs is an accurate gauge of quality, this is misguided. Higher APCs are also a barrier to authors working in less affluent countries, institutions, and disciplines. The authors examine the idea of downloads as a measure of article importance, but dismiss this given that it makes comparing OA and toll access articles impossible. The authors conclude that although there are many ways to calculate article or author impact, there is not a simply calculated metric to substitute for JIFs and H-indices, which is why they have such persistence.
