SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION INDICATORS

It is not easy to evaluate the scientific production of a scientist. A few scientific production indicators can though be discussed. A given paper published in an international journal may have an impact on the scientific community. One measure of that impact can be related to the impact factor of that journal. The impact factor (IF) is defined by SCI as: A measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal (listed in SCI journal citation reports) is cited in a particular year. Thus the impact factor of Journal X would be calculated by dividing the number of all current citations of sources items publicised in Journal X during the previous two years, by the number articles in Journal X published in those two years.

The following indicators for Jan-Olov Bovin can be calculated on the basis of IF;
The scientists total number of articles is (NP) = 66.
The average number of publications per year for 20 years is (NP/NY) = 3.3.
The rough estimation of the personal contribution to the scientific impact of a given article can be calculated from (IF/number of authors = PSI).
The total sum of personal scientific impact can be calculated from the list of publications for Jan-Olov Bovin to be TPSI = NPxPSI = 99.71.
The average personal scientific impact per article TPSI/NP = 1.51.
The average time for financial support for projects in Sweden is three years. For Jan-Olov Bovin the average three year personal scientific impact can be calculated to 3YPSI = 3.3x1.51x3 = 15.
During a survey of 91 applications to the Swedish Natural Science Research Council 1996 it was found that the three year personal scientific impacts (years 93-95) showed the following distribution:
Note: The impact factor of a journal is not constant over the years. In the calculations above the 1994 IF are used.